Kickfannie TimeMatters
by Terry Monaghan for Kickfannie Operations
Creating order out of chaos? Or, what are you focusing on?
“The shorter way to do many things is to do one thing at a time.” Mozart
How often have you looked at your goals, your plans and your tasks and felt completely overwhelmed? Perhaps you have even felt defeated before you begin. After all, there is a lot involved in fulfilling on the goal you have set for yourself – many moving pieces and many aspects that are unpredictable and out of your direct control.
Many people think that multi-tasking is a valuable skill. After all, we boast about our ability to multi-task, and we praise others for it. But is it really accomplishing what we want? Or is it an illusion?
I have read some articles on brain studies about multi-tasking. What they found is that we can usually do up to two things at the same time with some level of competence (depending on circumstances). One side of the brain takes over one task, and the other side manages the other task, and they switch back and forth quickly. Note: actually this shifting back and forth means one thing is being done, then the other, and so on. But, when a third task is added in, we lose the ability to do any of them competently. We simply can’t handle it. This could be why so many people feel frustrated at the end of a very busy day, when they look back and realize that nothing of consequence was accomplished.
I think that’s sad, and a hugely unproductive use of time, talent and resources!
The mountain of everything there is for us to do and handle isn’t going away, and it certainly isn’t getting any smaller. Although sometimes, in certain circumstances, we can turn our back on everything we have left undone, and start over from scratch – most of us don’t have that as an option. What’s needed are some filters, some ways of shifting our perspective to discover how we can make it more manageable.
How do you manage it? What are some of the filters you can apply to wrestle it back under control?
I had a client walk into a VIP session waving a 30 page list. She claimed that was her to-do list, and said it was just completely overwhelming her and she was at her wit’s end. Now, nobody really has a 30 page to do list. When we looked at it, it turned out to be the comprehensive list of everything she wanted to do in her profession, in her professional development, in her career, in her personal life, in her social life, in her community, etc. What she had was her master list. And because she was a very organized, analytical thinker – she had organized the list into projects and had broken those projects down into individual tasks. It was easy to see why it was now a 30 page document!
Upon further examination, the list really reflected perhaps 10 major projects she was working on for her life. And they were very diverse! We discussed approaching her to do list in a very different way. Taking a page from Peter Allen’s “Getting Things Done,” I suggested she look at what was the next action (the next step) in each of those 10 projects. At most she would have 10 actions for her daily list. But those 10 actions would move every one of the projects that were very important to her closer to fulfillment.
Rather than a 30 page list, she would be working from a list of no more than 10 items (and it would usually be less than 10, as it was unlikely there would be an action each day on each project). We also broke it down further by determining when in the day each task would be done. This made it very easy to distinguish those tasks that were on a longer time line from those that were more urgent and time sensitive.
We applied three filters to her list:
• We distinguished the projects
• We identified the next action on each project
• We looked at the actions in the context of time
There are many more filters that can be applied. Some of them include:
• Does the project or task gets you closer to fulfilling one of your goals? If not, then it isn’t your project to do.
• Is working on the task or project the best use of your time? If not, then it should be delegated.
• Where are the leverage points? How can you get more with less?
• Can any of it be automated?
Where will you put your focus? It is amazingly easy to be distracted by the myriad tasks on your horizon, not to mention the staggering number of interruptions that comprise our daily life.
Creating ways to sort, filter, divert and delegate, and allowing yourself the time to focus on what’s really important will take a little thought and planning. But it is one activity that will really pay off in your daily life. You don’t need a lot of time to focus on what’s important to you – but you do need to carve out that time for yourself. No one else will do it for you.
About the Contributor
Terry's clients find themselves working on what is most fulfilling and what really matters in moving things forward rather than what they previously thought they "had to do." The things you hoped to get to someday become the things you work on today.
With over 30 years of business and entrepreneurial experience, Terry's unique technology has dramatically increased the productivity of Fortune 100 executives and entrepreneurs in a variety of industries. As a Keynote Speaker with the Tony Robbins Power Team, Washington, DC, Terry inspired audiences in our Nation’s capital to “Eliminate the Overwhelm!” To learn more about Time Triage™ check out Terry’s website at www.timetriage.com
Submit Questions for Terry to answer at TimeMatters@kickfannie.com