“I never imagined this could happen, but it did. The time management structure increased my spontaneity.”

Peter made this insightful comment in one of my programs and I share his experience every time I hear someone say “I am not good with structure. I am a spontaneous person.”

Time management systems are often a major challenge for spontaneous people.

Peter’s experience (a many others I have worked with) shows that spontaneous people can effectively use a time management structure and retain their spontaneity.

Read more http://www.time-management-central.net/time-management-techniques.html

Have the time of your life,

Michael

When is the best time to do your weekly review?

In the GTD linked in group is was suggested that Friday lunch time is the ideal time and I totally agree.

Leaving it until late Friday seems to increase the chances some crisis comes up and the review is pushed aside. The same applies for Monday mornings and before you know it, it’s Monday afternoon and you haven’t done your review or your plan for this week.

Friday lunch is the ideal time for your weekly review and planning for the following week.

Do you agree?

Have the time of your life.

Michael

Watch the video here.

http://www.robinsharma.com/blog/06/my-3-best-keys-to-super-productivity/

Have the time of your life today

Michael

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Steve Jobs.

Have the time of your life today

Michael

Each week I work with people looking to improve their effectiveness and use their time better.

Here are a couple of tactics that worked this week.

Hiding — Most managers I work with struggle to get uninterrupted time to do strategic, high impact work. Kate decided to get away from her desk for 2 blocks of 2 hours and she was amazed how clear her thinking was. She achieved more on her strategy in those two sessions than she had in the past 2 months.

Weekly mindset — Nev thought using a daily to do list was being organised. I suggest changing to a weekly structure. Nev was uncertain, but when he tried it he felt instant relief. Nev feels the weekly approach gives him more control compared to being overwhelmed with a daily to do list.

What has worked for you?

Have the time of your life

Michael

Stephen Covey, author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, posted this recently. It is worth a read as these ideas can have a significant impact on your time management.

Here is the message from Stephen.

We have identified 5 Choices that will help you transform the way you manage your time, decisions, attention and energy.

Here are the 5 Choices:

1. Act on the Important—don’t react to the urgent
2. Go for the Extraordinary—don’t settle for ordinary
3. Schedule The Big Rocks—don’t sort gravel
4. Rule Your Technology—don’t let it rule you
5. Fuel Your Fire—don’t burn out

I encourage you to learn more about these 5 Choices. They can help you take charge of your life like never before. You will feel empowered to cut through the clutter and get the right things done. You will feel more energized as you give your attention to things that are most important. In the end, you will feel remarkably productive and create extraordinary results.

You are invited to join us at one of the 5 Choices complimentary events to learn more. Click Here to register for a city near you.

I can promise you this: if you center on these 5 Choices, you will make exciting breakthroughs at home, at work, and in your community. You will feel empowered to live a meaningful life and make your unique contribution.

I wish you well as you embark on your journey to make these 5 Choices everyday in your life!

I was reading David Allen’s  GTD newsletter and he reminded me of a great point that I use all the time in my time management workshops.

Time just is — and it is the same for all of us.

We can’t find more time, create time or even manage time. Time just marches on now matter what and time stops for no-one (that I am aware of – if you can stop time please let me know

David Allen asks – what is time management, really? It’s dealing effectively with the things we have and want to do. It’s the latest industry publications sitting in a stack on our desk, about which we told ourselves we could/should/ought to do something. And the hundreds of hours of undone “stuff” sitting in most people’s brains (in psychic RAM) and on their desk and on the floor of the back seat of their car.

So have we got time management all wrong – I think so. I will explain in my next post, there is no such thing as time management!!

Have the time of your life this week

Michael

60 seconds to improve your time management effectiveness

Robin Sharma, author of the best seller The monk who sold his Ferrari (and other leadership books) has 5 tips to improve your time management that only take 60 seconds each. Here they are:

1. Have the courage to get great at saying “No Thanks” to any activities that don’t advance your priorities.

2. Take 60 seconds every morning to do a written game plan for a productive day. “The things that get scheduled are the things that get done.” as I shared in The Greatness Guide.

3. Take a few seconds each day to turn off all your technology and work deeply on a key project with zero distraction.

4. Take 60 seconds to breathe deeply and focus on your progress. This will re-energize and refuel you.

5. Take 60 seconds to un-clutter your work area so you create space for your creativity to flow.

Let me know if these tips work for you.

Have the time of your life

Michael

Email has mastered so many of us — we have become a slave to our own email. We can fight back and regain our freedom.

Today’s tip on mastering your email is to:

Create automatic rules to move all group, cc and newsletter email out of your inbox

You can move them all into one folder or have different folders for different content. The key is that the emails are out of your inbox without you looking at them.

Let your team know that all cc and group emails will go into a ‘reading’ folder for you to read when you get some spare time (which really means never). If something is important they must send it to directly and ideally also talk to you about it.

Good luck take back control of your email and your life

Michael

As I mentioned in my last post I was at a client site and the issue of managing email came up. It was clear to me that everyone there had become a slave to email. I want to help you change that so you become that master and email is the slave.

In my last post I described how you need to change your mindset to master your email.

The next step is to change your work colleagues expectations around responding to email. Let your colleagues know that you often have important meetings so you will not be able to respond to email quickly.  Tell them you will get to the email but it may take a day or two.

Let them know that for any urgent and important issues they should come and talk to you (with their recommendations) or call you.

Email is NOT to be used for urgent issues.

These tips have worked for many hundreds of my clients. I’d like to hear from you. Do you use the email management techniques. Do you have other techniques and tips that work for you?

In the next post I will talk about what not to-do with your inbox.

Have the time of your life

Michael