First, ask yourself...
Do you ever go home at the end of the day, feeling like you didn't get enough accomplished?
Have you ever worked a 12-hour day or a 60 hour week, and then looked back and felt like "nothing got done?" I'm sure we can all recall times when this has happened. One of the main reasons for this is because we're not always efficient AND effective with our time.
To be efficient with our time means to get things done right. To be effective with our time means to get the right things done. With those definitions in mind, its easy to see how we might work "hard" all day and get a bunch of "tasks" accomplished (we are efficient), but if those tasks are not the ones we should even be working on in the first place, then we are NOT being effective- which leads to stress, frustration, and the feeling that we didn't get much done.
So how can we ensure this does not happen? Simple! Make sure our tasks are directly related to our ultimate goals. When the work that gets accomplished is meaningful and is moving us closer towards accomplishing a desired outcome or goal, we will feel much better about the time that was invested.
**This week's tip was taken from "Maximizing Productivity" which is the March session of The Compass Program. Click Here to view the schedule of all 12 sessions for The Compass Program.
Showing posts with label time management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label time management. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
How to Succeed in Challenging Situations
First, ask yourself...
Do you ever over-react to challenging situations, ultimately preventing yourself from moving on?
We face challenges every single day, some bigger than others. Often times, these challenges require us to formulate a response and then take action. Our reaction to these challenges will significantly influence the success we have in relation to the challenge moving forward. These challenges (also known as Key Moments) can be just about anything that require a response. Some examples can be an employee not turning in a report on time, not acquiring a new account we were hoping for, or even our top employee suddenly quitting because he/she took another job.
It's up to us to decide how to react in these situations. We can spend time being upset, or try to figure out a way through the problem. We can decide to only look at the immediate negatives, or choose to evaluate all of the long-term positives that could potentially come from the situation.
Just because you are faced with a challenge, or something doesn't go your way does not mean you must have a completely negative reaction towards it. It is important to learn from our experiences, and continue to push forward with a positive mindset to ensure we set ourselves up for the best possible result both now, and the next time something like this might occur.
**This week's tip was taken from "Being Positive & Resilient" which is the December session of The Compass Program. Click Here to view the schedule of all 12 sessions for The Compass Program.
Do you ever over-react to challenging situations, ultimately preventing yourself from moving on?
We face challenges every single day, some bigger than others. Often times, these challenges require us to formulate a response and then take action. Our reaction to these challenges will significantly influence the success we have in relation to the challenge moving forward. These challenges (also known as Key Moments) can be just about anything that require a response. Some examples can be an employee not turning in a report on time, not acquiring a new account we were hoping for, or even our top employee suddenly quitting because he/she took another job.
It's up to us to decide how to react in these situations. We can spend time being upset, or try to figure out a way through the problem. We can decide to only look at the immediate negatives, or choose to evaluate all of the long-term positives that could potentially come from the situation.
Just because you are faced with a challenge, or something doesn't go your way does not mean you must have a completely negative reaction towards it. It is important to learn from our experiences, and continue to push forward with a positive mindset to ensure we set ourselves up for the best possible result both now, and the next time something like this might occur.
**This week's tip was taken from "Being Positive & Resilient" which is the December session of The Compass Program. Click Here to view the schedule of all 12 sessions for The Compass Program.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Effective Time Management
First, ask yourself...
Do you have important tasks to get done that you never seem to get around to doing?
We have all done it before. We look at our to-do list on Monday, identify something important that we have been meaning to get done for a while (ex: "spend 3 hours to research and find an effective customer feedback survey"). We then realize the 8 million other things we HAVE to get done today, and automatically transfer the survey research task to Tuesday's to-do list. And what happens? You guessed it! Tuesday comes (this time 9 million things to do) and we transfer it to Wednesday, and so on, and so on.
For many reasons, it can be difficult to make time for those important activities. The problem is, it is those activities that will ultimately help us free up MORE time in the future (using the above example, if we could spend the time now to find a way to get useful feedback from customers, we could reduce the time spent each week handling customer complaints). What we need to do, as leaders, is start thinking more proactively about how we are spending our time each day/week/month, and how what we do today will affect us down the road.
So how do we get ourselves out of this time-wasting, reactive cycle? It's called "backfilling your schedule." We should block off chunks of time (even months in advance) for those important tasks that are likely to get pushed aside for something more urgent - and then hold ourselves accountable to keep to that schedule! By doing this, we will ensure those important tasks are completed, which will free up MORE time in the future!
This post was made by Jeff Rosset, President of Compass Coaching & Development. Visit us at www.Compass-CD.com to learn more about our leadership development services.
Do you have important tasks to get done that you never seem to get around to doing?
We have all done it before. We look at our to-do list on Monday, identify something important that we have been meaning to get done for a while (ex: "spend 3 hours to research and find an effective customer feedback survey"). We then realize the 8 million other things we HAVE to get done today, and automatically transfer the survey research task to Tuesday's to-do list. And what happens? You guessed it! Tuesday comes (this time 9 million things to do) and we transfer it to Wednesday, and so on, and so on.
For many reasons, it can be difficult to make time for those important activities. The problem is, it is those activities that will ultimately help us free up MORE time in the future (using the above example, if we could spend the time now to find a way to get useful feedback from customers, we could reduce the time spent each week handling customer complaints). What we need to do, as leaders, is start thinking more proactively about how we are spending our time each day/week/month, and how what we do today will affect us down the road.
So how do we get ourselves out of this time-wasting, reactive cycle? It's called "backfilling your schedule." We should block off chunks of time (even months in advance) for those important tasks that are likely to get pushed aside for something more urgent - and then hold ourselves accountable to keep to that schedule! By doing this, we will ensure those important tasks are completed, which will free up MORE time in the future!
This post was made by Jeff Rosset, President of Compass Coaching & Development. Visit us at www.Compass-CD.com to learn more about our leadership development services.
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