If you’re like many – you’re always trying to find a way to get more done. Sometimes the key to getting more done, is to be pro-active about saving and protecting your time. Productivity Enterprise Expert Leslie Shreve shares useful, easy to implement advice for busy women professionals, entrepreneurs and women in business trying to optimize and maximize ROI on how their time is spent.
Leslie writes…
When I think of a saving and protecting time and how serious it is that you get more time for you, I think of calling for a Rescue Mission and then putting a Security detail on your time. Every minute that passes and you’re not paying attention to where your time goes it’s risking your productivity, peace of mind and success.
Don’t let time slip away to unsuspecting culprits. They’re sneaky and dangerous. And when you start to feel the effects of lost time and you’re unhappy, unsettled and unproductive, it’s time to try something different.
Here are 3 Rescue Missions to put into operation so you can save and protect more time…
Rescue your time from THINGS
Eliminate as many things as you can from your physical environment and free yourself from the burden and duties of being…
- A “THING Manager” – when things get in your way and cost you time.
- Or a “THING Detective” – when you can’t find your things… again… and have to go looking for them, costing you more time.
Make decisions about how useful your THINGS are to you and put useful THINGS in the same place every time by choosing a location that’s easy to reach. The less you have, the less you have to manage and the more time you’ll have for other pursuits and priorities.
Rescue your time from INDECISION
Clutter is unmade decisions. If you look around your office, will you see lots of unmade or deferred decisions piled up, stacked up or stashed in different (or strange) places?
Professionals can save an incredible amount of time just by making more decisions faster. Some professionals don’t know whether to keep things or not and don’t know how to make decisions about what’s useful to them. It’s even harder when you’re unclear about where things go, too, so having places for everything really helps.
Rescue your time from PAPER To-Do Lists
If you’re still using legal pads, spiral pads, steno pads, planners, Post-It notes and other paper to keep track of your to-dos, reminders, tasks and projects then you’re losing time, efficiency and, perhaps, opportunities.
A complete and electronic Task list (in your e-mail system) can represent your daily plan for every day, week or month into the future. If built properly and effectively, it can be an essential part of any professional’s day. It can save you loads of time, as well as help you avoid missed deadlines and opportunities. You can:
- Capture reminders and tasks quickly and easily into one trusted system.
- Reprioritize instantly all day, every day.
- Track everything so you’ll never have to guess what you should be working on, especially as compared to new or emergent issues.
- Move swiftly through your day, hit your priorities and feel good about what you’ve accomplished.
Be your own hero and start saving time and then protect it. You’ll keep losing time again and again unless you launch a more serious tactical approach to negotiating, saving and protecting your time. Because once it’s gone… it’s gone.
Leslie Shreve is MyCity4Her’s Productivity Enterprise Expert and the Founder & CEO of Productive Day. She is an author, speaker and consultant that helps people increase their productivity and get more done. You can find out more about Leslie by visiting her web site here.
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