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From Delegation to Deletion: Make More Room for What Matters Most to You

Following are some very effective time-management tips by Christine Jackson, the IT Girls Coach, posted here with her permission!

“A couple of years ago, I wrote an article about delegation. I enjoy managing my business and delegating out any and all tasks that I can. Instead, I focus my time and energy doing high value activities that result in the best return for me – both in terms of my personal happiness and profits.

Productivity and time management are some of my favorite subjects and areas around which I frequently coach my clients. The other day, I read an article about managing email. The author pointed out 5 actions we can take when
processing the many messages we receive each day — delete, delegate, respond, defer, and do.

But I started to think – this isn’t just for emails. You can easily apply this to everything you do, reaping many benefits including:

· More free time that you can spend with family and friends

· Less headaches, literally and figuratively

· Less mental clutter and distraction

· Saving time, money (in some cases) and energy

And, the big overall benefit – you’ll make more room in your life
for what matters most to you.

Here’s my tips on how to get started:

Delete. Delete activities that are unproductive, low value and which aren’t aligned with the vision for your life.

Delegate. Outsource low value, unproductive activities to a business manager or virtual assistant. Outsource your weaknesses. If you lack the talent or strength in a particular area, find someone who can help you out. Don’t
waste your time, money and energy learning something that detracts or distracts you from high-return, high-value activities.

Respond. Respond quickly but not foolishly. Always do your research, seek wise counsel, and evaluate your alternatives. Set deadlines for decisions you need to make and when it comes time – make them. Don’t waste mental energy mulling something over for three weeks when you can just as easily make a good decision in 3 minutes. Life is short. Stop over thinking things.

Defer, but set a deadline. If you can’t make a decision right now, set it aside. But before you do, assign it a deadline so that it will definitely be handled in the future. Don’t let things hang in limbo.

Do. If you have something that requires you to take action, don’t procrastinate. Get it done now. Don’t strive for perfection – that’s just a convenient excuse for not starting or finishing something. Again, if you don’t want to do something that needs to get done, outsource it and let someone else get it done for you.

There you have it. It’s as easy as deleting, delegating, responding, deferring and doing. Write these 5 things on a note card and post it on your computer or in your work area. It will keep you focused on handling anything that arises during your day.”

The N° 1 Reason Why To-Do Lists Don’t Work And What You Can Do About It

Raise your hand if you sometimes feel frustrated that you don’t get all things done!

Do you ever write To-Do lists? And if you do, how often do you manage to really check all of the tasks, or how often do you forget about them because you feel overwhelmed with a growing mountain of things to do?

There must be something wrong here. How come we keep struggling with this? Is it all a matter of discipline?

Some Practical Reasons Why To-Do Lists Don’t Work

First of all, to-do lists can be very helpful for short term tasks, where there’s a need for our fast action. But for most of us, in the long run they do not help us take care of all the things that we need.

We either include too many tasks or not enough of them; these tasks are mostly too generic or don’t include a deadline; we cannot allocate (enough) time for each task; we find them too boring or restrictive; we don’t have enough time to update them; we prioritize them but then something always comes up to mess with our plans.

Missing The Big Picture

The main reason why To-Do lists don’t work is that they don’t discriminate between what is important and what is not, related to our values, purpose and ultimate goals.

This means that by losing sight of the big picture we put all our energy into reacting to all the things that happen immediately around us. These actions and reactions may be related to one specific goal only, making us forget about other goals that are also important to us.

How We Can Manage Our Tasks More Effectively

Stephen Covey offers an excellent suggestion in his book “The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People”

1. Identify your different roles in life
   
2. Choose your goals for each role
3. Plan by the week instead of by the day
4. Take a few minutes daily to review your plan

This gives us the opportunity to look at the big picture, and along with the identification of our values, purpose and mission, it becomes a highly effective way to set the right priorities and to decide how and where to allocate our time and energy.

Conclusion

It is definitely possible to get things done more effectively, so that we feel more productive as well as more relaxed and satisfied.

It is a matter of what we are ready to change in order to achieve it. It does not require huge change, and the positive impact it can have on the quality of our life is amazing. How will we stay motivated to consistently apply such an effective time management? Read this article.

Who Else Are You?

No, I don’t mean Dr. Jeckill and Mr. Hyde! If you’re reading this, you’re probably a manager, a professional or a business owner. Or maybe you’re on your journey to find out what you would like to do professionally. These may be the areas in which you spend most of your time, thoughts and energy. But besides this, who else are you? Are you a husband or a wife? A mother or a father? Are you just yourself, with needs that go beyond your work and being someone’s partner?

