Most of us are taught not to waste time. However it is easy to get into habits that, upon close examination, can be found to be big time wasters. I'd like to cover 3 points that, if not kept in mind, can cause us to become less efficient and to waste more time.
Email and Phone Interruptions:
For many of us, the phone rings and we, like robots, rush to answer it. These habits are usually established in us as kids and, for most people, continue on into their adult years. Compared to the phone, email is relatively new. But email, too, can become something we feel compelled to handle immediately. For, perhaps, most people the phone ringers remain on and email notification alarms continue to beep as the emails are checked every 5 to 10 minutes. Both of these, the the ringing phone as well as the constantly chiming email notification sound, can be very distracting and can essentially stop our production.
If somebody knocks on your door in your office, it is considered polite for them to look in and ask you if you're busy and to come back another time if you are. The interesting thing about phone calls and emails is that they occur without regard to what we're doing. If we saw this in a colleague we would think it rude at best.
When it comes to handling phone calls and email most time management experts agree that it is best to answer the phone and to check and handle emails only certain, pre-established times of the day.
Each of us will chose our own workable way. A common routine regarding email is to check the email, first time for the day, just after lunch. The theory is that checking email in the morning can often derail our best laid plans for certain production targets in the morning. Checking the email right after lunch is a good time and then these emails can be handled according to their importance.
A key suggestion is to turn off the ringer of the phone, if you are answering it yourself, and turn off the notification alarm of your email client. Regarding emails, it is also best to shut down the automatic checking of emails and to control that operation manually.
Regarding the phone, often a source of new clients, we may feel compelled to answer it whenever it rings. But this will undoubtedly cut into our production time if we are producers. If we are salespeople, perhaps that is a different story but those of us who are wearing both sales and production hats have to put some type of control into it. One way to handle this is to designate periods where the ringer is off or the secretary answers the phone or leave a message on the automatic answering system or with the secretary that calls will be returned at a specific time. That way the callers will know and can rely upon a return call it a specific time. Promises need to be kept, of course.
How you handle it is up to you, but you might want to try putting a bit of control into your communications. This can be a key to increasing your own efficiency and productivity.
Trying to Be a Perfectionist:
Action is the key to a successful life. We simply need to get to work and get stuff done. It is best to consider every action as a cycle of action with a start, a change and a stop. We need to do each of those components to actually remain in control.
Trying to be perfect is one of the false standards that many of us try to achieve in our activities. Perhaps one's ideas of perfection come from the time they were criticized as children. The key problem of trying to be perfect is that it sticks us in a cycle of action and we never are able to stop it. Since perfection is actually impossible, in order to hit the stop button on any cycle of action we must abandon the idea of trying to be perfect.
If one really looks at it, one should remember that the only realistic standard by which we can operate is to do the best we can at the time that were doing it. Oh yes, we make it better as we become more skilled and more educated, but at any given time we can operate at a certain level and that is standard that we should expect. If we find that we have many actions that are hung up, because they are not good enough, perhaps we need to look at precisely what we are trying to achieve. What is perfect? Perhaps a simple definition, applied, would break us of the habit.
It's best to leave perfection to those in society who cannot get things actually done.
Multitasking:
With today's many amazing tools and communication deices we are capable of having almost countless numbers of things coming at us at any given time. We can keep many screens open on our computers, be listening to talk radio or running the television while we work, and, basically, find ourselves doing, or attempting to do, many things at one time.
There are folks that have Facebook going all the time on their computers. Some have Twitter going. Some are checking their email constantly and trying to read it handle other people's communications on other people's schedules rather than on their own. It's easy, after a day of an immense amount of activity, to look back and see that really nothing of importance really got done.
Multitasking is actually a myth. While we may see certain professionals operating as though they are multitasking - say a pilot for instance - a close look will find that, in reality, they are only doing one thing - even though it may be broken down into many different activities. They become so good at it, just like we are usually good at walking or getting around. It may appear to be multitasking to an outsider been, in reality, it is only one thing.
Being productive requires the ability to concentrate on one thing at a time. It is best to do one thing, then the next, and the next, etc. If we do that we will find our own efficiency skyrocketing.
Let's face it, efficiency is not something that we are achieving for its own sake. It is simply a measurement of how much we can get out of the given commodity. Time, for the most part, is a fixed commodity and our efficiency is our measurement of getting the most productivity out of the hours that we have. Keeping these 3 points in mind, trying to achieve new habits regarding them, can help us become more efficient and to increase our productivity in grand ways.
