Time Managing & Horn Tooting

This was a BUSY spring and summer! First, my daughter and motivation behind Organization Solutions, graduated high school and soon begins college. As if that wasn’t enough, I have also been working on a national project. Let me explain that one a little more…

The National Association of Productivity & Organizing Professionals (NAPO) is our industry’s leading professional association. They promote our industry as well as provide education to new and veteran professionals like me. In addition to offering an industry certification, they offer several "Specialist Certificate" tracks. I was honored to be asked to develop and deliver course #2 in their "Team Productivity Specialist Certificate" track. NAPO members around the world will be viewing "Time Planning to Enhance Team Productivity" as they seek to grow their skills and help their clients. (Horn officially tooted) Fortunately, the development process includes a review team so there were great minds contributing to the session.

For the majority of you who are not a Productivity & Organizing Professional, let me share just a quick analogy from the session that I also share in my workshop, A Better Way to Manage Your Workday:

Time management is a lot like money management. With money, when you find yourself struggling to make ends meet, you essentially have 3 choices:

1. Make more
2. Manage it better
3. Spend less

Unfortunately, with time, none of us can actually make more. There are a finite number of minutes in every day. However, we can get the same result by learning how to manage it better or figure out how to do things more efficiently, thus spending less. Here are three of my favorite tips that you can implement immediately to help you manage your time better or spend it less:

1.) Have a plan: Budget your time the way you budget your money. Go into each month with a plan of how you want to spend your days. It’s a lot easier to make progress when you plan it ahead of time rather than squeezing it in between appointments.

2.) Spend less time dealing with interruptions: Especially in regard to notifications, turn them off! Email, social media, text alerts, etc. They will all still be there when you choose to view them. For those that you can keep off permanently, do. For others, consider turning them off for a brief period of time to help you focus. (A-ha! Tip: Windows 10 has a "Focus Assist" feature in their tool set to help you do just that!)

3.) Don’t schedule more than ? your day (or week): Yes, I share this tip often. It really is important enough to share again. You can’t be organized or productive if you’re never in your office, working.

Do those three things and you will be tooting your own horn as well with all of your accomplishments!!

 May you have blessings and balance,

Janet Jackson

www.ABetterWayTo.co

www.OrganizationSolutionsllc.com