Personal Development

Get Organized. Stay Motivated. Enjoy Life.

Archives for April 2006

Why I Always Have Time To Do Things

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Many people talking to me or reading this blog are impressed with the number of things I do on a daily basis. While some of us find it impossible to do anything at all outside of working hours, I have found the hours of my commute or my time at home to be the almost as productive parts of my day as the time I spend working.

Nothing special about my approach

I have no amazing sources of spare time or incredible ways to boost my energy levels. I’m as human as everyone else, and trust me, I’m very conscious about me being just at the very beginning of becoming a productive person. There are thousands of people I admire for being much more productive in their lives. So I think it’s not that I’m special or my standards are high. It’s just that the average expectations and standards of all of us are too low.

Because most of us rarely find and take time to organize the way of doing things in our everyday life, we’re constantly overwhelmed with tasks and things to keep track of. This gives us the impression of being so impossibly busy all the time, that we can’t imagine doing something else on top of our daily routine. We feel lucky if we get to enjoy a weekend with our family, yet we never stop worrying about all these things waiting for us back at work.

My basic time management principle

Every time when I tell my friends about a new project of mine, I always see how surprised they are to see me not only doing what I already have on my plate, but taking on something extra. And the immediate question I always hear is this: Where do you get all the spare time to do this?

Well, the short answer is that I don’t. I really don’t have spare time. I don’t have these 3 hours at home which I always know I’ll be doing nothing – so they’re always ready for some of my new projects… No! It doesn’t work like this. As you, as your friends, and just as anyone else – I don’t feel like I have enough time. But the difference between us is that I don’t stop here. If I don’t have spare time, it doesn’t mean I have no time at all. It simply means I have to prioritize things. I have time, I have plenty of it. It’s just I’m already doing or thinking of doing something during all the time I have.

Review and prioritize things

When you review your plans for the week or month to come, you should always see when there’s a good opportunity to try some of your new ideas. And if prioritizing doesn’t solve all the time questions, it’s time for optimizing, because there is always something to improve in just about anything you do. For instance, you can group things together or change the order of doing them, and a tweak as small as this may have a surprisingly strong positive effect on your productivity.

Having time to do things DOES NOT mean having spare time. It simply means having the clear purpose of why you need to find more time to do something, and having the courage to make it happen.

5 Steps of My To-Do Lists Revolution

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I've been using to-do lists both at work and at home for the past few years now. And while I couldn't complain about my overall performance, there was always something not right about the way I'd used them, yet I couldn't tell what exactly it was.

Just a few weeks ago I've finally realised what had been troubling me for so long: my to-do lists! What you're about to read may seem obvious and simple enough, but trust me: I really wish someone had explained to me this reason of my daily frustration a long time ago! So here it is: my own to-do lists revolution!

 

My original to-do lists setup

I had hand-written lists for each day in my A4 year planner, I would usually prepare such lists at the end of a previous day. Having finished all the work, I would take 5 minutes of my time before leaving my workplace to summarize the day's achievements and overview the stuff I never got a chance to work on to the following day's to-do list. I would also cross off all the completed tasks to make sure I can see my progress.

I had originally used the page-a-day approach. So no matter how few or many tasks I'd have for the day, they all would be on only 1 page for this day. But I quickly learned that such an approach is one of the worst possible. Simply because it doesn't work unless you manage to finish every single task you had planned for your day.

It all became obvious after I failed to complete the whole list of planned things for a day, and had to somehow keep track of the things so that they get my attention paid to them at some later stage. And this is where I saw just how ineffective it was to try and support this approach in any way possible. No matter what you do, you're going to lose time. I couldn't let this happen for any longer, and so that's how my to-do lists revolution began.

Below are the 5 steps I've gone through to come up with the most effective way of dealing with my daily tasks so far. Having improved my process so much, I'm absolutely certain there is room for even more improvement, so I'll be sure to describe it on my pages later.

 

Reviewing the past few day's to-do lists

The first thing I tried was to make the review of the past few days' lists my daily routine. This worked reasonably well while I had a backlog of few days, but it became a nightmare as soon as the backlog grew to more than two weeks. Having more and more tasks on my new to-do lists and trying to do follow up with the really important tasks, I could spend less and less time looking back and review some old stuff. Yet, now and then I'd realised something which was left out and didn't seem to be important when it was a week old, is quite urgent now that it's been few weeks since I never got a chance to deal with this task. So after struggling for a while, I gave this method up.

 

Keeping track of all the incomplete tasks

Secondly, I've decided to start moving all the incomplete tasks to the following day's plan. I made it a rule – never start adding items to the current day's to-do list unless I'm positive all the previously forgotten or never deal with tasks are at the top of this list. Again, it worked for a while, but as the list of tasks grew, I'd realised my daily to-do list routine is slowly turning into nothing but stupid rewriting of my previous days' to-do lists. I would actually waste my precious time by making yet another list of something I couldn't find time to do.