Frustration

Whenever we feel out of balance, or stressed or frustrated, what is actually happening is that we are focussing too much on one area in our life, neglecting another one that is equally important but that we consider secondary for some reason.

By doing so, though, we forget that all areas are connected with one another. How can I take the right decisions at work if I spent the whole night quarrelling with my spouse?

In our life we have different roles, such as being for example:

- An individual
- A wife or husband
- A mother or father
- A daughter or son
- A sales manager
- A team leader
- A president
- A volunteer in a non-profit association
- A friend
- A neighbour
- etc.

By looking at this list we may clearly see that there’s much more to our life than being, for example, a sales manager.

Where are you spending most of your time and energy right now?

Are you aware that by focussing so much on one of your roles you are neglecting other roles that are important in your life?

If so, how long will you be neglecting them?

What consequences may this have on each area?

We all have 24 hours in a day. That is equal for each and every human being. What we decide to do with this time is up to us.

How can we make sure that we use this time in a way that serves our REAL purpose? First of all, by discovering what our real purpose is. When we are aware of the ultimate goals that we want to achieve in life, and why, and how our roles fit in, then it becomes much easier for us to set priorities.

How Do I Get Motivated?

How many times have you heard yourself say: “I should exercise more, but when should I do it” ?

Or “Planning my days would help me, but I’m too busy to do so”?

How does that make you feel?

I don’t know about you, but this makes me feel like I am uncapable of standing up for what I find important.

…Do I really find these things important though?

Let’s be honest, some things only get important when they become urgent, meaning we’re getting at the border of disaster. Like when we feel an unbearable tooth ache that forces us to go to the dentist. Or when we realize that our fiancée has just booked a week-end trip with our best friend instead of with us.

What motivates us then?

1. Anything that we perceive as being really urgent
2. Whatever we perceive as being a very pleasant or important gain
3. The awareness that by doing / not doing something we will face a tough problem

How do we kick ourselves in the rear?

Let’s take a moment and ask ourselves:

• Why do I want to do it, honestly?
  
• What short-term benefit do I expect from it? What long-term ones?
  
• How much do I really care about these benefits? How important are they to me, honestly?
  

Let’s imagine we cannot find the motivation to take 10 minutes every week to organize and plan our tasks for the week ahead.

Let’s ask ourselves:

• “What will happen if I don’t do it?”

I will probably get back to doing things as I did before, even with my best intentions. I will probably achieve only half of the things I would like to do, as usual. I will feel stressed and unsatisfied because I haven’t managed to do all the things I wanted. I may even feel tired.

• “What consequences will this have on my professional life in the long run?”

I will mostly take care of urgent issues and hardly find time to plan an effective strategy. Due to a lack of sleep or energy, I may take some wrong decisions. I may even miss some deadlines, resulting in angry clients. Colleagues or business partners will find me unreliable. In the long run, this may decrease my income.

• “What consequences will this have on my personal life, in the long run?”

I will hardly find time to exercise or to do things that contribute to my personal or professional development. My health may suffer as well, if I don’t take care of it properly. I may risk a burnout. My family and friends will be annoyed by the fact that I spend so little time with them. My relationships will suffer in the long run. There will be more quarrels, also due to the decreased income. I will feel unhappy.

• “Is this what I really want?”

- No.

• “What can I do then?”

- Take 10 minutes a week to plan my time!

And if it is a matter of “the way it is”?

Sometimes is just a matter of changing the way we do things:How could this become fun to do? Would music help? Or using colours, such as coloured pens, paper, etc?

Some other times it may be a matter of the environment or the people involved: Let’s imagine we attend a language course. We may enjoy learning a language, but for some reason the teacher’s style does not match our learning style. So it gets boring and we lose interest.

What can we do? How important is this course to us really? Can we talk with the teacher about it and look for ways to make classes more effective? Can we find a different course? What other possibilities are there?

Reward yourself!

Remember that we mentioned above that we find motivating “Whatever we perceive as being a very pleasant or important gain”?

Keeping commitments and staying motivated isn’t always easy! How can we reward ourselvesf? How are we going to celebrate the fact that we are strong enough to keep our commitment? For example, does the idea of a hot chocolate motivate me? What other pleasant gift could I give myself?

Is Passion For Work Out Of Date?

Today’s economy looks really bad! Now let’s be honest, how many people around us would care about enjoying their work, considering they may not even manage to pay the bills at the end of the month? We should be happy if we have a job at all!

Companies can lay you off any time…

Globally, organizations keep merging and separating and closing down and outsourcing… Why should weshow committment and passion and enthusiasm if the company can fire us any time for any reason?

There is a shortage of work…

We keep sending out CV’s and yet we never find a job, or not the one we want.

Is there really a shortage of work?

