2019-12-30 Time Management Fundamental

0 Intro

3 principles

• space
• mind
• time

Chapter 1 to 6 go through the concepts and principles Chapter 7 to 10 are action guide with examples

1 laying the Productivity Groundwork

• Recommend this course to be finished in 1 or 2 sitting.
• schedule the time to complete it
• complete the course at your workspace, for hands-on
• when asked to do something in the video, do it as then, right away. Emphasize on taking action.
• focus on a lasting change, set that as a goal.

new tech is not key, but methodology.

1.2 Understanding the focus chaos scale

This course is build to help ppl with simplified and easy rules to follow.

1.3 find your personal motivation for lasting change

We need a strong motivation, ask yourself: What would you do if you had an extra 10 hours per week?

Timeless principle

2 Obstacle to Productivity

2.1 multitasking - disastrous to time management

Switch tasking is a thief

multitasking is switching tasks, and is slow…

2.2 consequences of multitasking/switchtasking

• time increases
• quality of work decreases when switching task
• stress level increases!

2.3 Three principles of productivity

Space, Mind and Time to be more productive and focused

Space

As few gathering points as possible.

Gathering point: a place to gather unprocessed items e.g. pile of paperwork, email inbox, voicemail boxes, receipts, stuff in your pocket…

Mind

Keep your mind clear

Your mind is not a gathering point.

This course will help you to get all the distractions/interruptions out of your mind.

Time

Be conscious of what’s important. create boundaries to protect attention.

identify your MVAs, most valuable activities, and underspend time and create budget to spend time on those MVAs

Underspending time, and never go over budget.

3 Productivity Principle 1 Space:

3.1 Taking an inventory of your gathering points.

Gathering point: a place to gather unprocessed items

• tasks
• todos
• emails
• assignments
• … You haven’t decide, what to do with it, when to do it, or where it belongs.

Average 30~40 gathering points per person, as low as 12 as high as 100.

Target for this training: 6 or less

3.2 narrow your gathering points

Approved Gathering Points Six gathering points he recomemnds:

1. Physical Inbox: Anything physical and unprocessed should go.
2. A portable inbox: mobile extension of you inbox. One spot in your briefcase, or one pocket in your planner.
3. A notepad: unprocessed items and general notes. Physical/Electronic
4. One email inbox.
5. One voicemail
6. OPTIONAL: Wild card

My note: from his recommendation: there is no need for anything at home… Scratch that, he later mentioned work vs personal.

3.3 Setting up an inbox gathering point.

Anything out of place/unresolved/don’t have a scheduled time. Anything, paper, receipts, books, magzines…

Instead of putting things away when they are out of place, put things into inbox.

And at a scheduled time, we go through that inbox, to clear things up at least once a week… discuss later.

Let me just call it a Week Box, as long it can hold your stuff up to a week, it’s large enough.

3.4 Portable inbox

Anything we get when we are not near our inbox, we use our portable inbox as an extension.

Just one slot in your briefcase, not the whole thing.

3.5 Getting the most from a notepad

A mix of non-action items/notes and actionable items.

digital or paper

Lecturer uses Evernote to

• gather notes
• take pictures
• record notes to self

Best practices to gather items to notepads

• clearly indicate action items. separate them from general notes by adding some symbol. e.g. an open checkbox.
• when you are in office, or near your inbox, rip off all the pages to your inbox. blank slate each day.
• if digital, move the processed items to an archive folder.

Decide your notepad -> google keep for now.

Consolidate multiple email accounts

recommend one email inbox. if possible, processing your work and life email at one place is more efficient.

Handling emails in one place can help you make decisions faster and easier.

Consolidate multiple voicemail accounts

• Create only one place for voicemail, setup call forwarding.
• delegate responsibility for checking voicemail. - spouse/assistance
• eliminate voicemail completely. Voicemail transcription/voice to email services.

This reduces switching between voice mail accounts.

Wild card

• a separate email
• text messages.
• TODO list - few ppl use this productively. Instead of checking items off your todo list by doing them, check them off, when you process them, and move the item to your calendar.
• social networks, if needed

Processing is to decide:

• what to do with it
• when to do it
• where its home is.

Separating work and personal gathering points.

Avoid having two gathering points if possible.

The more gathering points you have, the more switch you make.

Keep gathering points down:

• reduce mistake
• reduce stress
• increase efficiency

Keep in mind: Processing is not completing tasks.

4 Mind

A mind unclutered with todos, unresolved ideas, action items…

To have a system that helps with taking all the ideas that pops into one’s mind and store it outside of mind.

use the approved gathering points.

When a thought come up, write a note, and toss it into inbox.

if you find out you process some certain gathering point better then others. Put unresolved ideas into your favorite gathering point

4.2 Clearing your mind of to-dos with mental triggers

1. read through the trigger list
2. write down anything unresolved
3. continue on the list

4.3 set a mind clearing schedule

Set up a time every 3 month/quarter to clear up tasks in mind.

Everytime go through the mental trigger list just like first time.

4.4 taking the next step to keeping your mind clear

What to do with the todo list will come in following chapters.

Cultivate the habit of clearing your mind immediately

Your mind is not an acceptable gathering point.

5 Time

Choosing the right calendar for you

paper vs digital

Paper planner

a weekly planner that shows the hours

Limitations:

• recurring appointments
• bulky
• loss/damage

Digital Calendar

• fast
• accessible
• portable

Don’t skimp, choose the best

Best if you just use one calendar, that could sync. So much less attention switching.

Effective Calendar Usage

1. Think of your calendar as you time budget. Time debt takes interests -> switching cost. Schedule almost everything.
2. Avoid double booking. Never attempt multi-task
3. Add appointments immediately. Never commit to an appointment until putting it into your calendar.
4. Scedule buffer/travel time for appointments
5. Think of your calendar as a commitment to others and yourself.
6. Think long term. Be comfortable to schedule into the future.

Procrastination can be a positive thing if you’re using a schedule and are committed to following that schedule. In fact, shifting from a “now” mindset to a “when” mindset will reduce a lot of switching cost in your day.

Say no to others.

Say no more often than you say yes. Tactically and gracefully.

1. ask for requests via email.
2. When say “yes”, ask when.
3. if not now, when?

Say no to yourself

1.create a perhaps list.

• Ideas that are not commited, have no immediate impact, and but you are interested.
• Review the list every 1~3 month.

2.When? ask yourself when you will be able to do it.

• Do I need to do this now, or can I do it later.
• Don’t think in terms of days/weeks. Think of in months, years…
• Ask when is the latest I can complete this? -> focus on current tasks, and not distracted by other ideas.

