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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.
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plan Tag

24 Oct

Posted at 16:17h in Envision Possibilities, Focus and Prioritize, Planning Tools, Productivity for How You're Wired, Time Management

My last blog post we discussed the importance of setting your goals and intentions. This week we move on to Step 2 of the Productivity Flow Framework: Time Mapping.

A time map helps you create a vision of how you want to spend your time. You can think of this as a vision board where you are creating a picture of something you aspire to, or as a budget for your time. This is useful for several reasons:

  • It forces you to think through how you are going to fit in time for the various priorities you’ve identified in your goal and intention setting exercise.
  • It helps you allocate your time most effectively — both at work and at home.
  • It shows you if you need to re-prioritize commitments.
  • It helps you see if your expectations are realistic and feasible.

When you create your time map you’ll want to consider any or all of the following: 

Morning Routine: Do you need time for the kids or pets, exercise, meditation, showering, getting ready, and eating breakfast? Or should you sleep as long as possible and only do the essentials to get to work on time? 

Work Time: 

  • Starting Time — How long is the commute? Do you read the news, peruse social media, check email? How much time do you want to spend on these tasks? Factor in these variables to determine your realistic start time.
  • Work Transitions — Are you magically going from one meeting to the next? Even in the era of Zoom, it does take a couple of minutes to make it to the next call. Oh, and you wanted to recap notes in between? And take a bio break. And grab a glass of water. Planning transition time is important.
  • Focus Work — When can you do your flow, creative, and cognitively taxing work? Can you block out interruptions and do it during the day, or is this better left to an early morning, late afternoon, evening, or weekend block of time? If you block two hours for focus time, does that include checking email, clearing your desk, getting a snack, or anything else you need to do to be able to attend to the work itself? Would it be helpful to build in ramp-up time?
  • Ending Time — When is your work hard stop? Being intentional about when to stop working supports you in developing realistic guardrails. 

Exercise: Do you like to exercise before, during, or after work? Do you need to plan in time for getting to the gym? Shower time? How often do you want to work out? How long are the work outs?

Self-Care: Do you want to have time to take care of yourself? Pleasure reading? Pedicures and massage? Yoga? Meditation? Alone time?

Friends and Family: Do you want time to go out with your friends or partner? How much time do you want to spend with your parents, kids, and family? What else do you want to add in?

Other areas from your Goals and Intentions: Do you need time for a second business? Extra learning? Professional development? Personal projects?

This is your opportunity to think through how you want to use the time you have. About how long transitions REALLY take. About how much sleep you REALLY need, how much exercise you REALLY want to get, and even about when you will take time to appropriately fuel your body with food. 

Start thinking about what matters to you.  Use a template from the book or design your own. What’s most important is that you take a bit of time to identify just how much time you have to “spend.” Time mapping empowers you to depict how you REALLY want to live. It is your opportunity to create a vision for what your ideal week will look like and your first step to living it. 

This is an excerpt from Chapter 8 of my new book Productivity for How You’re Wired available on Amazon. Worksheets and online templates are included via the time tools link discussed in the book.

10 Oct

Posted at 11:50h in Envision Possibilities, Focus and Prioritize, Planning Tools, Productivity for How You're Wired, Stress Management, Time Management, Tips for Easier Living

 

In my last blog post I explained the importance of setting your goals and intentions, and we discussed why adding intentions was so important. In my book Productivity for How You’re Wired, I share 3 different models you can use to set goals and intentions based on your structure preference. You can create your own plan by following the steps below.  Definitely do the first 3 steps. Steps 4 and 5 are optional based on “how you’re wired.”

Step 1: Identify Focus Areas

Focus areas are the spaces in which you want to spend the time of your life. In a financial budget you’d have areas such as home expenses, utilities, clothing, food, and entertainment. For your life’s Focus Areas these may be business/work, professional development, personal growth, self–care, family, spirituality, friends/social, volunteerism, service, activism/advocacy.

Step 2: Set Goals and/or Intentions
A few people can state their goals or intentions off the top of their heads. Most can’t.

