Hi everyone,
Today I want to talk about something that is hitting me dead square in the nuts. Time management. For my friends, they know that I tend to be a little of a driven personality. I see a goal, and do everything possible to meet that goal. it’s a good trait… as long as you can manage your goals 🙂 right now, I’m looking at all the things I have on my plate, and starting to realize that I just can’t keep up. let me give you an example. Currently, I’m a small company, so that means I wear MANY hats. Right now, I’m working on doing a major overhaul to our new product Proximity, I’m trying to write 5 blog posts a week, I recently finished my first autoresponder class for SM, I have my “day” job that takes 40 – 50/hrs a week (a lot more hours than my previous couple of contracts). On top of that, I have marketing materials for my current products that need to be created, web pages that need to be added, and I still need to maintain the day to day business paperwork.
When I read the couple of sentences, it really doesn’t sound that bad. But then I look at my to-do list (BTW, I still recommend Remember the Milk if you don’t already have a system), and it’s up over 20 items every day. What does that mean? it means i can’t keep up with the schedules I’ve set for myself. It’s becoming a good day if I can get my list under 15… and I’m ecstatic if I can get it under 10. Accomplishing everything, just isn’t happening. that means, I haven’t estimated very well, and I’m fall behind. there’s a very simple solution to this… I need to re-evaluate everything I’m working. Is it reasonable to do 5 blog posts a week? is starting a new auto-responder course worth my effort right now? What am I losing by not having my marketing materials up to date on my website?
Now, for me, I often have a hard time admitting that I can’t accomplish it all. But I’ve been running at this rate for the past month, and I’m working till 1AM every night and then getting up at 6:30am every morning to start again. No one can keep this up forever (at least I know that I can’t… I’ve already noticed I’m cranky and have been getting more headaches).
So this post for anyone out there trying to get stuff done… Focus on the most important tasks first… but if you have too many tasks and you’re starting to notice you can’t get anything done… it’s time to put some things on the back burner. it doesn’t mean it won’t come back… but it’s important to hit the most vital tasks, and do them right. then come back to the other tasks when you have the time to devote to them.
Hope this helps you out,
Mike
As always, thanks for reading and don't forget to check out our SAP Service Management Products at my other company JaveLLin Solutions,
Mike
Boy this hits close to home Mike.
Not nearly as bad as you, but the same deal. In addition to my outlook “tasks” I’ve started using a program called PayMo online to track how much time I’m spending doing various activities. You can setup clients, projects, & tasks and track time for each. Ideally you could bill off of it as well, but I’m using the reports & graphics to ensure that I’m spending my time doing my critical items.
For me though, it’s not that it too many tasks….it’s spending too much time to make the results “perfect”. I’ve found that by setting “limits” for certain activties, I’ve cut down on my profectionist traits andmove to “this is good enough” to get the job done. If you don’t limit yourself and keep track, your bound to spend too much time rather than getting to the 80/20 or 95/5 level of perfection.