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Manage Your Time, Part I: Create More Time Hours Spent Planning Can Save You Days … or Years The holidays are coming, there are 400 boxes to unpack, payroll is due, a trade show is around the corner, and your manager just came down with the flu. In situations like this, the last things you have time for are planning, organizing, sleeping and vacationing. Ironically, say experts, those are the very things you should do to function optimally and surmount the obstacles before you. HOW TO CREATE TIME "The main thing to do is keep track of all your commitments," advised David Allen, author of "Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity." He added that most people don't have a clue about how over-committed they actually are. First, get everything "out of your head" and onto paper, where it can be seen, categorized and prioritized. (see table: What I Have Time to Do)
Here's what he recommends:
How do you implement these steps, and decide how to prioritize tasks? "You start at big picture, and then drill it down to actions and details. Then you clean up the details and get control of those first," Allen told TDmonthly. "It's hard to think about strategic planning if the network is down, for example. There's a high strategic value to making sure personal processes and systems are intact." MINIMIZE AND CONSOLIDATE TASKS Trash Emails "Most people avoid making decisions about non-crisis stuff when it first shows up, and then it piles up." —David Allen, The David Allen Group
A big time waster is dealing with scores of daily emails. "Most people avoid making decisions about non-crisis stuff when it first shows up, and then it piles up," Allen said. With emails, "the biggest time waster is the ‘huh?' stacks. You open the email, don't know what to do with it, and then don't answer it." So it sits in your box and you open it again.  Here are Allen's suggestions:
Do Twice the Work at Once A blog doesn’t cost anything or take much time. It also increases the number of people coming to the website" — Rick Segel, author
Almost half of the retailers surveyed said they send monthly emails to customers, but just 23 percent said they send out monthly press releases. Rick Segel, author of "The Essential Online Solution: The 5-Step Formula for Small Business Success," recommended creating a blog on your website that could serve both purposes. "A blog doesn't cost anything or take much time," he told TDmonthly. It also increases the number of people coming to the website." You can also easily send the blog's link to local news outlets and customers. Here's what he said the blog should contain:
"I believe the retailer today has to be the source of education and a place of trust," Segel continued. "A mistake that independents make is that it's online, so it must be ‘sale sale sale.' That's the kiss of death. It'll get people to unsubscribe." Streamline Research Since you need to be online to monitor your website (and you need to be online!), spend a few extra minutes each day scanning the Web for new toys and companies. Billy Thelander, owner and manager of LittleBits Toys in Wellesley, Mass., uses "TOYDIRECTORY.com (TDmonthly) … Amazon and the ASTRA website. When I'm looking for a manufacturer's phone number, TOYDIRECTORY.com is my first choice, and Amazon has feedback from consumers." TDmonthly also posts reviews from kids, parents and experts in our TDmonthly Toy Reviews section, plus we upload hundreds of new specialty toys per month in our Notable & New Toys articles — which are divided into "Specialty Only" and "All Toys." We also post daily toy video reviews. Even if you don't have time to research, don't put it off, warned Peggy Duncan, a personal productivity expert based in Atlanta. "Delegate it to another employee, if necessary."  Writer's Bio: ALISON MAREK is an award-winning writer, director and cartoonist whose work has been published by Fairchild Publications and DC Comics (Piranha Press), broadcast on Showtime and other cable networks, and viewed worldwide in film festivals. See her short films and print work on www.alisonmarek.com. Watch her nefarious villains in the web series www.MuggsMovers.com. Get inspired by her cartoons "Daily ARFFirmations to Unleash Your Inner Fido" at www.ARFFirmations.com. Phew! And then ... Read more articles by this author |
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