Email and Phone Interruptions:
For many of us, the phone rings and we, like robots, rush to answer it. These habits are usually established in us as kids and, for most people, continue on into their adult years. Compared to the phone, email is relatively new. But email, too, can become something we feel compelled to handle immediately. For, perhaps, most people the phone ringers remain on and email notification alarms continue to beep as the emails are checked every 5 to 10 minutes. Both of these, the the ringing phone as well as the constantly chiming email notification sound, can be very distracting and can essentially stop our production.
If somebody knocks on your door in your office, it is considered polite for them to look in and ask you if you're busy and to come back another time if you are. The interesting thing about phone calls and emails is that they occur without regard to what we're doing. If we saw this in a colleague we would think it rude at best.
When it comes to handling phone calls and email most time management experts agree that it is best to answer the phone and to check and handle emails only certain, pre-established times of the day.
Each of us will chose our own workable way. A common routine regarding email is to check the email, first time for the day, just after lunch. The theory is that checking email in the morning can often derail our best laid plans for certain production targets in the morning. Checking the email right after lunch is a good time and then these emails can be handled according to their importance.
A key suggestion is to turn off the ringer of the phone, if you are answering it yourself, and turn off the notification alarm of your email client. Regarding emails, it is also best to shut down the automatic checking of emails and to control that operation manually.
Regarding the phone, often a source of new clients, we may feel compelled to answer it whenever it rings. But this will undoubtedly cut into our production time if we are producers. If we are salespeople, perhaps that is a different story but those of us who are wearing both sales and production hats have to put some type of control into it. One way to handle this is to designate periods where the ringer is off or the secretary answers the phone or leave a message on the automatic answering system or with the secretary that calls will be returned at a specific time. That way the callers will know and can rely upon a return call it a specific time. Promises need to be kept, of course.
How you handle it is up to you, but you might want to try putting a bit of control into your communications. This can be a key to increasing your own efficiency and productivity.
Trying to Be a Perfectionist:
Action is the key to a successful life. We simply need to get to work and get stuff done. It is best to consider every action as a cycle of action with a start, a change and a stop. We need to do each of those components to actually remain in control.
Trying to be perfect is one of the false standards that many of us try to achieve in our activities. Perhaps one's ideas of perfection come from the time they were criticized as children. The key problem of trying to be perfect is that it sticks us in a cycle of action and we never are able to stop it. Since perfection is actually impossible, in order to hit the stop button on any cycle of action we must abandon the idea of trying to be perfect.
If one really looks at it, one should remember that the only realistic standard by which we can operate is to do the best we can at the time that were doing it. Oh yes, we make it better as we become more skilled and more educated, but at any given time we can operate at a certain level and that is standard that we should expect. If we find that we have many actions that are hung up, because they are not good enough, perhaps we need to look at precisely what we are trying to achieve. What is perfect? Perhaps a simple definition, applied, would break us of the habit.
It's best to leave perfection to those in society who cannot get things actually done.
Multitasking:
With today's many amazing tools and communication deices we are capable of having almost countless numbers of things coming at us at any given time. We can keep many screens open on our computers, be listening to talk radio or running the television while we work, and, basically, find ourselves doing, or attempting to do, many things at one time.
There are folks that have Facebook going all the time on their computers. Some have Twitter going. Some are checking their email constantly and trying to read it handle other people's communications on other people's schedules rather than on their own. It's easy, after a day of an immense amount of activity, to look back and see that really nothing of importance really got done.
Multitasking is actually a myth. While we may see certain professionals operating as though they are multitasking - say a pilot for instance - a close look will find that, in reality, they are only doing one thing - even though it may be broken down into many different activities. They become so good at it, just like we are usually good at walking or getting around. It may appear to be multitasking to an outsider been, in reality, it is only one thing.
Being productive requires the ability to concentrate on one thing at a time. It is best to do one thing, then the next, and the next, etc. If we do that we will find our own efficiency skyrocketing.
Let's face it, efficiency is not something that we are achieving for its own sake. It is simply a measurement of how much we can get out of the given commodity. Time, for the most part, is a fixed commodity and our efficiency is our measurement of getting the most productivity out of the hours that we have. Keeping these 3 points in mind, trying to achieve new habits regarding them, can help us become more efficient and to increase our productivity in grand ways.
About the Author:
Go to DayPlanner.info for more Time Management and Day Planning Hints and Tools. Also, check out our Free Download of an amazing Day Planning Tool called Time Coach.
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