If the answers don’t come easily to you start by developing your priorities (Step 3). Then use your priorities to back into your goals and intentions. While it goes against every rigid business planner’s process, completing your priorities first can help you see exactly what matters. Ask “what is the purpose of doing these things” (the priorities.) The answer will bring the goal or intention into focus. Keep your goals and intentions concise and clear. They cue you to remember. They do not need to include ALL the details.

Step 3: Determine Strategic Priorities
The next step is to figure out the three most important things you want to accomplish in each focus area. Your priorities should be actionable within the established time frame of your plan. The priority should identify what you will do.

  • Start with an action word such as plan, complete, strategize, or implement.
  • Be concise – provide enough detail so you understand what want to do, but not so much you can’t easily grasp the action.
  • When identifying your priorities, it is often helpful to prime the pump by ask yourself questions such as these:
    • What project, task or action is critical to my success/my organization’s success?
    • What do I want to accomplish?
    • What would I be disappointed with if I didn’t achieve?
    • What do I need to do to be who I want to be? 

Step 4: Create your Mission/Purpose/Success Statement

This is your WHY, your driver, what motivates you in work and/or life. If you know your WHY, add it now. If not, it often comes into focus as you complete the rest of the map. This step is optional. Add it if it supports you. Your statement should inspire you:

  • Use words that will reinforce what is important to you.
  • Define what success means to you.

Step 5: Plan your Quarterly Tactics

If you thrive in high structure and you’re excited about having a full–blown, step–by–step quarterly plan, this last section is for you. However, if the thought of doing this last step sounds dreadful, you’re best to skip it.

  1. Think the project through.
  2. Now put the project elements in order. Consider what steps must come before the others. You’ll probably identify a couple of things you are missing. Add those in.
  3. Estimate the time you’ll expect to spend on this element. A good rule of thumb is to double your time estimate.
  4. Now plug the elements into your quarterly plan.

Start thinking about what matters to you.  Use a template from the book or design your own. What’s most important is that you take a bit of time to identify how you want to “spend” your time.

This is an excerpt from Chapter 7 of my new book Productivity for How You’re Wired available on Amazon. Worksheets and online templates are included via the time tools link discussed in the book.

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?

24 Jul

Posted at 10:40h in Focus and Prioritize, Productivity for Leaders, Space, Stress Management, Time Management

What is YOUR Success Formula?

Look at how you filled your parking spaces last week.  There are 10 spots. Our math savvy friends know that each spot is 10% of your disposable time.  We will use this to create your formula.

Some of you may have created two parking lots. One that reflects how your life is today and one that reflects how you want your life to be.  The one that reflects the way you want your life to be will drive your success formula.

You are creating a vision for success – a “SUCCESS FORMULA” based on

  • your definition of success
  • your unique focus areas
  • your core values
  • your aspirations.

Keep in mind that each spot is equal to 10% of your disposable time.

Now assign a percentage to each of your parking spaces…

Example:

  • if you have 5 spots for work that’s 50%
  • if you have 3 spots for family that’s 30%
  • if you have 2 spots for self-care that’s 20%

This is my success formula:

Success Formula example

What’s your success formula?

Here are some other examples to spark your creativity:

Success Formulas

Now you have a visual based on YOUR DEFINITION OF SUCCESS.

Use Your Success Formula to Drive your Priorities

  • Create a visual that is motivating and appealing
  • Post your visual where you can see it daily
  • Use your visual to drive how you spend your time, and how you set your priorities; ask yourself:
    • Does saying yes to this support my success formula?
    • If I say yes to this what will I be saying no to?
  • Do the math – if something gets 10% of your formula then it gets 8-10 hours a week. If something gets 40% of your formula that is 32 to 40 hours a week.  Try logging how you spend your time.  You’ll be amazed at what you learn.

Integration: A key component of experiential learning (which is doing while learning, which is what we did in this blog course) is taking the time to integrate the learning.  Here are some questions that can help you to integrate the learning:

  • What did you figure out?
  • What do you see differently?
  • What one change will you make first?

Wishing you SUCCESS on your terms!

Creating Your Very Own Success Formula Blog Course Details – This is the 6th, and final, in a multi-series of posts.  Check this post for the big picture. Future blog posts can be delivered to your inbox by signing up for my blog. And please continue to share this blog course with your friends and colleagues.

