Time Management - One Touch, Then You'Re Done

Consider how frequently the following has befallen you:

You thought about working on generating web traffic or at least writing an article. You start working, but stop at the first distraction. Letting the first job go, you enthusiastically work on the distraction; trying to prove you are doing the right thing.

The distraction is probably more fun and less important than your original priority.  You'll finish the distracting task, but your time management has suffered a major blow.  Your efficiency and productivity could not be worse.  You can achieve so much more. The longer you avoid your priorities the more difficult they will be to accomplish when you finally pick them up.  This causes many of us to start looking for other distractions right away.

Are your work habits like this? If you are an employee in an office environment then it is likely your boss will have picked up on this and requested improvement. If you run your own business then this work habit will cost you money. You will find the only one who can help you in this case is YOURSELF. Your friends and family aren't going to help you because they are probably the main cause of distractions. They will want you to spend time with them and test your loyalties by expecting you to choose whether they are more important than your work. Let them know your business requires your time because you want to be successful. Actively work on become more efficient and less easily distracted.

Time Managment Tips

Time management techniques are common-sense and work everywhere.  For the home-office business person to the manager responsible to an owner for results.  Both have distraction sources: family and friends for the home business person, co-workers / employees for the manager.

To be more productive there are two important rules:
1. Touch It Once
2. Give priority to those tasks which are important

You have read blogs, web sites, time management books by organizational gurus.  Did you implement the system?  How long did you keep the system in place?  If distracting tasks describe your work habits, the answer must be "No."  You have read about the delegation of tasks, organizing your To-Do List, and setting priorities but...

You can develop the tools and habits to better utilize your free time by exerting just a little more effort in reading and practicing. To illustrate my point in this time management piece I will examine two logical beginning points that anyone can incorporate into his or her daily routine.

It is very easy to follow the simple rule that if you start a particular task, finish it. Do not give room for any distraction and push it on your To-Do list and focus on the priority job till you finish it. You waste your time if you start giving importance to those distractions. If you allow these kind of distractions, it also takes time to come AGAIN to the point you were doing and finally you lose lot of time. This is the basis of Touch it Once concept.

The 2nd part of Touch it Once: Any task which involves more time than actually is available should not be started. This holds very true for certain non-emergency works. You can take time to finish them right. Suppose if you receive the task towards the end of the day, prioritize them to do first in your To-Do list the next morning. What you have to remember is the important tasks should be prioritized first.

A note about email: always use subject lines that indicate what the mail is about. Try to get your coworkers to do the same. When a thread continues for a long time with the same old subject line, it is easy to forget what the emails about. It can be difficult to find archived emails you are looking for, and an urgent matter can seem like part of an old thread. If doing this requires sending several emails in succession to the same person, that's still a better way to work.