6 Equipping yourself for action

Before going into next chapter

• ensure you are in your workspace
• Budget time. best one sitting, may take multiple hours.
• check all proper resources are available. - resource checklist in exercise file.
  • Inbox
  • 8 cardboard/plastic boxes,
  • electronic labeler(No not for me, I am not in a document heavy profession)
  • Storage wallet. CD/DVD
  • hanging folders
  • manila folders
  • alphabetical guides for folders.(optional)
  • stacking trays: home or place to put processed items temporarily
    • horizontal over verticel

7 Gathering to the Inbox.

Prep to gather

Now we start taking actions, start from gathering.

reduce number of physical gathering points.

Processed means: you know what to do with it, you know when to do it, and you know where it belongs Unprocessed: any one of the three things above is missing, what, when, where, it’s unprossessed, and we need to gather it.

Everything has a home, and no visitors allowed.

If something is in its correct home, it’s where it belongs, it’s processed and don’t need gathering.

Set up a temporary box: One week box. For each item, if you’ll need to use this or take care of this during the next week, put it into the one week box. This box is where you’ll start processing.

Other things go to other boxes.

Gathering desk

principles and reasons

This section talks about the why and how of gathering. It’s kind of repetitive. Jump to the next section for steps if needed.

The more gathering points you have the more switches will take place in your day making you much less productive.

At this point you should have a series of empty boxes, about six to eight to be safe, including one special box set side - the temporary one-week box. For this gathering session only this one-week box is where you put any unprocessed item you need to deal with or access during the next week.

Principle: “Everything has a home, and no visitors allowed”

Take everything that is unprocessed into the giant inbox, start from desk:

• sticky notes: Sticky notes are good for one thing and one thing only - making notes for someone else. You will use calendar for yourself
• pens, scissors, notepads…

Principle for homes:

• Things that you use multiple times a day, you may want to be able to have them right at hand.
• Things that you maybe use once a week you want to have at some place like the drawers.
• Things that you use less than once a month, you can have them out of the room

It’s stressful and draining to see the mess on your desk. Always, when you see something out of place you put it in the inbox. This will avoid alot of switching cost in the future.

Compare this to the “binge and purge organization”, where people allow the disorder to grow until they say, “I can’t take it anymore”, and then they take a whole day to organize. This repeats over and over, and it’s time-consuming and stressful.

As you’re gathering, keep telling yourself, “Everything has a home, no visitors allowed.” Any item that violates that rule, take it out and throw it in the inbox.

the steps

1. move all unprocessed items into one big inbox.
2. put any items that need to be dealt with or accessed in the next week into the temporary one-week inbox.
3. don’t throw anything away.
4. remove anything that is visiting in the wrong home. These are unprocessed items.
5. dump any miscellaneous drawers or files into the inbox. These are unprocessed items.
6. create more homes for items as necessary.
7. label homes as you create them

cultivate the habit of never putting anything unprocessed anywhere other than your inbox

Gathering elsewhere

The principle is the same “Everything has a home, and no visitors allowed”

• We need to cover every single area where you might have gathering points. we need to gather items from all of your existing gathering points. Please be absolutely thorough when it comes to gathering.
• Large items? make a note to deal with it later and put that note into one of your approved gathering points. This will save us some space and time during gathering.
• Any kind of aesthetic changes that you want to make to your office, anything that you see, write down a note and put it into an approved gathering point.
• After finishing up with the office, do you have any other gathering points to consider? car? home office? home? basement or garage? We also need to gather from those areas. Schedule some time in the future 30 to 60 days to do these.

Once you complete the entire gathering process for every aspect of your life, you’ll find that a strong habit has formed, and you’ll find it easier to avoid falling back into binge and purge organization.

When you put all of the unprocessed items into one place but don’t know what to do with it. Next chapter shows how to handle every single item in all of those boxes.

Understanding Processing

Intro Master the what, when where processing system

Processing is simply the act of deciding what the next step is to completing something, when you’re going to do it, and where its home is. What, when, where processing is at the heart of helping you master your time

One item at a time, no switch tasking. Ask the questions:

• what is the next step? what is the next step I must take to move this thing toward completion
• when will it be done?
• Where is it’s home?

for the first hour or so that you use this new system, ask yourself these questions out loud

After understanding how to ask these questions, we need to setup a processing schedule.

Rather than processing randomly throughout the day, we’re going to create a consistent schedule to go through this processing.

What is the next step? in depth

In summary

• when considering one unprocessed item, you ask yourself what the next step is, and stay focused until you decide on that step.
• If it isn’t something you want to be doing with your life, then disengage from it.
• Sometimes, the best step is to delegate it to someone else, and waiting is an action which may be appropriate. Waiting -> the question of when.

Take the time to think, don’t skip

Take the time to think about this and make a clear decision. It usually takes only five to ten seconds of mental effort to make a clear decision about what the next step is.

Sometimes people pick up an item and are uncertain in any way about the next step, they put it back in the box and skip over it to something easier. Please don’t do that. Hang in there, and maintain focus on answering this question: what is the next step?

Don’t worry about answering this question perfectly. Just give it your best guess.

Know to disengage and delegate

Once you’ve decided what the next step is, you may want to consider briefly, is this something I want to be doing with my life? It’s important to make a conscious choice. If the item you’re processing doesn’t line up with what you want out of life, disengage from it. Disengage means find a way to get out of it. Find someone else to fulfill the obligation, or just plain tell yourself, “I’m not going to spend any more time working on this thing”.

Perhaps, instead of disengaging completely, you want to delegate the action to someone else.

• Many of the steps you take, no matter how important they are, are better handled by others.
• Perhaps someone else is better qualified to do them
• or perhaps, it’s a more valuable use of someone else’s time, where your time is more valuable when spent focused elsewhere.

Sometimes you need to wait

Also, be aware that the next step may be waiting for, meaning you’re waiting for something to come to you. Waiting is an action, and is sometimes appropriate. Waiting is especially appropriate if you delegate that step to someone else. I remember this concept with a little rule of thumb: a delegate out is a waiting for in. Whenever you delegate, create a step for yourself, reminding you that you’re waiting for them to complete it. The next processing question, “When will it be done?”, will help you determine how long to wait.

When will it be done

When: when to do that step you decided to do.

In summary

• be specific when answering the when will it be done question
• To determine when is the best:
  • do it now if it can be done in five minutes or less
  • calendar it if it will take more than 15 minutes or is time sensitive
  • use a task reminder for everything else
• group repetitive tasks
• leave space between appointments.

Be specific

While determining the “when” for your action step be specific. Decide on both the date and the time.

When is best:

1. if the item can be done in 5 minutes or less do it right then, do it now.
   • Why five minutes? The switching cost alone is at least two to three minutes, so if something can be done in five minutes or less just do it now.
2. calendar the item if it will take more than 15 minutes, or if it is time sensitive. If something takes more than 15 minutes, even if it doesn’t have a deadline, and even if it’s of minor importance, it must be budgeted in a calendar.
   • Why?
     • something that long isn’t going to fit quickly into a busy day. We have to reserve some space in advance, or budget to get it done. Otherwise it will just get pushed off into the future over and over.
     • if the step is time sensitive, you also need to put that in your calendar.
   • Your calendar is a solid, firm commitment of how you’re going to spend your time.

