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Following the 80/20 rule, we know that 80 percent of the desired results come from 20 percent of high leverage activities or efforts.  With that in mind, the greatest payoff comes from working on projects or activities that are in quadrant 2; the important but not urgent things.  Focus on those things allows you to position yourself to spend less time handling crises.

The trick is getting there.  To do so requires that we deliberately and constantly choose.  If you think about it, life is all about choices.  We all have the freedom of choice with everything, including managing our time.  Developing the habit of choosing the really important things is primary in getting that big payoff.

So, how do you get to what matters most?  By looking at everything you have on your plate and the things you would like to place on your plate.  There is an exercise that Covey proposed that does work when it comes to getting to what really matters.  I’ll share the exercise in my next post.

Look at how you manage your time.  Do you have a tool that fits your time management personality and a system to support it?  If you’re not organized and don’t have a time management system in place it can be even more difficult to get to what matters most.  You can spend a lot of time putting out fires and not getting to what matters most.

In the fast paced society that we’re operating in today it’s easy to forget about the things that we really want to do; the things that truly satisfy us.  Usually, people spend time working on things that are important and urgent, but also tend to focus on things that are urgent but not important such as interruptions, non productive meetings and pressing matters.  Very rarely do they spend time on things that fall under the category of being important but not urgent; things like planning, seizing opportunities, and recreation and relaxation.

Where are you spending your time?  Do you end up working on the things that are urgent and important or are you managing yourself effectively and working on things that are important but not urgent?  We’ll look at those areas and the rest of Covey’s Quadrant in my next post.

Work on the tasks that are important but not urgent- Usually people find themselves working on those things that are urgent but not important. Things like non productive meetings, interruptions and the mail. What we really want to be able to focus on are the things that are not urgent, but important. Those are the things that involve prevention, planning, seizing opportunities and recreation. Knowing that 80% of our desired results come from 20% of high leverage activities, we can see that the greatest payoff would come from working on those things that are important but not urgent. By doing so, you position yourself to spend less time handling crises; working smarter, not harder.

Break larger tasks down into smaller pieces so that the larger task is easy to accomplish. Look at it as though you are eating a meal. You eat a meal one bite at a time. Break the larger task down into components or bites and take each one of those on individually. When you finish one of the components, celebrate your accomplishment. It doesn’t have to be anything big, but do it. It will help to fuel you along and get the other pieces of the larger task done.

Don’t over commit-Know what you are capable of handling. Before you commit to something, make sure you have the time to dedicate to it. Saying “no” never really hurt anyone

Prioritize your tasks- Knowing the importance of a task is important. Assign a level of priority to every task on your list, and then place it in your calendar accordingly. Not assigning a priority can cost you precious time or cause you to add extra hours at some point to get something done.

Know your prime time-We all have a period of time during the day where we are at our best and we each should know when that time is for us. Your prime time is key to getting things done and will greatly assist you in managing your work load and keeping extra hours off of your agenda.

Adding extra hours to your work day in order to get things done really doesn’t increase your productivity. Productivity decreases due to the physical and mental fatigue that result from the extra work hours. Studies have shown that performance actually decreases about 25% when work hours are increased for prolonged period of time. At this rate, there is no way to get it all done. If you’re going to add hours to your work week, make it the exception, not the rule.

In lieu of adding the extra hours, consciously and purposely manage your workload. When you’re consciously managing your tasks, you can complete what you have to do without feeling overwhelmed and you can do so without adding hours to your work week as a regular practice. The key is to work smarter, not harder.

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• Set a specific time for every day task like email and phone calls.  Choose a particular time of day to read and reply to email and to make phone calls.  When it comes to email,don’t check it as soon as you hit the door.  Instead work on a top priority task and then check your email 1.5-2 hours into your day.  You might want to set two different times during the day to check email.  No matter what we do, there has to be time for phone calls, so set a specific time to make and return calls.  A good time to do this is after you’ve devoted a good amount of time to your priority tasks.
• When you plan your day, allocate specific blocks of time (from 1-3 hours) to work on specific tasks.  For instance, I set a block of time each week to create  upcoming blog posts.
• Once you have the blocks of time in your calendar, see those blocks of time as appointments to complete the particular tasks that you’ve scheduled in those slots.  At the end of each segment, move on to the next task.

Organizing your day in blocks of time can help you accomplish your top priority items each day and over time will increase your productivity. You could easily be getting twice as much done in no time if  you schedule your chunks of time and then stick to it!

In addition to the right tool, you’ve got to have a system for managing yourself when it comes to your time.  Your tool is part of the system, coupled with your master task list, daily to-do list, planning,  prioritizing and knowing how to say “no”.  All of these things and good habits have to come together into a solid foundation to support you in managing yourself around your time and being able to get it all done.