There may be shortage of jobs, at least of the ones we have been considering up to now. But there is certainly no shortage of work that needs to be done. The question is: Am I ready to accept that the type of jobs that are offered is changing? And then: What about the new type of work that needs to be carried out? We get borne, we eat, we drink, we break, we destroy, we produce garbage, we want to clean, we want a holiday, we want a massage, we need assistance at technical, medical, psychological level, we want a more comfortable house / car / office / pedestrian precinct, etc.

Who is supposed to invent, create, assemble, deliver, maintain all of this?

There is a shortage of skilled and committed workers

This is the major complaint I have been hearing from several small to middle sized organizations in the past 5 years. From the companies’ point of view, there are less and less people willing to take care of the tasks that are there. These could be lower level jobs that no one wants to do any longer. Or specialistic, high-level work. Companies complain that new employees often lack both skills AND commitment, coming late to work or not delivering quality work.

On the other side, there are thousands of people with a lot of experience who have been looking for a job for months, if not years. What’s going wrong here?

The economy is changing. What about us?

Do you remember Charles Darwin’s theory about the survival of the fittest? Well this is changing as well to a certain extent. If we transfer the concept to the professional world, we could speak of the survival of those who adapt to the economic and social changes in a creative and innovating way.

And how can you do that without passion?

Passion, responsibility, persistence, preparation, creativity, commitment… an entrepreneurial mind: this is what makes the difference in the professional world nowadays.

• Passion

Today’s job market is highly competitive and companies require a higher standard of performance. Passion can be our way to achieve a work that we want and help us execute our tasks in the best way we can. If we enjoy what we do and we do it with passion, we can deliver great results.

• Responsibility

This means deciding to stop blaming others, life, the economic situation, the weather for whatever happened and happens to us. We are in a position to decide how we want to face a certain situation. We are even in the position to acknowledge that something hurted us in the past, but that we will not allow it to rule our life in the future. Of course this doesn’t happen from one day to the other, but choosing to take responsibility for our present actions is a great step forward.

• Persistence

When we are passionate about what we do, we are powered by a stronger engine that helps us be more persistent than others. It’s tough, and we have to fight more and longer for a job. If we give up too early, we lose it all.

• Preparation

Here I mean in two ways:

1. 1) Gaining and upgrading my skills
2. 2) Being mentally prepared that I may lose my job without notice.

How do I make sure I will be ready to move on to another job without feeling depressed? By changing my perspective and by making sure that I have what it takes for me to find an acceptable, maybe even better alternative.

• Commitment

When we decide to accept a task, or to go in a certain direction, it requires commitment to stick to our decision even when challeges arise. We got so used to be with people or to do things just as long as they please us, that we find it difficult to keep doing things even when they get boring.

• Creativity
  

Creativity means also looking for ways so we can keep and enjoy what we had once committed to.

In the context of work, in the past we learnt that if we wanted to get to Z we would have to do X and Y. Today, we struggle to follow all instructions, and nothing seems to really work.  Crying or complaining won’t help either. What can we do? We need to unleash the natural creativity that is within ourselves, and that we believed was something belonging to artists or graphic designers only   We have to find new ways to achieve our goals, with integrity. We need to create our opportunities.

• An entrepreneurial mind

What if we started looking at our job search and career with an entrepreneurial mind? What if we started viewing ourselves as a company that sells a specific service to customers (our current or future employer) that need the type of service we provide?

The competition is tough. How do we get our customer (our current or future employer) choose our services instead of the ones offered by others?

The economy is unstable. How do we make sure that if our customer (our current or future employer) cannot pay for our services any longer we find other customers?

These are a few things an entrepreneur does:

• Assessment of current products, services, competences, resources
• Market and competition analysis
• Goal setting
• Strategic business planning
• Strategic marketing planning
• Search for missing important products, services, competence and resources
• Investments for the above
• Networking

How can this be transferred to our job and career?

Happiness is cheaper

This post is going to be a bit provoking.

Think about when you feel sad, frustrated, disappointed or even depressed. What do you do to feel better? Easy, there’s a large variety of options:

• Eat chocolate, ice-cream and any sweet things you come across
• Go shopping and decide to buy that dress or that pair of shoes or that mp3 player you have wanted for so long
• Smoke. Or drink
• Use your credit card to pay for that week-end in Paris you actually cannot afford now
• Treat yourself with a comforting dinner, a movie, or else

Being unhappy can get very expensive. Don’t you agree?

Unhappiness is actually wonderful for the economy – for the manufacturers, producers and service providers. Unhappy people need products and services to soothe them. And to get slimmer, fitter and recover their health.

These are all aspirins to get the headache away for a while. But the headache will come back. If you do not find and remove the cause.

What does this mean?

