7 Tips for Scheduling
I have found that there is one main reason people put off doing things: fear. When it comes to networking, for example, people may be afraid of not being prepared, or they may have low self-esteem. That fear makes them not make the connection (or it negatively affects how they make that connection).
SCHEDULING TIP #1
MAKE APPOINTMENTS WITH YOURSELF
I have found that there is one main reason people put off doing things: fear. When it comes to networking, for example, people may be afraid of not being prepared, or they may have low self-esteem. That fear makes them not make the connection (or it negatively affects how they make that connection). People don’t take enough time to schedule appropriately because they fear not having time.All that gets them is less time for their work; the cycle continues.
Ironically, it takes more discipline to respect your own time than it does to respect other people’s time. On the times you schedule for yourself, treat it like a regular meeting and, I promise you, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment and productivity that you’ve never had before!
SCHEDULING TIP # 2
CHECK YOUR DAILY SCHEDULE REGULARLY
Throughout the day, you find you may need to move tasks around. This happens if one of your functions is delayed or takes up more time than initially planned.
By looking at it, you can move the jobs to tomorrow or next week. Alternatively, you can say, “hey I have to finish this off this email because I cannot forget about this call I need to make.” The point is not to do everything. The point is to reach the end of your day without that feeling that you failed to do everything. Instead, you reach the end of your day with a well-managed desk. You may not have done everything, but you managed everything.”At the end of the day, you have a legitimate claim to peace” Franklin Covey
Think of task like a room full of babies. If you do not attend to them pretty soon, they will all be screaming. True, some babies cry no matter what you do. Maybe you handle those first.However, you keep looking in on the whole group.
The point is that you control your room.You don’t let the room to control you (like with Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Kindergarten Cop”).
SCHEDULING TIP # 3
–BUFFERS
When an item is lengthier to complete than initially planned, or even when it needs to be rescheduled, it is crucial you have space where to put it in. Think of calendar items as people in an elevator.
If you could control it, you wouldn’t want to crowd the elevator on the first floor because you don’t know (a) who is getting on in the next few stops and (b) who is getting out.
In the same way,you don’t know (a) which tasks will land on your desk “uninvited” that day or (b) how long it will take you to complete the tasks that you do have.
By leaving a healthy buffer between tasks, you can accommodate new assignments, work or meetings that run over and, with a little bit of extra time in between, give your mother-in-law a call.