In general, if you’re processing properly, most everything will either be done now or end up on your calendar.

1. everything else belongs on the task reminder list. Everything else refers to steps that take between five and 15 minutes and aren’t time sensitive. The task reminder list, is most effective when used for short, brief, and flexible actions. Typically the minority of the items you process will end up here. If the calendar is solid the task reminder list is fluid. Use the task reminder list to remind you of possible dates and times when you’re going to take action steps. If you don’t perform the task at that specific time you can snooze, or reschedule the reminder.

recurring appointment

Another tip for when will it be done is that you may find it helpful to group repetitive tasks. have a recurring appointment in the calendar. Grouping repetitive tasks can be an efficient way to get in the groove and accomplish many things of the same type efficiently.

Leave buffer

Another rule of thumb, leave buffer space between appointments. In general leave at least 10 minutes of buffer space for every scheduled hour. So if you have a two hour appointment, that means you’re going to need to leave 20 minutes of buffer space after the appointment. Leaving buffer space will leave enough room for you to stay on top of unexpected interruptions and give you time to prepare for your next appointment. This helps with stress too.

Where is its home

you need to decide where you’re going to put this physical or digital item you’ve been processing, and possibly where you need to be to perform the next step.

In the next video, we’ll discuss how and where to file. In this video, I want to cover some helpful rules of thumb.

In summary

when you’re answering the “Where is its home” processing question

• “Everything has a home, and no visitors allowed.”
• With physical items, “When it doubt, throw it out.” With digital items, “When in doubt, keep it.”
• Keep all contacts in one central location
• Categorize all your task and calendar items if that helps you be more efficient

In the end, we want to be able to put things away quickly, and find them just as quickly.

Rule of thumbs

1. remember this phrase. “Everything has a home, and no visitors allowed.”
   • This means that items of similar type should be grouped together, and kept separate from everything else. This makes it much more efficient and easy to find things and put things away in the future.
   • What kind of home should you use? Well, you can use things like folders, boxes, trays, shelves. The tool you use can be flexible, as long as you create clear boundaries between different items, and don’t mix them together.
2. what if you think you need to throw the item out? So when it comes to physical, “When in doubt, throw it out.” When it comes to digital, “When in doubt, keep it.”
3. where you keep the information of all the contacts you have, such as phone numbers, emails, addresses, and so on The rule is to keep them all in one place that you can access at any time use a service that syncs the data continuously, and makes it easier to share with others.
4. One optional suggestion of the Where question of processing, includes categorizing tasks and calendar items.
   • Some people have found it helpful to categorize items in their calendar, and task reminder list.
   • This is especially useful if you work at multiple locations, or meet with a variety of individuals. This makes it easy to find them, depending on the context of where you are at the time.
   • You could also use a category for recurring meetings. For instance, if I have a regular meeting with Susan, every single week at 10 o’clock, if I put all the items I need to discuss with her in my task list under the category of “One to One Susan,” then when I go to the meeting with Susan, I can pull open the list, and there they all are in one place.

Paper filing

how to simplify and speed up the process of basic paper filing. This is not quite relevant for me today. Copying this for future reference.

Non-financial

First, when filing non-financial documents use a simple alphabetical system. Set up hanging file folders and label each file folder alphabetically. You can usually purchase hanging file folders in groups of 25. One short of the full alphabet. So if you find yourself a folder short combine the letters X and Y which brings you to a total of 25 file hanging folders. Whenever you have some new document that you need to file pull out a manila folder write on the manila folder what you’re going to put in there and then put that piece of paper in the folder. Use a manila folder rather than putting items directly into the hanging file folder. This will make it easier to retrieve the items in the future.

So let’s take an example with this piece of paper. This is a poem that I really enjoy. This is an inspirational quote. I might want to copy this and share it in a meeting or just refer back to it. Where do I file this piece of paper? Well, I simply file it under the first letter that comes to mind. So if I think of P for poems then I pull out a manila folder write poems on it stick the poem in there and then put it under P for poems. Now perhaps Q might come to your mind for quotes so you put it under Q for quotes. What letter you choose doesn’t really matter. And that’s part of the simplicity of this system. Just write down the first thing that comes to mind stick the papers in and then put the manila folder into the hanging file folder. This system works very well for any miscellaneous type of document that you have.

But what if we have a client? If it’s just a few putting them in the main filing system is enough. But if you have many many clients then you may need a set of alphabetical files reserved for that category. Clients. Or vendors. Or any other category where you have large number of one particular type of file. Then, using the client example whenever you file a client folder away you put it in there according to alphabetical order. So for instance here is a document from the Explorer California Company. So I’ll pull out a manila folder I already had created for them in my client files under E. I’ll stick the document in that manila folder put it back and I’m done.

Financial documents

What about financial documents, though?

• If you work in a larger company there probably already is a well established accounting filing system. So just use what’s in place.
• For an individual working out of a home office or a small business create a set of 12 file folders. One for each month of the year. Then whenever you receive a statement or receipt any financial document put it into the month in which it was dated. If there wasn’t a date file it within the month you received it. This simple system works well for home-based businesses service professionals or just personal finance. To be safe you’ll want to keep those records for at least seven years. So create a new set of 12 month folders for each new year. Using a simple system like this will make it fast as possible to file documents and simple to find them again when needed. Now let’s discuss how to handle filing documents on your computer.

Digital filing

when it comes to digital items, when in doubt, keep them. But you may be wondering how to organize it all.

Six fairly universal principles for digital organization regardless of the tool you use. This applies to everything except e-mail, which will be covered later separately.

1. if you’re using a computer that contains both personal and work files, create two main folders; personal and work. This initial separation will make it easier to store items and find them later.
2. create broad categories within these folders. For instance, under my Work folder; I have legal, marketing, financial, sales, speaking, and so on.
3. you may create one more layer of subfolders. There’s no one right or wrong way to create these folders, just use folder names and subcategories that are meaningful to you.

To summarize the above: have three layers of folders and no more. First, personal versus work. Then, broad categories. Then, subcategories. I recommend you not go any deeper than this. Otherwise, you give yourself too much work trying to sort and organize things, which is really not necessary in today’s age of ever more effective search engines.

1. Once you’ve created the basic structure, then you’ll have one folder name that you’ll include in every subfolder you create called old. This is where you move older versions of files that you no longer are actively using. This allows you to recover old information and archive it quickly to make space. For instance, when I create a new version of my slides for my focused business speech, you notice that I move the older version into the old folder. Now it’s not lost but it’s no longer cluttering up the main subfolder.

2. Name different versions of the same files with year, month, day. This leads to the file naming itself. I recommend that to avoid confusion, you save each new version under a new name. The easiest way I found to do this is with the year, month, day convention. Sometimes shown as this. Not only does this make it easy to create a new file version and not worry about making sure I’m calling it by the right version number but it comes in handy when viewing files sorted alphanumerically because it brings the newest version to the top. Then, after creating the new version or when I see an older version, I can drag and drop it into the old folder.