That investing in removing sources of unhappiness and replacing them with sources of happiness could be worth it in many ways: your pocket, your health, your overall well-being, everyone around you.

Imagine

…feeling present, in harmony with yourself and your surrounding, satisfied with your work, with your family and social life, calm, knowing that you have everything you need, trusting that what you need but do not have yet will arrive… How does that feel?

I want to succeed!

Have you ever gone into a shop to buy clothes, looking around for a shop assistant to actually assist you with your shopping?
And after some time you managed to locate her, looking at you with you a slight irritation, walking slowly towards you, with a deeply bored expression on her face?

If you ever experienced something like that, you can bet that shop assistant was really successful with her job!

Wasn’t she?

No she wasn’t – if that’s the way she behaved each and every day, or even most of the days, she for sure was not successful in that specific shop.

This all sounds obvious. However, how many things that are obvious to us we DO NOT DO THOUGH?

IF WE WANT TO SUCCEED WE NEED…

1. PASSION
For what we do, and for what we want to achieve. Without enthusiasm, we do not get anywhere. Or can you prove the opposite?

2. …TO KNOW WHAT WE WANT
If we just have a rough idea, halfways, we just waste time and energy. Have you ever experienced those evenings with friends, nobody knowing and deciding where to go? Now, let’s imagine you want to meet a couple of dear friends of yours that you haven’t seen for ages, and you want to meet them at the “Al Fresco” restaurant downtown.

3. … A CLEAR PLAN ON HOW TO GET THERE
In order to get there, you need to know exactly where it is located and how to get there: on foot? By bus? By car? By taxi? Will you drive around the entire city or will you take the quickest way?

4. …TAKE ACTION
If you don’t go out of the house, you will never meet your friends at the “Al Fresco” restaurant downtown

5. DETERMINATION
In all those cases when something comes up that distracts us from our goal. If a friend tells us: “No, don’t go meet your friends at the Al Fresco restaurant downtown. Stay here with me!”.

6. PERSISTANCE
Do we really want to go and meet our dear friends we haven’t seen for so long? Then we will do whatever it takes. We will go even if it rains or snows. We will accept to get stuck in a traffic jam. Even if everything seems to be against us, we go on until we finally meet our friends.

We need all of these if we want to succeed.

How are you applying all of these points in what you want to achieve in your life or work?

What is missing here?

What does success depend on?

There are several definitions of success, as well as many different ways to measure it. In this article, I will talk about success in general, meant as the achievement of a goal.

A short success story

Yesterday I met a lady who, several years ago, had the courage to give up her career in advertising to follow her dream to become an opera singer. Her family had never supported her, but one day she decided to start taking lessons and practising, and slowly began to receive invitations to sing at special events. Now her work as a singer requires her to travel all over the world. She is happy and she feels successful.

When I congratulated her on her courageous step and the success she has, she answered that it was just a matter of lucky circumstances. I told her I don’t see it that way and told her why

Something is always missing

We always look for justifications. We complain about the fact that we do not have the money to do what we want, or that we are not healthy or strong enough, or that our family does not support us, or that we do not have the right skills, etc. I often hear people saying that success depends on external circumstances, meaning luck, personal network, economic situation.

And if we focussed on what we have?

I believe that success depends – first of all – on ourselves, and on the mindset we have. This lady may not have had a mindset to become successful, but she was determined to try and find ways that would allow her to sing – even though every one was against it.

That was her dream, that was her goal. And she had the courage to pursue it. She did something for it! She took decisions, even if they were tough, she took action.

Other examples

How many people develop a successful business from scratch, where no one else dares? How many of them end up losing everything, for some reason such as an economic downturn, or deceitful business partners – and then find another way to develop a totally new successful business?

We do not know what drives them, maybe they just want to become successful for the sake of it. Or maybe they believe they can achieve something very specific that is connected with their skills, or passions, or talents. The fact is, in any case, that these people usually succeed.

I like to quote Henry Ford, who said: “Whether you believe you can do it, or you believe you can’t, you’re probably right”.

So, what can we do today to succeed in what we believe in?

What is the “Fil Rouge” in your work?

“Fil Rouge” is the common thread that connects, for example, all of our life experiences. It’s that same aspect that appears even when the situations seem to be totally unrelated.

What is the “Fil Rouge” in your work life? No matter the type of job you had, what was the aspect that you enjoyed the most? Even if you you worked in Tokyo for some time, later in Seattle and then in the countryside in Provence, what guided you every time along the way? What did you find totally unbearable? What was fascinating? What did that lead you to?

Discovering our Fil Rouge is an exciting way to explore our life and find what is important for us in our work. How could you apply these findings in your work, or in the quest for the work you would love to have?