IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hi! I am Dave Crenshaw and this
is Time Management Fundamentals.
| | 00:08 | In this course, I'll lay the groundwork
to help you manage your time effectively
| | 00:12 | and become more productive.
| | 00:14 | I'll start by explaining the
three principles of productivity:
| | 00:17 | space, mind, and time.
| | 00:19 | I'll then walk you through the process
of identifying and managing each of these
| | 00:24 | principles in your life.
| | 00:26 | Then I'll demonstrate how to set
up an email system so your inbox can
| | 00:30 | automatically apply these
time management principles.
| | 00:33 | And finally, I'll show you how to
establish clear boundaries between
| | 00:38 | personal time and work time.
| | 00:39 | We'll be covering all these concepts,
plus plenty of other tools and techniques,
| | 00:45 | to budget your time wisely over the
course of Time Management Fundamentals.
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| Getting the most from this course| 00:00 | This training course was built in a way to
help you get advice and tips that you can
| | 00:05 | apply immediately, no matter which
video you jump to in the training.
| | 00:09 | However, in order to get the best result, I
strongly recommend that you complete this
| | 00:15 | training as a whole in one or two sittings.
| | 00:19 | To accomplish this, let me make three
recommendations to help you get the most from this course.
| | 00:24 | Number one is schedule
the time to complete it.
| | 00:28 | In order to complete this entire course and
complete the activities that I am going to
| | 00:32 | give you, it'll probably
take you several hours.
| | 00:35 | The second piece of advice I would give you is
to complete the course while in your workspace.
| | 00:41 | Your workspace is the laboratory for you
to learn the science of time management.
| | 00:46 | This training which you're about
to go through is very hands on.
| | 00:50 | So when you schedule that block of time I
mentioned before, try to schedule it so you
| | 00:54 | can be where you do your paperwork, where
you answer your emails--your workspace.
| | 01:00 | When I ask you to do something in
this training, do it right then.
| | 01:04 | Pause the video, do what I've
asked you to do, and implement it.
| | 01:08 | By implementing immediately,
you'll condition yourself.
| | 01:12 | It's a bit like how athletes or professional
musicians create muscle memory through repetition.
| | 01:18 | I want you to create productivity memory.
| | 01:21 | I want you to develop mental and physical
conditioning so you automatically behave in
| | 01:27 | the most productive manner with things like
email, paperwork, incoming phone calls, and
| | 01:32 | ideas that come into your head.
| | 01:34 | If you take action immediately, that will go a
long way toward building your muscle memory.
| | 01:41 | So in summary, number one, schedule the time to
complete this course--preferably in one complete block.
| | 01:49 | Number two, complete this
course in your workspace.
| | 01:53 | And number three, take action
immediately and apply the principles I teach you.
| | 01:58 | Do those three things and you'll get
the maximum benefit from this course.
| | 02:04 |
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| Using the handouts and exercise files| 00:00 | Throughout this course, I'll be asking
you to fill out worksheets to better
| | 00:04 | understand your own time-
management style and organizational habits.
| | 00:08 | These worksheets have been provided
in the Exercise Files tab on the Course
| | 00:13 | Details page for all lynda.com subscribers.
| | 00:17 | Or if you're watching this tutorial
on a DVD-ROM, the exercise files have
| | 00:21 | been included there.
| | 00:23 | At various points throughout the course,
I'll be asking you to pause the video
| | 00:27 | and fill out a worksheet.
| | 00:28 | In order for you to get the most out
of this training, I recommend you have
| | 00:32 | these worksheets on hand.
| | 00:34 | Now, let's get started.
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1. Laying the Groundwork to Become ProductiveMaking a lasting change| 00:00 | It's my goal to help you make a
lasting change, not just learn some tips or
| | 00:05 | techniques that will help you be more
productive or have better time management.
| | 00:10 | Many people who have completed this
program have experienced a near-permanent
| | 00:14 | change that lasts for many, many years.
| | 00:17 | How will we accomplish that?
| | 00:19 | By putting greater emphasis on the
principles rather than the tools.
| | 00:25 | The tendency for many people is
to believe that their next piece of
| | 00:28 | software that they buy,
| | 00:30 | the next computer that they purchase,
the next smartphone that they use, will
| | 00:34 | suddenly improve their
productivity by virtue of advanced technology.
| | 00:38 | The reality is that technology
itself will not make you more productive.
| | 00:44 | What will make you more productive is
using the technology in a way that's based
| | 00:48 | on timeless principles,
| | 00:50 | principles that never change,
regardless of advancements in technology.
| | 00:55 | For example, one of the things that
you'll learn through the course of this
| | 00:59 | training is that you need to carry your
calendar, your contacts, and your tasks
| | 01:05 | with you wherever you go.
| | 01:06 | Whether you use a smartphone or a
paper planner to accomplish that, it doesn't
| | 01:12 | matter as much as the commitment
you make to live that principle.
| | 01:16 | So the next time you think that buying a
new tool will make you more productive,
| | 01:21 | keep in mind it will only make you
more productive when you live according to
| | 01:26 | the principles of good time
management and productivity.
| | 01:30 | This course will show you those
principles, and more importantly, help you
| | 01:35 | practice them, so that they
become second nature to you.
| | 01:39 | It's in the habits you develop
where you'll experience lasting change.