3. One final tip, make sure all of your files have automatic back-ups. There are many ways to accomplish this and software and hardware tools become outdated frequently. I’ll just say, find a tool that you’re comfortable with, that creates off-site back-ups of your files without you having to think about it. That way, even if your computer is completely destroyed, all you have to do is re-sync with your tool and in a matter of a day or two, all of your files will return.

Processing your first inbox PRACTICING

Practicing and make what, when, where processing become second nature to you In the beginning, just take your time, be patient and repeat with one item at a time until it becomes automatic.

During the gathering video, I asked you to separate, into one box, any items that need to be dealt with this week. We’re going to begin practicing with this temporary one week box. I’m going to give you a few examples of how this is done.

• First, I pick up one item out of the gathering point. It’s an offer for a credit card.
  • I ask myself the question, what is the next step? So I pause to consider it. In this case, do I need a credit card? No. I don’t need another credit card. So, I’m going to throw it away, that’s the next step.
  • When will it be done? Well, I’m going to do it now.
  • where is it’s home? I want to be safe with my identity, so I’m going to throw it into a plastic slot that I’ve set aside and labeled for shredding. I have time set aside monthly for shredding. What I just did may seem very slow for something that seemed obvious to you. Keep in mind that repetition is a powerful teacher. So, even on obvious items, ask yourself the what, when, where questions.
• Let’s pick up one more item, a bank statement. What’s the next step? Well, the next step is, I need to review it and make sure there aren’t any strange charges on it. When will that step be done? Can I do it in five minutes or less? Yes, in this case I can do it in five minutes or less so there’s no need to schedule it. No need to even pull out my calendaring system. So, I’m going to take it out and look at it. Where is its home? When I’m doing this step, its home is right here in my hands. So I’m going to go ahead and do it right now.
  • Oh great, it looks good. Am I done, yet? I reviewed it and everything looks good, so I processed the item, right? Not yet, because there are still more steps until its complete. I need to process it again, right now, by repeating the what, when, where questions. What’s the next step? Now the next step is I need to file it. When will it be done? I can definitely file it in five minutes or less, so I’m going to do it now. Where is its home? Well, its home is right here in the financial files that I set up for the month of January. So I stick it in the month of January, and I’m done with that.
• Now let’s take an item that’s a little bit more complex, that requires a little more action on my part than just filing something or throwing it away. I have a note here for myself, to follow up with Bob Jones. He was interested in receiving coaching and wanted me to follow-up in three to four months.
  • So, what’s the next step? The next step is, I need to send him an email about this.
  • When will it be done? Three to four months from now. That’s pretty flexible; can I do it now? No, I can’t do it now. Should I calendar it or task it? Will it take me more than 15 minutes, or is it time sensitive? Its completion date is flexible, and I doubt that sending an email will take more than several minutes. So, this belongs in the task reminder list. I’m going to create a task reminder to e-mail Bob Jones. Let’s open this up on the computer screen so you can see it. I’m using Google calendar right now, but most any program that can create automatic reminders can handle this.
    • First, I’m going to create a secondary calendar, just for task reminders. These are not firm commitments on my schedule, but just reminders of when I’m most likely to do them. Within this calendar, I’m going to set a pop-up notification to occur for anything I put in, zero minutes before it happens. Meaning, right on that time. I could also add e-mail or phone notifications if I preferred those to the pop-up. Then, I create an appointment to contact Bob Jones. Down in the description box, I could put some notes to remind me about our conversation, if I want. And then I’m going to put the time and the date on which I think I’ll contact him.
  • Now, for the last question of processing, I have a what, I have a when, but now I need a where. Where is its home? Well, for the piece of paper that I’m holding, the home is the trash can, I don’t need it, and when in doubt, if physical, throw it out.
• Let’s do another quick example so I can show you how to use the calendar. Right here I have a pile of thank-you cards. These thank-you cards are for people who hired me to speak for their company last month. Let’s process it. What is the next step? Now, I need to write a handwritten note for each one of these clients, and I have several cards. When will it be done? Can I do this in five minutes or less? No, because I want to write a thoughtful note to each client. in fact, it will probably take me about thirty minutes. Because it’s going to take me over 15 minutes, I know immediately this step has to go to the calendar. Most items you process will end up on your calendar. I open up my calendar to set a time. Again, while you see me using Google Calendar, any calendaring program has this ability. I’m going to set a time in my calendar to complete these thank-you cards next week, on Thursday, at 9 A.M. That should give me plenty of time to go through and write thoughtful notes. I also want to look at my calendar and make sure there is plenty of buffer space on either side of this, and that I’m not cramming it in, and Thursday at nine looks good. I’ve got at least a half an hour of space on either side of this, which is more than enough. Now that that’s scheduled, I ask myself the last processing question, where is its home? I still have these cards, right? So, I pull out a manilla folder, label it, “Thank-you Cards,” put the cards in, file it under “T” in the Miscellaneous Folders, and I’m done.

I’ve processed the item, and it’s complete. Now, it’s your turn. Please pause this course, and begin processing items from your inbox one at a time. Spend at least one hour practicing with the existing items that you have. This will help make this processing system become second nature to you. Conditioning your mind to get faster and faster at what, when, where processing.

Setting your processing schedule

Target: bring each of your six approved gathering points to zero at least once per week. In fact, you’ll always be processing. Not all at the same time, but each of them to zero at least one moment per week. Steps

• Recommended weekly allowance of processing is 5 hours a week.
• Best time for your recurring processing schedule consider the times at which you’re least likely to be interrupted
• Incidentally, I recommend you don’t schedule in increments of less than one hour of time. Why? Because I found that most people get into a productive processing rhythm at about the 25 to 30 minute mark. Schedule at minimum one hour at a time to make the most of that rhythm. You can even schedule entire chunks of time, such as five hours of processing in a day.

Reason? Instead of doing this haphazardly throughout the day, back and forth, all over the place. This system is asking you to spend less processing time, but do it in a focused way. This leaves us much more time for doing the work and performing tasks. Now it’s up to you to decide what schedule you want to try first.

Action Pause now to schedule your recurring processing.

The backlog: schedule time for backlogs

We’re almost done with scheduling your processing, but not completely. What about the backlog, in particular, the backlog of all those boxes. During the gathering process you may have finished with many boxes, perhaps dozens. The average person ends up with about four backlog boxes. Also if you completed the mind clearing exercise you may have gathered dozens of incomplete tasks that were floating around in your head. No matter how many boxes and incomplete tasks you have you’ll need to schedule extra time for processing, just this once. In general, scheduling 1 extra hour per large unfinished box and 1 hour for every 30 unresolved tasks you gathered from your mind. This means that if you had five boxes beyond your normal inbox and 60 unresolved tasks you’ll have to schedule an extra eight hours of processing. You don’t need to go through it all now, or even next week, but try to schedule this to occur as soon as is reasonable for your schedule. A good target to aim for is completing this backlog processing within the next month. I’ve seen first hand that many of my clients have had a liberating experience when they bring the backlog of inboxes to zero for the first time. It’s so helpful and powerful, and I want you to experience it. So please, once this video stops, go to your calendar immediately and schedule extra time for your backlog of large inbox processing.