16 Jul

Posted at 00:00h in Focus and Prioritize, Space, Stress Management, Time Management

 

Life is like a parking lot…   

When the lot is full, no matter how much you’d like to, you can’t pull in until another car pulls out.

  • Is your parking lot full?
  • Do you have more cars to park?
  • What car has to leave to put a more important car in?

We all have 24 hours in a day and we all have 7 days in a week.  We can’t control that.  What we can control, however, is what we do with those hours.

If we break this down, we can agree:

  • We need to sleep: there goes 7-8 hours a day
  • We need time for essential self-care: eating, grooming, emptying the dishwashers, etc. – we’ll give that 3-4 hours
  • 24-12 = 12      or      24-10 = 14
  • You have 12-14 disposable hours a day!  That is 84 – 98 disposable hours a week.

How are you going to fill your parking spaces?

  • For my analytical readers – depending on your disposable hour calculation above each space is 8.4-9.8 hours.
  • For my creative readers – figure 8-10 hours a week per space!

parking spots

Consider your “Unique Focus Areas” you created in Week 2. These can guide you to fill your spots with the things that you identified as mattering the most.

This is how my parking lot looks:  4 spaces to work, 1 space to volunteering, 2 spaces to self-care, 1 space to personal/professional development and 2 spaces to my family.

full parking lot

This week’s assignment: Fill your spots.  You may want to do this twice.  Once for how it is now and once for how you want it to be.

parking spotsparking spots

Creating Your Very Own Success Formula Blog Course Details – This is the 5th in a multi-series of posts.  Check this post for the big picture. Future posts can be delivered to your inbox by signing up for my blog. And please share this opportunity with your friends and colleagues.

09 May

Posted at 00:16h in Envision Success, Planning Tools, Productivity, Time Management

We’ve all gotten pretty good at squeezing in an email, quick call, or text in a moments time, however when we have project work or multi-step tasks it a bit more complicated. Both productivity and performance improve when we are in flow.

Daniel Goleman, the Father of Emotional Intelligence, describes FLOW as a state in which people become utterly absorbed in what they are doing and their awareness is merged with their actions. He says “you know when you are in flow; work becomes easy, you lose track of time, you feel happy, and joyful, and productive.

It makes sense that we would want to create the flow state for when we finally get to doing our really important work. For the brain to engage, work has to be challenging enough to stimulate the brain. The challenge itself is energizing and motivating.

However, there is more we can do to propel ourselves into flow:

  1. Clearly define the goal and create an outline or plan. Being specific minimizes your getting off task.
  2. Create your optimum environment by eliminating distractions. This can mean no noise, white noise, music with words, or music without words. Wear headphones so people know not to interrupt you, close your office door (if you’re so lucky to have one), or find a secluded place to work.
  3. Clear the decks. While some people can jump in and “eat the frog”, others need to get the little nudgy annoying tasks off their plate so they can concentrate and be completely engaged.
  4. Block off enough time. Some people can work in micro blocks – 15-30 minutes, and the next day pick up right where they left off. Others need 2 or 3 or 4 hour chunks so they don’t have to waste time ramping up to get to where they were the day before.
  5. Build in accountability and feedback. Outside support often helps to stay on task.

 

When I dig into a task this is what works for me:

  1. I write out my goal and put it in front of me. Then I outline the steps to reach the goal, often on post-its, organizing the process. And, it helps me stay motivated when I can throw away a completed post-it.
  2. My optimum environment includes finding a quiet spot where no one can talk to me. I turn off my phone, ALL social media, and often the internet. I prefer to have either white noise or music without words playing in the background
  3. I clear the decks almost 100%. My desk surface only has the current project – nothing else.  My critical email are completed, my phone calls are made, and I try to have completed as many  little annoying tasks as possible.  This enables me to solely focus on the important work.
  4. I block out time in big chunks, preferably 4 hours. I waste too much time remembering where I was and getting back to that point if I work in lesser amounts.  If I am working on a presentation or something with lots of moving parts, I may block out the entire day.
  5. My accountability to myself is enough for me, so engaging others isn’t helpful, but many clients and colleagues do benefit from knowing they will be reporting in on their progress.

 

The one most important thing to know about flow is that it happens when we are working on things we love doing. What do you love doing?  How can you create your environment to get to do the work you love more?