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| Finding your personal motivation| 00:01 | What would you do if you had
an extra 10 hours per week?
| | 00:05 | Stop and ponder that question for a moment.
| | 00:08 | If you had an extra two hours every
workday, how would you reinvest that time?
| | 00:14 | Would it be on hobbies?
| | 00:16 | Would it be on friends and family?
| | 00:17 | Would you reinvest it to
further develop your career?
| | 00:21 | Really think about this question.
If you had an extra 10 hours per week, how
| | 00:26 | would you spend the time?
| | 00:28 | One of the critical elements in
becoming more productive and mastering time
| | 00:33 | management is to have a
strong motivation in mind.
| | 00:37 | This motivation is a vision of the
future, what you will do or what life will
| | 00:42 | look like once you reached a certain point.
| | 00:45 | It's my experience that those who
follow this course get that exact result.
| | 00:50 | They gain at least an extra 10 hours per week
of increased productivity in their schedule.
| | 00:56 | So before we go through the process of
getting that time, I would like you to
| | 01:01 | decide right now what you're going
to do with that time once you get it.
| | 01:06 | Write your answer down and put it in a
prominent place where you can see it.
| | 01:10 | "When I have an extra 10 hours a week
I will" and then fill in the blank.
| | 01:14 | As you go through this training,
continually look back at that question and
| | 01:19 | remember your personal motivation.
| | 01:21 | There are going to be moments where you
find what I ask you to do challenging.
| | 01:26 | A little bit of challenge is
necessary for growth, right?
| | 01:29 | So whenever you feel challenged and
think you might be tempted to not complete
| | 01:33 | the course, I want you to look back at
that card and remember your vision of the
| | 01:37 | future, of what you'll do with
the extra time you'll uncover.
| | 01:40 | That's the motivation behind
you going through this training.
| | 01:45 | Always refer back to your motivation,
and the likelihood of your success
| | 01:49 | will increase.
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2. Understanding the Obstacle to ProductivityAddressing the myth of multitasking| 00:00 | Ironically, the biggest obstacle to
effective time management is something that
| | 00:04 | many people believe is what
makes them more productive.
| | 00:09 | Let's address the myth of multitasking
before we dive deeper into time management.
| | 00:14 | In order for you to experience this myth
firsthand, let's do an exercise together.
| | 00:19 | We're going to find out how well
you use your time when you multitask.
| | 00:24 | You can download and print out
a handout from the course page.
| | 00:27 | Alternatively, I have an example of
the handout here. You can use any piece of
| | 00:31 | white paper to do this exercise.
| | 00:34 | Notice that I have the phrase at the top
of this exercise that says, "Multitasking
| | 00:39 | is worse than a lie."
| | 00:40 | Mark Twain was credited with saying
there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
| | 00:47 | Perhaps you've heard that before.
| | 00:49 | Well, I say there are lies,
damned lies, and multitasking.
| | 00:54 | Multitasking is worse than a lie,
because it is culturally acceptable.
| | 01:00 | It's something we've all been taught
makes us more productive. What you're
| | 01:05 | about to experience firsthand is how
multitasking is actually hindering your productivity.
| | 01:10 | Here is how the exercise works. Wait to
hear all of the instructions before you begin.
| | 01:15 | First, I want you to do recopy the
phrase "multitasking is worse than a lie" in
| | 01:21 | the first row, and then underneath that in
the second row right the numbers 1 to 27.
| | 01:28 | And when you get done, just write your time
off to the end of the second row. Great!
| | 01:38 | Now let's do this again.
| | 01:40 | This time I want you to multitask.
| | 01:44 | So for every letter you write
you're going to write a number.
| | 01:47 | So you'll began by writing the letter m
and beneath that you'll write a 1, and
| | 01:53 | then you write a u and beneath that
you'll right a 2, l, 3, and so on.
| | 02:00 | And this again will be a time to exercise.
| | 02:07 | What you just experienced is the myth
of multitasking. Rather than getting more
| | 02:13 | done faster, you got worse results slower.
| | 02:17 | This is because your brain is
physically incapable of handling multiple active
| | 02:23 | tasks at the same time.
| | 02:25 | It's why I call multitasking switchtasking.
| | 02:29 | What you really did when you tried
to multitask was switch back and forth
| | 02:33 | rapidly between the tasks, just as you
switched back and forth rapidly between the
| | 02:39 | numbers and the letters.
| | 02:41 | No, I'm not talking about doing something
active while something mindless or mundane
| | 02:44 | happens in the background, such as exercising
while watching tv. To clarify I call that
| | 02:50 | sort of activity background-tasking.
But when most people say they are multitasking
| | 02:56 | or "I'm a good multitasker", they're referring to
attempting to perform multiple active tasks
| | 03:03 | at the same time.
| | 03:05 | This is switchtasking, and it's always
devastating to effective time management.