9 Processing Email

Applying what, when, where processing to email

What, when, where processing is when you take one item at a time from one of your approved gathering points and answer the questions

• what is the next step?
• When will it be done?
• where is its home?

Your goal in processing your email is the same as your goal in processing your physical inbox. Bring it to 0, meaning completely empty, at least, once per week.

Antin-pattern

• Some people keep emails in their inbox to serve as reminders of things they need to do, items that are unresolved. Don’t use them as reminders
• Some keep email in their inbox because they’re worried about losing them. Don’t keep them out of fear of losing
• Other people depend on unread or bold emails to let them know of emails that they haven’t answered yet. Don’t use them as triggers

These habits make it unnecessarily difficult to find things. They also hurt your focus because when you scan a list of emails, it encourages switch tasking, the primary culprit behind the inefficiency that you’re feeling in your day.

Focus instead on the total count of emails in your inbox and set your target to bring your email inbox to 0. This will help you stay focused while working and reduce your stress overall. Reaching 0 weekly is very possible, and I’ll show you how to process and file processed email away quickly and easily.

Setting up an email archive folder

We can gain a lot of productivity by removing the little attention switches caused by a full inbox, that are chipping away at your time. To get this time gain, we need to set up a very quick and easy method for filing email.

When it comes to filing your emails, keep it simple. Use a single folder for everything you process. Just throw it into that archive. Then let the search engines do the work.

Don’t: No need to subcategorizing and putting emails into separate folders Email search engines are useful for retrieval.

Creating email rules or filters

Before how to process email, understand how to set up email filters, sometimes referred to as rules.

Email filters, or rules, are automatic features that deal with certain emails when they come in. The most basic example of this is a coupon email from your favorite business. Many people are afraid to sign up for coupons because they’re worried that it’s going to clog up their email inbox. I’ll show you what I do and why I sign up for every coupon site for vendors that I frequent regularly, and why it doesn’t affect my inbox at all.

Example: Here, we have a coupon from a local pizza place. I like to order pizza from them. And I’d like to be able to get coupons that I use regularly. So, what I’ll do on this email, is I’ll click on the drop down menu on the email, and select Filter Messages Like This. I can also create filters by highlighting an email, and clicking on the More button. You’ll see a popup window where I can create a wide variety of different rules for an email. If I get an email from a certain email address, if it’s sent to a certain email account, if it has certain words in the subject, and so on. There are more advanced options. But really, all we need is the most simple kind of rule, what email address did it come from? I’ll select the rule if I get an email from the pizza place, and I’m going to skip the inbox or, archive it. This means I’ll never see this type of email appear in my inbox. Now, I want to apply a label. Here it’s okay to create a new label, or if you’re using a program other than Gmail, a new folder other than Archive. I’ll do this for one reason: this is automatic filing. It requires no future effort on my part. Also, using a separate, pre-sorted folder saves time by making it easy for me to find these rule based emails when I need them again. So, I’m going to create a label called Coupons. I’ll check Also Apply Filter to Matching Messages to make sure it catches anything that may be in my inbox, and then click Create Filter. It searches the email inbox, archives any applicable messages, and applies the Coupons label I created. This makes it very, very easy for me in the future if I ever need to buy something. I can just click on the Coupons folder, or I can search for the email by the pizza company, and find it very quickly to get the discounts or the best deals.

You can apply these same kinds of rules for all sorts of informational emails that you get, such as newsletters and software updates. I once worked with a mortgage company, that would get rate updates multiple times throughout the day. So we created a rule to put any email like that into a Daily Rate Update folder. It freed up the inbox, but still gave them instant access to the information when they needed it.

Now, an important caution. Avoid setting a rule for an email where you may have to process it manually ever. Otherwise, you may accidentally create another email gathering point. The only place you should ever need to check email is your inbox. Example. Let’s say your favorite aunt has the habit of sending you funny pictures and stories a lot. Be careful about creating a rule for her, because if she does send you something, and it does have actionable information, such as a family get together, then you may miss out on it. Remember, when you set a rule for an email, you’re telling the computer to automatically answer all of the “what, when, where” processing questions for you.

• What’s the next step? Store the email.
• When will it be done? Right now.
• Where is its home? The folder.

It handles all of that automatically for you, so be cautious. Filters and rules, when used properly, can save you valuable time and make processing even easier.

Processing an email walk-through

A brief walk-through.

• The first email is a newsletter that I want to receive. I’m going to ask myself
  • what is the next step? The next step is to create the rule.
  • When will it be done? Right now. Because it’s five minutes or less.
  • Where is its home? Let’s answer that by creating a filter. I’ll click on More and select Filter messages like this. I’ll select whenever it’s an email from this address create the filter Skip the inbox, and then I’ll create a label called “Newsletters”. I’ll select Also apply filter to matching messages.
• Here’s an email from Judy asking if I can attend an appointment next week. So I ask myself the question
  • what is the next step? The next step is I check my calendar and see if I’m available.
  • When will it be done? Well, I can check my calendar in five minutes or less, so I open up my calendar and take a look. The time she suggested will not work for me, I have a conflict. So I need to start the processing system over again.
  • What’s the next step? Send a reply to them proposing a new time.
  • When will it be done? Well, it can be done now because it can be done in five minutes or less.
  • Where is its home? When I’m done with it I’ll put it in the archive.
  • So, I send a reply saying, “Here is the time that I’ll be available.” And then I hit Send, and now I’m done with that email, so I click Archive. By the way, there’s also a Send and archive button in Gmail, which is a handy option to reduce clicks.
  • Before I do that, let’s imagine it’s really important that I have this meeting with Judy. Let’s say that I have to follow up and make sure that the meeting takes place. In that case there is a next step after this, right? So, what I’m going to do is take this email and create a task reminder for myself by copying and pasting the details from the email into the task reminder calendar I created. Remember this is not my actual calendar, this is just a place to put reminders for things I need to do in the future or follow up on. So, I copy all the information from the email and then I click on the calendar, select the task remider calendar and go into Edit event. In the detail section, I can post the email in case I need a reminder as to what this is about. Then I type in a subject line “Waiting for Judy’s reply on the meeting” and save the reminder.
  • Finally, I have to answer “Where is its home?” And since I’m done with the email I click Archive, and I’m done. Now I don’t have to worry about it anymore; the computer will do all the reminding for me.
• Let’s do one more quick example dealing with scheduling some work for myself. Here is an email with someone telling me that I need to visit this site to learn more information and see if this is a service we want to use. So, I ask myself
  • what’s the next step? It’s to visit the site.
  • When will it be done? Let’s say this is something that I really want to give some good thought to. I may spend 30 minutes looking at the site and really analyzing it carefully. So, in this case the “when will it be done?” must be calendared. Why? Because since it will take over 15 minutes I must budget time for this step. So, I copy the email, then I open up the calendar window, and create a new appointment, and paste the email info into the details. So, I’m going to schedule this time for 30 minutes making sure that I have buffer space on either side, because I don’t want to schedule myself too tightly. If I wanted to, I could colour-categorize this to identify the kind of work I’m doing, but that’s optional.
  • Finally, where is its home? All processed email, except for obvious deletions, go into the archive. I click Archive, and I’m done.