 

Basic scheduling – marking the stand and end dates for tasks

So the next thing I figured I needed to incorporate into my routine was scheduling. It makes perfect sense – to mark the date when adding something to your to-do list. You need it for historical purposes. Trying to improve the previous paragraph's idea, I started not only rewriting all the incomplete tasks of mine, but also putting the date of each tasks' origination alongside. This helped a lot. This made it obvious that some tasks have been left unattended for way too long. This improved the decision-making because it was clearly seen again how bad a backlog of things I had. It saves my time of thinking back and trying to remember when I was actually going to do a given task, and the date of its supposed start provided the urgency reminder I really found useful. Still, it was not enough, so I've tried to see what else would really help me optimize my process.

 

Throw away your to-do lists

This was the stage where I was much more efficient compared to where I started. So not only I was motivated to continue improving my process, but I also started thinking of changing the most basic parts of it. I've realised that one of the things which was noticeably slowing me down was the fact that I used to-do lists and no other way of keeping track of my tasks.

Even as simple thing as a review of my to-do list for the day would take much longer due to a simple fact that no matter what I did, all the tasks were still left on the same page. So when I would have a task or two completed, I'd tick them off or even color-mark them as being really completed, but this would still leave these tasks on my page. And no matter how hard you try to skip these tasks knowing that they're completed, you still lose some time quickly glancing through them. Time lost on glancing once a day is not so harmful when you think about it. But if you have to get back to your list more than a few times during your day, you'll start noticing how this very glancing through to-do list slows you down.

And that's how I decided to get rid of to-do lists completely. Instead, I've got myself a 5-section A4 organizer, and started using the smallest post-it notes I could find to manage my tasks for the day. So one section of this organizer would be used for all the tasks for the current day. Another section would be the one for the tasks for the whole current week. There's also one for the month (where I temporarily put EVERYTHING that doesn't belong to this week's plan), and there's the completed tasks section.

The main reason for switching to post-its is that I can accomplish all the things I did with to-do lists (like tracking tasks, marking the start dates and marking tasks as deferred or completed ones), PLUS I can MOMENTARILY get completed tasks out of the plan for today. If it sounds too simple for the best to-do list optimization trick, TRY IT yourself!

I can't emphasize enough the sheer pleasure and feeling of satisfaction you have when you mark a tasks completed, and then immediately detach it from current day's list and physically move it into the completed section. As you progress through your day, or get to visibly notice the amount of things left to be done. As soon as something's done, you get rid of it – and therefore you can simply see the current state of things by glancing at a page quickly. Many post-its – many tasks, few post-its – few tasks. It's that simple!

 

Completion dates for all the tasks

Now that I've made a major progress in my daily planning, I only felt like tweaking the process a bit to make it even better. So one of the things I've finally decided to start doing is putting completion dates for all the tasks. Combined with the start dates I've been adding to my tasks for some time by now, completion dates gave me the last bit of comfort I needed to make sure I'm doing the best I can. If start dates were there to ensure I know exactly when I'd put the task on my list and to help me realise the urgency and growing importance of some tasks, the completion dates helped me analyze whether I was coping with the load okay, or whether some particular kinds of tasks were constantly forgotten about, or whether some task took much longer that I originally expected. All I need now is to have a half-an-hour a week spent solely on such analysis – as any tweaks I made to my planning based based on such analysis results have the potential to bring my performance to an even higher level.

 

What happens now?

That's all I've done so far. My To-Do Lists Revolution isn't fully over, but it starts to look and – more importantly – feel like an evolution to me now. There's no major part to change in the process as I'm very happy with the results. I'm spending less time planning and managing my daily tasks, and with the revolution I've gone through I'm not afraid of any tasks – no matter how big or complex. I'm still working on other possible ways to improve my daily planning approach, so who knows – maybe once day I'll have another revolution to blog about! ;) Till then – good luck!

Knowing Where You Want To Be

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I’m so used to most of my friends and colleagues wondering where in the world I always find time and energy to do the things I do, that I’ve finally decided to spend few minutes and give full answers to these questions.

The ultimate answer

First and foremost, the ultimate answer to all such questions: it’s all about having a clear vision in your mind. It’s about knowing where you want to be in not so distant future. It’s about being absolutely conscious that no matter how good or bad the current situation looks, it’s probably not the end of your journey.

I won’t claim knowing a special secret about setting your goals or anything like this – after all, I’m only learning to master the art of goal-setting myself. But I’m willing to share the few things I’ve learned so far, and I sincerely hope these pearls of wisdom would help you make the progress in your personal development you’re so hoping for.

