calendar
Productivity Coaching, Time Management Consulting and Leadership Coaching for business and nonprofits - get your most important work done. Collaborating with leaders and their teams to become more strategic, focused and productive. Leadership and Board Coaching, Strategic Planning Facilitation, Productivity Coaching and Time Management Consulting, Professional Speaker.
Productivity Coach, Productivity Consultant, Leadership Coach, Time Management Coach, Business Consulting, personal productivity, time management, nonprofit, board coach, collaboration, strategic planning, facilitation, change management, leading productive teams, project planning, board development, volunteer engagement, association management, workplace productivity, executive director.
-1
archive,tag,tag-calendar,tag-34,bridge-core-3.3.3,qode-page-transition-enabled,ajax_fade,page_not_loaded,,qode_grid_1200,footer_responsive_adv,qode-theme-ver-30.8.4,qode-theme-bridge,wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-8.1,vc_responsive

calendar Tag

04 Feb

Posted at 11:19h in Focus and Prioritize, Meeting Best Practices, Productivity

If there’s one improvement I could wish for my clients, it would be to spend less time in meetings and more time on high-value work. While I believe meetings are crucial, the real value lies in the ability to act on decisions and initiatives post-meeting. Without this follow-through, meetings become a poor investment of valuable business time.

Assess Your High-Value Work

Not all work is equally important. It is crucial to prioritize tasks that have the most significant impact on reaching your business goals. That’s where your time should be focused. If your days are filled with emails, chats, and long meetings, the essential work driving your success isn’t being accomplished.

Applying the 80/20 Rule for Success

Pareto’s principle, the 80/20 rule, illustrates this concept. If 80% of your results come from 20% of your time and effort, then you should allocate more time to high-value work that directly contributes to long-term business growth. This involves reducing time spent on less impactful activities like emails, drafts, and meetings.

Why 50 Minutes

For a meeting to be effective, there must be time to implement decisions made during the meeting. Clients often rush from one meeting to the next, leaving little time for action, or even to identify actions. This results in pages of meeting notes that are rarely acted upon, rendering much of the meeting’s work useless.

Additionally, the first few minutes of meetings are often wasted waiting for latecomers. If they hang up or end at the top of the hour, they can’t be somewhere at the same top of the hour if they have to go to a different room or office, or even if they one to take one minute to run to the restroom.  When people they are late, they are wasting everyone else’s time. Many times we wait a couple of minutes for everyone to show up, and even if we start on time, then we end up repeating ourselves.

Adopting a 50-minute meeting strategy results in the following improvements:

  • Time to record meeting actions on to-do lists/task management tool.
  • Brief breaks between meetings to refresh and refocus.
  • Prompt arrival at the next scheduled meeting, respecting everyone’s time.

To optimize productivity, I recommend companies implement a 50-minute meeting policy, ensuring meetings are focused, and efficient, and result in actionable outcomes.

If you enjoy my blog, you’ll love the insights in my book, Productivity for How You’re Wired, available on Audible, in print and as an ebook on Amazon.

10 Sep

Posted at 22:18h in Envision Possibilities, Focus and Prioritize, Leadership, Planning Tools, Productivity, Productivity for Leaders

This week’s topic comes from a client’s inquiry.  She is seeking a better way to balance freelance work, her full-time job, and everything else going on in her life.

The word that comes to mind is RUTHLESS.  She will have to be ruthless in her planning, her priorities, AND her follow through.

A solid plan is paramount:

  • Treat this like you have two different jobs – treat the freelance job like you had a boss and you had to show up. If you’re serious about the other responsibility you can’t not do it just because you don’t feel like it. This holds true for freelance/gig/second jobs, volunteer commitments, family tasks, and other responsibilities.
  • Quantify time allocated to each commitment – If you want to work in your freelance job 20 hours a week and your regular job 40 hours a week, get real about what a 60-hour work week will be like. What do you have to say “no” to to say “yes” to this?
  • Plan it out on your calendar – now let’s bring this to life by clarifying what your week is going to look like. Plug into a calendar grid what you’ll do when. Create a spreadsheet beginning with what time you’ll wake up and what time you’ll go to sleep.  (I call this Ideal Week planning – ideally, if all things go well – my week will look like this…)
  • Pledge to yourself that your 2nd responsibility is as important as your day job – not necessarily in hours, but in commitment. Monitor your actions.  Log your time. If it’s not working ask why not.
    • Are you too tired?
      • Are you working with your body clock?
      • Can you swap office and freelance time?
    • What can change?
      • Are you going to bed at the right time?
      • What other work can you delegate/pass on? – hire someone to clean your house, have your groceries delivered, take your laundry to a wash and fold service.
    • Are you motivated enough?
      • How much do you really want to be doing all you are doing?
  • Assess success weekly – is there a friend or coach you can check in with to discuss how it’s going? Or is it enough for you to be accountable to yourself?
      • Did you reach your goals?
        • If so – what worked?
        • If not – what didn’t work?

At the end of the day there are only so many hours. If you are going to say “YES” to multiple responsibilities, what do you have to say “NO” to?

03 Feb

Posted at 20:08h in Envision Possibilities, Leadership, Time Management, Tips for Easier Living

Why does LIFE BALANCE seem to be so elusive? Because it’s imaginary.  No one is ever in equal balance.  An admired colleague once described it more like a symphony where different parts are louder than others at different times, but when listening to it as a whole it is harmonic and beautiful.

What would be possible if you gave yourself permission to live in harmony and not strive for perfect balance all the time? (more…)

18 Jun

Posted at 14:16h in Envision Possibilities, Productivity, Space, Tips for Easier Living

Our lives are busy and full to the extent that we are like the Energizer Bunny that just keeps going and going and going. I know I feel like sometimes I take a licking and keep on ticking? My clients share with me that they feel that way too. What if we were to hit the pause button, what would happen?

For me creating space both physically and in my calendar enables me to see what is most important. Only then am I able to focus on the things that are fulfilling and really matter. Actually, the pause is the only way I can see what matters and is important. (Can you tell I just got back from a weekend yoga retreat?) It makes all the difference.

How can you make space?   (more…)

18 Dec

Posted at 14:22h in Organize to Thrive, Time Management, Tips for Easier Living

Carve out an hour to transfer all of your standing meetings and other obligations onto next year’s calendar. Be sure to include:

  • conferences
  • out-of-town meetings
  • reoccurring appointments and/or meetings
  • hair, doctor, and groomer appointments
  • holidays
  • family events
  • school and camp schedules

The sooner you do this, the better the chance that you won’t double book or overbook yourself. And once it’s on your calendar you’ll have a much better chance at honoring your commitments.