Processing email is very similar to processing physical items. The medium and the tool you’re using is different, yet the principle stays exactly the same. Now is the time for you to begin building mental muscle memory of the “what, when, where” processing system. As soon as this video ends, I recommend you spend at least one hour practicing the training I just gave you. It’s your turn to put these principles into practice. Give it a good hour, and you’ll begin to cultivate lasting habits.

Processing email vs. checking email

• At this point you should have spent at least one hour processing your email to build mental muscle memory. If after processing email for an hour you still have many unprocessed emails, you’re going to need to schedule extra time for processing the backlog. Remember, during processing time your goal is to bring your email inbox to zero, empty, at least once per week. We may need to do a little catch-up first though.

Typically, by scheduling one hour per 100 unprocessed emails you can gradually chip away of the pile. It might take you less than that time, but it’s always better to overestimate how long things take.

Incidentally, if you have over 1,000 emails in your inbox I first recommend that you take everything older than two months and just archive them first, before scheduling your extra email processing time. That will make this a bit more manageable for you.

• In Gmail you can find those emails by searching for Before: full year/month/day. For instance, Before: 2015/12/01. Then select All, then select All messages that match this search, then click Archive.

Right now go ahead and schedule some time to process the backlog of email, one hour per 100 of your inbox items.

processing email vs checking email

At this point in the training you should have already established a regular processing time, starting at five hours per week, and you should have that time set up in your schedule. This should be enough for most people to bring all their gathering points to zero using the “what, when, where” processing system.

But what about the emails that arrive in your inbox inbetween your scheduled processing. What if you feel you need to check your email more often?

• Processing email is the act of deciding what is the next step, when will it be done, and where is its home.
• Checking email is slightly different. It’s just looking at your email and deciding if there’s anything that needs to be dealt with right now and can’t wait until your scheduled processing time.

I’ll show you on the screen what I mean. Let’s say it’s been a few hours since I’ve processed and I have accumulated new email. I want to have a regularly scheduled time to check my email, maybe 15 minutes two times a day, at noon and at 4 o’clock. During this checking time I’m going to just simply scan through the emails and ask myself one question: can this wait until my scheduled processing time? If it can wait until my scheduled processing time, I’m going to leave it alone. I look at this one. Can it wait until my scheduled processing time?

• Yes. But this next email, can it wait until my scheduled processing time?
• No. If I have one like that, then I immediately go into processing that email. What’s the next step? When will it be done? And where is its home? I process the email.

In brief, it’s okay to check email and it’s okay to process email that’s urgent and cannot wait until my regularly scheduled processing time. However, be careful not to check email continually, or you’ll fall back into a very inefficient habit of switch-tasking. Instead of leaving your email window open all day long have a regularly scheduled time to check your email. The specific times and frequency don’t matter, just as long as it’s scheduled. The schedule depends a great deal on your job description and what industry you’re in.

If you’re having a hard time coming up with the checking schedule that will work, I would say three times a day: beginning of the day, middle of the day and end of the day. Schedule only about 15 minutes per checking time. This will force you to deal with only the urgent issues, only the ones that need to be dealt with today, and get you in the habit of putting off anything else until your regularly scheduled processing time. Please take a moment now and choose an email checking schedule that makes sense for you.

10 Your Time Budgeter

Understanding “work time” vs. “you time”

The first step to creating a time budget is to understand the difference between “you” time and “work” time.

When people experience challenges with work-life balance and time management in general, it’s often because they don’t make a clear distinction between the two.

To be accurate, think of work time as including

• time spent working
• travel time to and from work
• time spent thinking about work while at home or away from the office.

It’s usually that last part of the definition, the time spent thinking about work that causes some people people to pause and think. If you’re paid to use your mind at work, if you’re thinking about work, regardless of where you are, are you not working? I would say yes.

Example. I worked with a CEO and helped her estimate where she was spending her time. She accounted for approximately 190 hours of activity in a 168 hour total week, which of course is physically impossible. We analyzed her time estimates, and she realized most evenings she thought she was spending time with her family but she was really spending time in the presence of her family, focused on doing stock research. In other words, she was in work time, not you time or family time.

Estimate your work time

Take a moment to estimate how many hours you believe you spend working in an average week. Include:

• travel time to and from work
• time spent thinking about work while at home. Write down your answer. For this discussion, think of anything related to work as work time, whether you’re doing work, thinking about work, whether you have multiple jobs or you’re working two businesses. It’s all work.

Everything else is considered you time, including recreation time, sleep time, eating time, and family time. That way we can keep the discussion clear between the two.

Got your answer written down? Good, let’s move on. To stay productive and balanced, it’s helpful to establish a boundary line in your schedule between work time and you time. Many people, particularly those who are inherently very driven, adopt the attitude that they’ll work until work gets done. They’ll work however late is necessary to complete projects. This may lead someone to work late hours, 8 o’clock, 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock, or past midnight, believing they’re a hard worker and being more productive. But the reality is, while you may be able to be successful to a degree by working long hours, you can be even more successful and productive by stopping at a set time each day. When you clearly define a finish line in your day that says, “I will not cross this line between work time and you time,” it forces you to be more efficient with your time budget. It forces you to evaluate your personal systems and make wise decisions about how you use the scarce resource of your time.

Remember, time will always fill up the space you give it. If you allow too much time for things to take place, you’ll automatically fill up that space. Rather than giving yourself a blank check to an endless amount of time, give yourself a boundary line, a budget, to work with. You’ll find that you can get just as much done, but you’ll be more efficient.

Action Item: Right now, take a moment to look at your calendar and create that boundary line. Make a commitment of the time you’re going to stop work and focus on you time. There’s no right or wrong answer here. Other than just start somewhere, and don’t make it too difficult. If you’ve been in the habit of working until 9- or 10 o’clock at night, try to create a line at perhaps 8:30. Or if you want to stop working on the weekends, commit that weekends are off-limits, beginning at 5 o’clock on Friday. Then, open up your calendar and make a brief, recurring appointment that says, “Work time ends.” Establishing this boundary line in your calendar will get you started on the path of greater balance and improved productivity.

Establishing the most valuable activities

Of all the different activities that you perform, only a couple of them are truly the most valuable in terms of work time.

