Time management Some tips from a struggler

21st century work/life! High pace, fast action, lots of interactions with others Dealing with a cacophony of simultaneous/overlapping demands Doing 3-5 things at once; starting two more new things while trying to complete one thing you started before (multi- tasking) Always remembering things you forgot to do or handle all day long; often frantic, feeling overwhelmed Attending lots of meetings; schedule for multiple conflicting meetings Way more things to do than they can get done No time to think things through Constantly putting out fires Live with persistent angst about change, becoming obsolete

21st century work/life! People work an average of 45 hours/week; they consider 16 hours unproductive People spend about 5.5 hours in meetings/week; 71% feel meetings are not productive Almost one third (31%) of those surveyed do use scheduling tools up from 28% in mid-90’s. 66% say they don’t have the control and balance they want Workers said they receive an average of 56 s per day Top productivity pitfalls are procrastination (42%), lack of team communication (39%), & ineffective meetings (34%)

How we operate Preferences & Motives CULTURE CONTEXT CULTURE Values Habits Capabilities

How to change! Awareness of Preferences/Motives And Values Awareness of Habits Practice With New Tools & Techniques Effective Time Management

Examples of Unconscious Habitual Behaviors Something comes up you need to remember You jot it on a handy scrap of paper Someone asks you to do something You say ‘yes’ but don’t check to see if you have the time to get it done Your phone rings while you’re doing something Without giving it a second thought, you answer it An arrives in your inbox You stop what you’re doing and read the Something you need to do comes to mind You tell yourself “I’ll remember it later” and you let it slide by Someone walks into your officeYou stop what you’re doing and talk

Do you know yourself? take some time to reflect on your preferences values habits capabilities and share with your neighbour

A thought worth spreading A TED talk

Any responses? 4 points summary

Hurry sickness a pop quiz

the importance of rocks!

What might your rocks be? Some big rocks might be:  exercising more often  eating properly  getting more sleep  spending added time with family and friends  doing quiet times  doing volunteer work in your community  reading inspirational literature.

Quadrant II living UrgentNot Urgent Importan t I Crises Pressing Problems Deadline-driven projects, meetings, preparations II Preparation Prevention Values clarification Planning Relationship building True re-creation Empowerment Not Importa nt III Interruptions, some phone calls Some mail, some reports Some meetings Many proximate, pressing matters Many popular activities IV Trivia, busywork Junk mail Some phone calls Time wasters “Escape” activities

Quadrant II organising Step 1: Connect with your vision and Mission The importance of a personal mission statement:  What’s most important?  What gives your life meaning?  What do you want to be and do in your life? Some helpful questions when coming up with a personal mission statement:  List the 3 or 4 things you would consider first things in your life.  Consider any long range goals you might have set  Think about the most important relationships in your life.  Think about the contributions you’d like to make.  Reaffirm the feelings you want to have in your life- peace confidence, happiness, contribution, meaning  Think about how you might live your life in you only had six months to live.

Quadrant II organising Step 2: Identifying your roles. Your roles emerge in the different relationships that make up the contexts for your life’s activities. So you may be a daughter/son, a student, an employee, a Christian, etc. Identifying your roles is a vital step in Quadrant 2 organising, because it enables yo to be proactive in the way you spend your time, ensuring that you don’t neglect things that matter.

Quadrant II organising Step 3: Select Quadrant II Goals in each role. The process of goal setting allows you to generate a sense of progress in each of your roles. A goal might include something like: Son: to have lunch once per month with mum or dad; to keep the gospel on the table, by giving books, asking to events etc Christian: to read the Bible in a deliberate manner, 2 chapters per day; to pray daily according to my prayer diary; to only miss church for really good reasons; to be a highly engaged member of my fellowship group; to look for opportunities to bear witness to Christ; to serve in an area of ministry

Quadrant II organising Step 4: Decision Making for the week. A really valuable habit to develop is setting aside an hour at the end of the previous week, or start of the current week, to plan your goals for the week in each of your roles. By planning your week according to your roles, you make sure you keep the rocks going into your timetable first! A really useful resource that will help you implement these plans is a book by David Allen, Getting Things Done. Check out their website also:

Getting things done

1. COLLECT. The collection bucket. Whether it’s a folder in your filing system, your inbox, or your PDA, the fundamental first step is to gather all the stuff that comes your way and to direct them to your “in” box. There are three requirements to make the collection stage work: (1) every open loop must be in your collection system and out of your head, (2) have as few collection buckets as needed, and (3) empty the collection buckets regularly.

Getting things done 2. PROCESS. The next stage is to empty the collection bucket. A commonly used sound bite from David Allen is that you can do actions but you can’t do projects. When deciding what to do with what’s in the collection bucket, it needs to be made actionable. Non-actionable things are either saved as reference, thrown away, or stashed way in what’s called the “tickler folder” (basically a holding bin for things you’re not sure if you should throw away or get involved in yet). If it is actionable, you then either do it, delegate it, or defer it.

Getting things done 3. ORGANIZE. The outer boxes of the GTD workflow represents the end points where things will end up. If it can be done within 2 minutes, no need to mess around and just do it. If not, delegate it to someone else if possible. Otherwise, the action can be scheduled on the calendar or deferred to your “next actions” list.

Getting things done 4. REVIEW. The weekly review is a step that David Allen stresses. It’s a time to gather remaining stuff, to review your system, and to basically to cleaned up, updated, and completed. This is the maintenance stage of the system.

Getting things done 5. DO This stage is similar to one of the seven habits by Stephen Covey - namely, Habit 3: Put first things first. Here, David Allen espouses that we should have a method to prioritize and determine what to do. In his book, he presents three models for making action choices: (1) a criteria for choosing actions at the immediate moment, (2) criteria for choosing actions for the day, and (3) high-level criteria for long-term projects.

Getting things done - summary These are the main points of the GTD system:  GTD is a workflow: It is a streamlined system that many found to be effective.  Offload from your head and onto the GTD system: GTD can help to manage the information overflow that we experience today.  Break things down into actions: As David Allen has said, you can do actions, but you cannot to projects.  Modify GTD to suit your needs:Read the book! Then see what fits best to your needs.Read the book