By: Dr. Donald E. Wetmore
Time is the great equalizer for all of us. We all have 24 hours in a day, 7
days a week, yielding 168 hours per week. Take out 56 hours for sleep (we do
spend about a third of our week dead) and we are down to 112 hours to
achieve all the results we desire. We cannot save time (ever have any time
left over on a Sunday night that you could lop over to the next week?), it
can only be spent. And there's only two ways to spend our time: we can spend
it wisely, or, not so wisely.
We can effectively increase the amount of time available to us each week by
working "smarter" rather than working "harder". In my twenty years as a
full-time Professional Speaker on the topic of Time Management, I have noted
five sure fire ways to make an immediate impact on increasing our available
time each week.
Engage an Intern
Most high schools and community colleges offer intern programs for their
students. The student is assigned to a real-life organization for 10-20
hours per week. They are typically unpaid but do earn academic credit and
make great contacts and the organization gets an "extra pair of hands". The
person who is assigned the intern can now delegate any number of things to
the intern to free up their time for more productive matters. It's a
"Win-Win" deal for both.
Run an Interruptions Log
It would be great if we could plan our day the night before and then make
that plan happen as scheduled. The real world is different. We have to deal
with interruptions. Interruptions are unanticipated events that come to us
via the telephone (any of the electronic stuff: beepers, pagers, email,
etc.) or in person. Many interruptions are important and are what we may be
paid to handle. However, many interruptions have little or no value to our
responsibilities. Run an Interruptions Log for about a week. List every
interruption as it occurs and rate its value to you. A=Crucial, B=Important,
C=Little value, D= No value. After the week of logging them in, review the
list and take action to eliminate the repetitive C and D interruptions and
re-capture some wasted time.
Run a Crisis Management Log
Crisis management for the most part is when the deadline has snuck up upon
you and robbed you of choice, you have to respond and you are a slave to the
clock. Crisis management is generally poor time management because you're
rushing, the quality of your performance suffers, your stress level is
elevated, and, most important, you are often having to go back and re-do
what was done in the first place. "If you want to manage it, measure it."
Run a Crisis Management Log for a week. After encountering every crisis, log
it in on a piece of paper. After a week of accumulating the data, go back
through every crisis that occurred and ask yourself, "Which one of these
could have been avoided?" and start to take corrective steps to stop their
reoccurrence and buy back some "smarter" time for your weeks ahead.
Become a Speed Reader
The average person reads about two hours per day at a rate of about 200
words per minute. (We get more information exposures in one day today than
people in the year 1900 received in a lifetime.) Speed-reading is a simple
skill that is easy to learn and improves with consistent practice. The
average person can easily double their reading rate and thereby cut their
reading time in half or double the volume of reading material they can go
through in the same amount of time.
Do Daily Planning
"A stitch in time saves nine." Every grandmother knows this. Every minute of
planning will save you nine minutes in execution. Walt Whitman, the poet,
said it best, "The most powerful time is when we are alone, thinking about
what we are to do." Daily Planning helps us to focus on what is really
crucial and important in our day to come and permits us to identify time
wasters in advance to avoid them and use that time more productively.
Dr. Donald E. Wetmore has been a full-time Professional Speaker for the last
20 years having made over 5,000 presentations to audiences from around the
Globe. He is available to conduct his dynamic Time Management Seminars at
your location helping your people get more done in less time, with less
stress. Don's programs are entertaining, fast paced, and filed with
practical, common sense ideas. His seminars are typically rated as "the best
I have ever attended". For more information, contact Don via email at
ctsem@msn.com or call him at (203) 929-9902.
Would you like to receive free Timely Time Management Tips on a regular
basis to increase your personal productivity and get more out of every day?
Sign up now for our free "TIMELY TIME MANAGEMENT TIPS". Just go to:
http://www.topica.com/lists/timemanagement and select "subscribe". We
welcome you aboard!
Dr. Donald E. Wetmore-Professional Speaker
Productivity Institute
Time Management Seminars
60 Huntington St., P.O. Box 2126
Shelton, CT 06484
(800) 969-3773 (203) 929-9902 Fax: (203) 929-8151
ctsem@msn.com
http://www.balancetime.com
Professional Member-National Speakers Association
Copyright 2000 You may re-print the above information in its entirety in
your publication, newsletter, or on your webpage. For permission, please
email your request for "reprint" to
ctsem@msn.com