We can very clearly put a value on what it would cost us to replace certain work activities. To keep this simple, let’s measure the value of an activity by the amount of money that you would pay someone else to perform the same task at the same quality.:

• most valuable activities(MVA)activities you excel at, the ones that would cost you the most per hour to pay someone else to do, the top two, would be your
• less valuable activities(LVA) All the other activities that you do during work time other than those two MVAs are your

Most people are likely spending the majority of your work time in these very low value, low impact LVAs.

When I speak to executives, I’ll sometimes do an on the spot poll and ask the audience how much time they’re spending on their top two most valuable activities. And consistently I find the average executive spends less than 20% of their time in their most valuable activities. This is significant, because what it means is that while they have the capacity to do work that is worth perhaps several hundred dollars per hour instead, they’re choosing to spend the majority of their time on activities that are worth much, much less.

In order to achieve maximum results during the limited amount of work time you have each week, you’ll want to focus the majority of your time on your most valuable activities.

• In this next section, I’ll take you through a process that helps you discover your top two MVAs.
• And then, we’ll create a time budget to ensure you spend appropriate amounts of time in them each week.

Action Item: Identifying your most valuable activities

Identify your top two most valuable activities, your MVAs. Use handout in to help you with this process.

1. list all your activities

On this simple chart, list all the different activities that you perform. You’ll see I’ve already added two activities for you in the handout.

• The first is travel, meaning “travel time to and from work”
• The second is wasting time, meaning “choosing to waste time at work”, such as viewing social media sites, or spending excessive time gossiping with coworkers. Hey, we all waste a little time, right?
• Begin now and list the other activities that you perform during work. For example, managing employees, calling for sales, marketing, writing press releases, booking travel or janitorial tasks.

Think of them as mini positions. Imagine yourself wearing many different hats, each of them representing the position, and every time that you have to switch hats that would be a different activity. Go ahead and list as many of those activities as you can think of in the first column. Pause the video right now to make this list, then come back when you’re done. Now that you’ve created a list of activities, let’s move on.

2 list estimated annual salary for each position

In the second column, next to each of those positions that you listed, write what you guess is an average annual salary for someone on that job assuming you hire them full-time. Go ahead and write that number down in the column next to it. If you don’t have any idea about the annual salary you could use a search engine to look up salary information. However, don’t be too particular about it. Just give your best guess on the number and write it down. We’re looking for rough numbers here, not perfection. Go ahead and pause the video while you list the estimated annual salary for each of these many positions.

3 Calculate

Now that you’ve listed the activities you perform and their estimated annual salary, it’s time for some simple math to determine the estimated hourly wage. Use a calculator and divide the annual salary by 2,080, the average number of work hours in a year. You’ll end up with a rough estimate of the hourly wage for each of those activities. Go ahead and pause the video now to complete this column.

4 Rank the activities.

Finally, the last step is to rank the different activities according to their value per hour, one being the highest. The first two that I gave you are travelling and wasting time; these are both worth zero, absolutely nothing. So, wait to rank them until the end as they’ll be dead last. Once you’ve created a rank for all these different activities, you’ll be able to easily identify your top two most valuable activities. These two MVAs are worth the most in your workday, are

• the most difficult to replace and
• bring the most bottom line impact both to your company and your career

Now, let’s explore how we can focus time on these activities.

Budgeting time for your most valuable activities

Once you’ve identified your top two most valuable activities, it’s time for us to open the calendar, and create a time budget.

What is a time budget

The time budget is different than your normal working calendar. You’re not actually going to schedule anything into this time budget. Instead, you’ll use it as a tool and a frame of reference.

Step 1 create a new calendar

Many calendaring systems allow you to create multiple calendars, and compare them side by side. In Google Calendar, I’m going to click on the drop-down menu next to my calendars, and select Create new calendar. I’m going to name this new calendar, “Time Budget”, and jump to the bottom, and click Create Calendar.

Allocate time for your most valuable activities

This is where I’ll create a time budget for my top two most valuable activities. How much time should you spend in each of your most valuable activities? It’s up to your judgement. Choose an amount of time that’s reasonable for your career and your industry. However much time you’re spending on your MVA’s right now, try to budget a little more time, stretch yourself. I recommend you strive to spend at least 40% of your total work time in just those two most valuable activities

• For most people, this would be a significant improvement, as the average executive is spending less than 20% of their time in their most valuable activities.
• For example, that I identified my two most valuable activities as writing, and developing business systems. So, I’m going to set aside time in my calendar to devote to just these two activities.
  • First, let’s do writing. I find that Fridays are typically slow days. Most people are too busy to talk with me during those days, because they’re winding up for the end of the week. I also find my thinking is more clear earlier in the day, so I’m going to schedule hours on Friday, beginning in the morning, to devote to writing. Let’s say that my work time budget is 40 hours a week. So, if I took 40% of that, that’s 16 hours. I’m going to split my writing, and business systems time in half. So that’s going to be eight hours to each of them. That means, I need to schedule eight hours for writing. And I’m going to set aside my entire Friday for writing.
  • Next, I’ll create a time budget for my second most valuable activity, which is, developing business systems. Again, I need to schedule eight hours per week to this budget. I don’t want to devote an entire day to this, I’d rather spread it out a little bit, so I’m going to spend part of my day on Wednesday, and part of my day on Thursday working on business systems.

Now, I created my time budget, but how do I use it? I use it as a guide when answering the “When will I do it?” question, in the “what, when, where” processing system.

• I want to try to schedule tasks and projects related to these most valuable activities in those time slots I just budgeted.
• I also want to avoid scheduling anything else during those time slots, because they should be protected.

One final note about using the time budgeter. Some of my clients find it helpful to also budget time for one, or two of their least valuable activities, their LVA’s. Why would we want to do that? Because we want to limit the amount of time that we’re spending on those activities. By using the time budget for our least valuable activities, and creating a small window of time for them, it forces us to constrain the amount of time that we’re going to devote to those activities.

Use this new time budget as a guide post to ensure you spend sufficient time in your most valuable activities each week. It can also help you avoid, allowing your schedule to get filled up with many less valuable activities.

Using your time budgeter

Now that you’ve created a time budgeter for your most valuable activities, I’d like to take you through a few examples of how you can use it effectively. Watch how I use the time budgeter as a tool to help me answer the “when will it be done?” question of the “what, when, where” processing system.

For example, let’s suppose I am about to process a note I wrote down, reminding me to create a system to train Cameron on how to better manage employees. What’s the next step? The next step is I’m going to pull out my system’s template and begin writing. When will it be done? This is definitely going to take me longer than 15 minutes, so I know it has to go to the calendar. I think it will probably take me 90 minutes. I then refer to my time budget calendar which shows me the best time to complete this type of activity. So, I find the time that I budgeted on Wednesday afternoon to write systems and I schedule those 90 minutes there - in my actual calendar, not my time budget.

