Time Management Self Improvement

In this fast and crazy world, we want to multi-task at every given moment. After all, how else can we accomplish all that needs to be done in only 24 hours? We’ve been taught that if we reach all of our goals in a day, week, month, or year, we are successful. What we haven’t been taught when achieving goals is that quality counts and so does the amount of effort exerted.

Our tendency is to set many goals especially at work for any given day or week, and then we feel discouraged or disappointed when we don’t achieve all of them. In fact, we usually have to carry them over to the next day or the next week. The first step in feeling a sense of accomplishment and completion is to set only 3 goals for a day, for a week, for a month that HAVE to be accomplished. Why only 3? In an average day, we can’t anticipate all of the other things that will snag our attention. We get called into a meeting, we get a time-consuming phone call, we get a request that requires some searching, we notice an article of interest that we want to read, etc. If we don’t allow for these other time-consuming things, then we’re not being realistic about what we can accomplish in a day. Same goes for a month - unexpected family situations, travel, illness, new projects, etc.

So, how do we accomplish 3 goals in a day and accomplish them well with little effort? It’s better known as focus and undivided attention. The keyword is undivided - our attention remains TOTALLY on the task at hand. The distractions, the pulls, the unimportant but more interesting, don’t take us away from what needs to be done at that moment. If you attend to the task in front of you and don’t allow the distractions to interfere, you will notice how effortlessly the task is accomplished. Even if it’s something you have been putting off and dreading - just simply setting aside the time and concentrating on it, will result in one less thing on your plate. Ironically, the more attention you give it and the more focused you are on the task at hand, the less you will feel any effort in its completion. If you allow any of the distractions to interfere and you believe you are multi-tasking, what you are really doing is flitting between many different things and not giving any one thing your undivided attention. The result: a little of this and a little of that gets done with mediocre quality and it feels as though a lot of effort is needed.

Invitation to Experiment:
Set 3 or more goals for any given day, for a week, for a month of which 3 HAVE to be accomplished. That may mean letting the answering machine pick up, turning off the cell phone and Instant Messaging, going to another desk or conference room. Totally focus your attention on one thing at a time and notice how they are accomplished - and see if it feels any different than it usually does.

Marion Franklin - is a Professional Certified Life Coach who coaches individuals and groups regarding personal and professional change, focus, human relations, and conflict management. Marion has coached managers at major corporations including PepsiCo, Toys’R'Us, and Reader’s Digest. She conducts and help clients design workshops and presentations, has been a featured presenter at meetings, retreats, and an ongoing Women’s Workshop Series, has been cited in The Journal News and The Wall Street Journal, and has appeared on local Cable Television.
http://www.lifecoachinggroup.com

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You’re trying too much aren’t you? Trying to accomplish too many projects and tasks at once; too many ideas and directions to go. You’re like the runner at the start line trying to run in all directions at once. It’s exhausting you mentally and physically and the frustration builds daily as you look at one more idea on the Internet, one more product that might be “the thing” you’re in need of.

You know what you need to do. In fact, you know hundreds of things you need to do. That’s not the problem. Deep down you know what you need to be doing and not doing in order to succeed, but somehow you are still sitting there going around in circles and feeling more and more frustrated by the day. Why is this? Why the lack of action and progress even when realizing full well that this type of behavior will not get you to where you want to be.

There are many reasons of course, and if you were to stop and think for a bit and were to type out your answers, you’d quickly uncover enough reasons to get you started back on the course of progress. Actually, I suggest you do take time out from your currently entrenched routine and consciously focus on this for a few minutes. If you prefer typing, you can do this while typing in your word processor, or if you prefer pen and paper, you could take a notebook out to somewhere where you could think and focus; perhaps somewhere where you don’t often go so that the experience will be refreshing.

Maintaining perspective is one of the most important things you can do to ensure overall long term progress toward the success goals you’ve set for yourself. This perspective is easily lost when we maintain the same routine and visit the same places, people, and things. Have you ever noticed how energized you feel after getting away for a few days from home? You come back perhaps tired from the trip, but you feel exhilarated and not bound by your typical surroundings. In fact, you probably feel like your typical environs are somewhat stagnant and stale and in need of a refresh.

This is a positive sign that your excursion was beneficial to your perspective and necessary to reenergize you and bring back your emotional “buy-in” to your long term goals. If you had merely sat in place in your usual spot doing the same thing, you probably would have spent many more hours there and not progressed much if at all. But having gotten away for a bit helped you to reset and reengage your end vision while temporarily forgetting the intermediate tasks; thereby letting you come back to the table fresh and able to immediately see the next steps you must take. This is what makes it possible for you to then make quick progress; quicker than if you had not taken that perspective break.

Once refreshed and having gained some perspective you can then begin consciously deciding on what you will focus on. You must come to a couple of mental decisions at this point:

1. You can only go as fast as YOU can go. E.g. you can only do so many things at once and in a finite period of time. If you try to exceed your personal capabilities you will only end up with a few predictable results. More than likely you’ll end up with many or all tasks being completed in a poor manner. You’ll be frustrated and tired. Or worst of all possible outcomes, you’ll be out of balance in life and burned out. These are not the desired end results you desire.

2. Decide now that trying to do too much is the recipe for substandard results and failure and that a conscious decision to select only those goals and activities that matter most and can be done best are what you will personally handle. If there are other necessary tasks required that you are not best at or that would burn you out trying to accomplish, that you will outsource them so you can focus on your core strengths.

Once you’ve narrowed down to these few tasks and set these decisions in your mind, reinforce the decision with the belief that “less is more”. E.g. quality of results is much more important than quantity of results. Focusing on a few key tasks and doing them well is much more rewarding and inspiring than spreading yourself thin and taking too many actions that bear results close to zero. Build deep as they say not wide.

Trying to do it all will ensure you have none.

© Copyright 2006 David Marcotte all rights reserved

Dave Marcotte runs http://www.fastresponsemarketing.com , a marketing company designed to uncover and share the most efficient and effective methods to market and profit online. Be sure to stop by and share your insights while he shares with you new and insightful strategies related to Internet and viral marketing. Results are what count!

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