Outcome vs Goal

One very simple thing I’ve learned is to treat my goals as outcomes.

Since all our achievements are nothing but the result of our self-confidence and determination, you really have be sure about what you should be doing to achieve the result you want. And what quite often happens is that we’re thinking goals, as in goals which sometimes seem too good to be true, or too far away to be easily reached, or simply too complex to be fully achieved. In other words, we set ourselves such goals that they’re always a possibility, but not a certainty.

You think: “Yeah, wouldn’t it be great to have more time freed up for my family?!… I should probably try and do something to make sure I don’t work late hours and don’t take up more projects than I physically can…” So the goal of having more time sounds like a good idea.

But because we’re not sure how much more time we’d like to free up, and how it’s going to look and feel, and when it’s going to happen, it’s REALLY hard to achieve such a goal. Quite simply, you’re not giving yourself a chance to know when you’re approaching your goal and when you’ve really achieved it. But what if we consider this goal to become an outcome?

Outcomes are always certain. There is no probability here at all, not a shadow of doubt about getting an outcome – whether we like it or not, we’re going to get some outcome following our actions. It may not be quite the outcome you were aiming for, but it will be an outcome. We have to look at this goal and see what the outcome is going to be for us.

What will really improve when you get more time freed up? How will it improve in your opinion? How much time do you really need to see such an improvement? Would 1 extra hour a day be good enough, or do you want two hours?

So just knowing that there’s something you’re going to get helps you look at the whole plan of yours from a completely different perspective. It’s no longer a question of whether something happens or not. It an outcome now, it’s a thing certain to happen. And just like that, in an instant, you see a magical transformation for a vague goal into a sharp certainty quite possible to be achieved.

Ultimate goals

Every one of us should have ultimate goals. There shouldn’t be too many of them, but you absolutely need at least a few. They would be your guiding lines – something you always keep in mind in every effort you’re making. For instance, my ultimate goals are the driving force behind most of my actions.

There’s an odd action now and then which doesn’t fall into any of my ultimate goals but that’s the truth of life – you can’t turn every action required and expected from you to be beneficial.

Sometimes (as it probably happens with your job, for instance), you have to do things which are part of someone else’s ultimate goal or vision, but that’s what you’re paid for, isn’t it?

I don’t want to give you a list of my ultimate goals – partially because I’m changing them all the time, make some of them more accurate and therefore easy to follow, or just reordering them to ensure the most important goals are the first ones I work on. Also it is because no ultimate goal of mine is final – once I reach the goal, I simply make the milestone and develop the goal into a bigger one, so that it’s a constant pursuit of something bigger and better. For me such a state of things is nothing but a pure and constant motivation.

When I have a clear vision of my future, I have a list of my goals – and I know I’m always doing my best to get closer to them. But if my goals were finite, I would simply be disappointed once I’d reached them. So I always push my goals higher and further apart. This way I have the motivation to grow and continue to do what I’ve been doing.

Knowing where you want to be

Many of you will find that it’s much easier to know where you don’t want to be! That’s good enough, work from there! Don’t be so hard on yourself, but simply try being conscious about your current position. For me, I always know there’s something else waiting for me ahead in the future. And this motivates, not disappoints me.

Every time I go to gym I KNOW it’s not the last time I’m going to do it. Right now my goals could be about losing some weight or growing some muscles, but even when I do reach these goals, I’m sure I’ll transform them into some other goal like making sure I stay healthy and physically active for as long as possible.

Every time I’m learning something new in my profession, I KNOW it’s just another piece of useful information. I’m sure that if there’s a chance to learn something else, and provided that I have enough time for it, I’ll go for it. I’ll never stop learning. Every time I write an entry in this blog, I’m ABSOLUTELY SURE it’s not the last one. Because there’s always going to be something else I can learn to help myself grow, to try it out and to share it so that others could enjoy the results too.

Knowing where you want to be is very important. It’s not a set of goals, but more like a vision. It’s a number of your wildest dreams you want to come true once day. It’s all these things which you’re finally going to achieve. And that’s the energy and motivation to keep you going even when no one else believes in you. It doesn’t matter. Y

YOU know better what’s good for you and for your goals.

What about YOU?

Do you know where you want to be? You may not have a clear vision of your future, but let me assure you – even feeling that you’re not quite there is a good start! Don’t stop there! Try and make the next step. Find some time and analyze your goals – both everyday and ultimate ones. See what’s really important for you and start paying them more attention. This is the effort you have to make as it will eventually make all the difference for you.

Don’t worry about so much work to be done. Don’t be afraid to dream of a better future. Don’t be discouraged if something doesn’t work out the way you wanted it to. It doesn’t mean anything! You can do much more than you think you can, and as long as you know where you want to be and you keep working on getting there, you’re going to be just fine!