Life these days is extremely busy for most people. We must either learn to manage our time or face the fact that our time will manage us.
This post from one of my favorite bloggers, Michael Hyatt, gave me pause to think about my own time management skills. And although most would consider me a pretty productive guy, I must confess that there is much room for improvement. Obviously our daily routine should be focused on those things that are truly legitimate priorities. Too often, however, I find my limited hours eaten away by problems resulting from the poor planning of me or those in my family or on my staff team.
Michael, of course, emphasizes the importance of a simple daily to-do list, along with scheduled breaks throughout the workday. However, the point that hit me hardest was the one about multi-tasking:
Do one task at a time. Multi-tasking is, at best, over-rated. At worst, it is a myth. Instead, you need to focus. Starting, stopping, and switching tasks before you finish costs you time, energy, and productivity. Instead do one discrete task from beginning to end. Check it off your list and then go to the next task. After a few of these, you will feel the momentum build.
The fast-paced nature of our world really has conditioned us to be diligent in multi-tasking. If I’m totally honest though, my reality is that I seem to always be multi-tasking. Even during personal conversations with others, if I’m not careful, I can become very distracted by my own internal self-talk, which constantly reminds me of those uncompleted to-do items, those phone calls to return, and the errands I need to run.
Then there’s my love-hate relationships with Facebook and Twitter that also gnaw for a portion of my time. Without some very clear boundaries, I can easily make it to the end of the day absolutely exhausted but having accomplished very little that was supposedly important enough to make my to-do list.
Here are five practices I’ve found that help me stay focused and productive: Continue Reading…