Let’s try another example. Let’s say I have an idea or an opportunity to write an article for a newspaper. Writing is one of my most valuable activities. So, what is the next step? I’m going to brainstorm ideas for the article. When will it be done? Well, let’s say it’s going to take me 30 minutes to brainstorm. I scheduled Friday as my writing time budget. So I’m going to schedule 30 minutes in my calendar during that writing time budget. Having the time budget makes it easy for me to figure out where to put things.

What if I’m processing an item that isn’t my most valuable activity; it’s an LVA, or a least valuable activity. Let’s say my accountant sent me an email that says we need to review my finances for last year. It’s important, but not one of my top two most valuable activities. My accountant in his email asks me if I can schedule the meeting on Friday at 10 o’clock during the time I budgeted for writing. You’ll have situations like this where you’ll be tempted to schedule less valuable activities on top of your time budget for your most valuable activities. Don’t do it! Just because someone proposed a meeting time to you does not mean you have to respond to the first option they give you. So, I reply back to my accountant and say, “I’m not available Friday at 10 o’clock. “Can we meet on…” and I look at my calendar, and find a place where I don’t have any conflicts on my time budget. Monday morning looks good. So I send an email, “Can we meet on Monday at 11 instead?” For some, protecting your time budget might not be a challenge. For everyone else, for those of you who have the tendency to say yes too quickly, use your time budget as a guide. Refer back to it before making a scheduled commitment, whether you’re responding to a meeting request, or you’re scheduling work for yourself to do. Protect your most valuable activities and you’ll increase the value of your time.

Conclusion

Maintaining your productivity gains

Congratulations on completing the Time Management Fundamentals course. We’ve covered the program my clients have found invaluable to get the most from their time. My hope is that you’ll now experience the same benefit. My goal in this course was to introduce you to the principles of successful time management and productivity while not necessarily diving into specific software or tools. As long as you live correct principles, almost any product can work for you.

Specific softwares

If you’re interested in getting help with specific software programs or tools, there are courses on this site to help you master them. I recommend that you complete the specific courses for the software programs and products you intend to use for time management. As mentioned earlier, if you’re interested in getting a detailed walkthrough of how to use these principles with Microsoft Office products, be sure to check out my course on using Time Management Fundamentals with Microsoft Office.

Futher customize Time Management

Also, if you want help further customizing Time Management FUndamentals to your unique needs, take a look at Finding Your Time Management Style. This course assesses your tendencies and gives you specific recommendations for those tendencies. Learning how to better utilize your chosen tools will maximize your chance of success, especially now that I’ve shown you the flexible fundamentals of time management.

review these videos

Also, I’d recommend that you create an action item for yourself to review the videos in this time management course every three months or so. We all get caught up in the chaos of working day to day, and our understanding of even the most basic principles will fade over time. By reviewing these videos regularly, you’ll increase the likelihood of your consistent success with time management. If you have specific questions about anything you learned here, you’re welcome to visit davecrenshaw.com. Go to my blog and ask questions in the comment section. I process and respond to all questions on my blog weekly. Thank you for allowing me to share these principles with you, and may you continue to be even more productive in the coming weeks and months.

Bonus Story

Dave Crenshaw on getting himself organized

So, before I got organized myself I was one of the most chaotic people you ever would meet. My wife can verify that. I was jumping all over the place, from career to career; my workspace was disorganized. You used to have to use a shovel to get from the front door of my office to my desk. It was extremely chaotic.

And the turning point for me is when I heard two words, and the two words were “I’m pregnant”. And as a young married man, those really opened my eyes. I realized suddenly I couldn’t just float around enjoying my day quite to the degree. I had to really think about the fact that here comes a new life into our family and I needed to provide for him.

And it was at that point that I went and saw a psychologist. He gave me a couple of tests, and at the end of the test he looked at and he said, “Has anyone ever talked to you about ADHD?” And I said, “Well, no, that’s not really me.” And he said, “You are off the charts ADHD. “If there were a fit standard deviation “you’d be in it. “I can say with 99.99% accuracy you’ve got it.” And that really opened my eyes.

I now had something to work on, a name and a face to a challenge, and I applied my background, which is actually an entrepreneurship in business systems. And I applied that mindset of systems to my very personal challenge of a lack of focus.

So I think the people who will benefit most from this course are people who are struggling with productivity or organization to some degree right now. What I call the “nomads”, the people who are inherently organized but got off track, or the “chaos masters”, the people who are inherently chaotic. It’s not to say that “focus masters”, people who are inherently organized and productive, can’t benefit from it. But I encourage people who are in that place - and boy, what a great blessing they have to be that organized - that they look at this course from the standpoint of how they can teach others to be that organized and that productive.

I’ve found there’s real power in having accountability. If I did not have a coach - and I have a business coach who follows up with me - I’d fall back into the old patterns. So, I report to him on a regular basis. The same numbers that I ask my clients to report to me I report to him, and he checks in on me every once in a while. I’ve seen lots of people who teach one thing and end up living something else, and I wanted to make sure that I was somebody who practiced what I preach.

So, while this certainly has a very direct impact on the workday, it helps people in their everyday life. Every day we have the opportunity to focus or not focus on friends and family. They want to talk to us. But if we’re in a state of switch-tasking where we’re constantly looking at our phones, or looking at something else and not focusing on them, in a real way we’re hurting that relationship. So, this program is also an opportunity to increase the power of the relationships that you have by better focusing on people.

What makes my day is hearing people who come to lynda.com, they go through the course, and then they’ll send me a nice message of something like “this has changed my life”, “I was out of control”, “I wasn’t able to focus”, “my career was going all over the place”, and that this course helped them get on track. That really makes my day. Also when I hear people who talk about how they’re better able to focus on relationships. That really is kind of an underlying bonus of going through this course, is the ability to improve the relationships with your family, with your loved ones. For me, in the end, being able to be there for your family and spend time with them is what this is all about.

My Notes

3 Principles:

• Space: As few gathering points as possible.
• Mind: Your mind is not a gathering point, keep it clear
• Time: create budget to spend time on those Most Valuable Activities, and set boundaries.

Gathering point: a place to gather unprocessed items. Keep the number down. Processing is not completing tasks.

Processing principle: Everything has a home, and no visitors allowed.

Unprocessed -> what, when, where -> processed

• what:
  • take the itme to think
  • disengage and delegate if necessary
  • Sometimes you need to wait: ask when will it be done.
• when:
  • be specific: date and time
    • now? if in 5 min or less
    • calendar it if it’s more than 15 min
    • use task reminder for everything else
  • group repetitive tasks
  • leave space between appointments
• where

Processing schedule: bring each of your six approved gathering points to zero at least once per week.

• 5 hr/week
• one hr at a time.

Cultivate the habit of clearing your mind immediately. Your mind is not an acceptable gathering point. Make your calendar a solid, firm commitment of how you’re going to spend your time. Use a perhaps list for intereted ideas that doesn’t have immediate impact.

TODO next to review: 9 Processing Email