Regaining Sanity

I was fortunate enough to take two weeks off over Christmas and New Year and I returned to work this week. Taking time off is good for the soul . Period. However....... taking time off is great but coming back to two weeks work, plus what you were working on before you went away isn’t good for the soul. It can bring you stress, added pressure and like me yesterday, made me a tad grumpy (thank you for the hug Corina).

So I started to think about what I can do to take some of this away and the first thing that came to mind was something that I learned years ago, in previous employment, where demands were high and my days never seemed long enough. I was given a book to read, I can’t remember who gave it to me and I can’t remember the name of the book (so I apologise now to the author as I duly like to give credit where credit is due). In this book it gave ideas on how to manage your tasks and to do list. And here was what I learnt.

First of all write everything you need to do on a piece of paper, pad or word/excel document – whatever you find easiest to work from. Combine all those post it notes haphazardly stuck on your screen, all those pieces of paper with notes on. Write them all on one document. Then throw the post it notes and bits of paper away. You are left with one list.

Next to each item on your list rate it A, B, C, D.....A being urgent, B being important, C being important but not urgent and D being anything else. If you are working on paper it might be best to do this in pencil.

Now you have all your items with a letter next to them, the next step is to look at all the A’s and number them by way of priority. For example, the most urgent task will be A1, the next urgent task will be A2 and so on. Then do the same to the B’s, C’s and D’s. Again do this in pencil. Eventually you will have a list of tasks with letters and numbers.

Then you start at A1 and work your way through the list. Then when all the A’s are done start with the B’s and so on. The reason I mentioned doing this in pencil is that if you are anything like me, your list won’t get done in a day and eventually you will find that other jobs creep in. So at the end of each day review your list and re-prioritise your workload. That way you can come in the next day knowing exactly where you need to start.

Right I’m off to practice what I’ve just preached.

Helen Mills

Focus on the important things and achieve more each day!

The title of this piece comes from something that I’ve often found myself saying when working with managers to address their time management skills. It’s a very easy thing to say but how do we actually do it?

Below I’ve included a number of simple tips that I find useful and hope you will to! Before that though! I often ask the question of people in seminars ... “When you have a big project or difficult task to do ..... do you ever find you have an overwhelming desire to tidy your desk, do some filing and tackle all those little mundane tasks that you’ve been putting off for weeks rather than focusing on the really important task you must complete?” When people nod and agree they do, I often quote Robert Kiyosaki ... the author of the book ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad.’ He refers to this as ‘busy-ness’ that being that we make ourselves feel busy whilst avoiding the actually important task. He argues that eradicating this habit can make you far more successful and having tried it myself I have to agree.... that said you can take things too far and my desk and cupboard have become a bit of a state in the past few months. Therefore I took the time last night to clear the decks, three bin liners later, I’ve experienced the satisfaction of really clearing out all the rubbish from my desk and thrown away old documents and files that I’ve held on to for far too long and experienced that clarity of thought that comes from a tidy work area. Therefore my advice to you so you maintain focus particularly in this very busy time as we run up to Christmas is:

1. Quickly clear up your work environment .... throw out the things you’ll never read and make room for the important tasks. (Be ruthless)


2. Write a ‘To Do’ list of no more than 10 items and feel the satisfaction of getting through it in a day. (Even if you have a list of 30 pick the 10 most important put them on a separate list and get working)


3. Celebrate your success .... do something to reward yourself for being productive, we are after all heading into the festive season, treat yourself!

At a time of year when it’s easy to loose focus try these three simple tips and have a productive end to 2009!

David Anderson
Managing Director

www.London.Dalecarnegie.com