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| Understanding the consequences of multitasking| 00:00 | Let's cover the three effects of switchtasking.
| | 00:03 | Remember, when someone thinks they're
multitasking what they're really doing is
| | 00:07 | switching back and forth rapidly between tasks.
| | 00:11 | They aren't really
multitasking; they're switchtasking.
| | 00:15 | Number one, this is the most obvious:
when you multitask, the amount of time it
| | 00:19 | takes to complete things increases.
| | 00:22 | I'll give you a brief example.
| | 00:24 | I once worked with a business owner
and asked her to tell me of a recent time
| | 00:28 | when she was multitasking.
| | 00:30 | She described a situation where she
was doing three things at once: typing an
| | 00:35 | email, talking to her
assistant, and talking on the phone.
| | 00:38 | She spent a total of one hour doing all
three of these things at the same time.
| | 00:44 | We all know that multitasking
person who doesn't pay attention to us.
| | 00:48 | Well, finally she went out into
the hall and took the phone call.
| | 00:52 | To finish the call, it took her 7 minutes.
| | 00:56 | She went back in to talk to her assistant.
| | 00:58 | It took her 3 minutes.
| | 01:00 | She sat down and answered the
email. It took her 3 minutes.
| | 01:05 | In short, when she tried to do all
three things at the same time, it took her an
| | 01:10 | hour and she accomplished none of them.
But when she did them one at a time it
| | 01:16 | took her less than 15 minutes, and
she completed all of them successfully.
| | 01:21 | This is where that feeling comes from
at the end of the day when you put your
| | 01:25 | feet up on the couch and you're so
exhausting. You've been working hard, but
| | 01:29 | what did you accomplish?
| | 01:32 | You've been juggling and jumping
between tasks, not finishing anything.
| | 01:37 | Number two is quality.
| | 01:39 | When you switch tasks, the quality of
your work decreases; or in other words, the
| | 01:45 | likelihood of mistakes increases.
| | 01:48 | How many times have you seen someone
been delegated a very clear instruction?
| | 01:54 | Something that's just obvious. Maybe you
even gave it to them in writing, and they
| | 01:59 | still didn't get it right.
| | 02:01 | Is it because they're stupid?
| | 02:03 | No, it's a symptom of multitasking.
| | 02:07 | And the final perhaps less obvious,
but more powerful effect of switchtasking is
| | 02:13 | its impact on your stress levels.
| | 02:16 | Whenever you introduce switchtasking,
even the simple list of activities becomes
| | 02:21 | highly stressful. Even with so many
timesaving devices, we are more stressed out
| | 02:28 | and more starved for time then we've
ever been in the history of the world.
| | 02:33 | This is because of a
cultural acceptance of multitasking.
| | 02:38 | So let me recap. The three effects of
multitasking, or switchtasking, are the
| | 02:44 | amount of time it takes to complete
things increases, the quality of work you do
| | 02:49 | decreases, and your stress
levels increase dramatically.
| | 02:56 | Everything in this course is designed
to reduce the switches in your day and
| | 03:01 | reduce the effects of switchtasking.
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3. Introducing the Three Principles of ProductivityUnderstanding principle 1: Space| 00:00 | The first fundamental principle of
time management is space, meaning your
| | 00:05 | workspace--the physical
items that are around you.
| | 00:08 | How well are you using the
physical space that you have?
| | 00:12 | In particular, we'll focus on helping
you understand and live this one phrase:
| | 00:17 | the more gathering points you
have, the more switches you make,
| | 00:21 | so have as few gathering points as possible.
| | 00:25 | A gathering point is any place where
things that are unresolved come together.
| | 00:30 | I call these unresolved items unprocessed.
| | 00:34 | Typical gathering points include piles of paper,
| | 00:37 | stacks of bills, drawers stuffed full of
miscellaneous items, even email inboxes,
| | 00:43 | voicemail boxes, and receipts stuffed in your
pocket are all considered gathering points.
| | 00:48 | We must reduce the number of gathering
points you have in order to reduce the
| | 00:53 | amount of switches that take place in your day.
| | 00:56 | Remember, every switch you make
causes you to be less effective, make more
| | 01:01 | mistakes, and increase your stress levels.
| | 01:04 | How does having many gathering points
make you switch more during your day?
| | 01:09 | Well, I like to use this little
example. Imagine that you and I are in a
| | 01:14 | competition, an orange-gathering competition.
| | 01:17 | We must both gather oranges from trees
and put them into one basket. You and I
| | 01:22 | both have to gather 100
oranges and put them into one basket.
| | 01:27 | Who can do it the fastest?
| | 01:29 | Now, let's say that you have to gather
oranges from 20 different trees, and I have
| | 01:36 | to gather oranges from five different trees.
| | 01:39 | Who is going to win the competition?
| | 01:41 | It's very simple, right?
| | 01:43 | Because you have to make many more
trips back and forth between all of those
| | 01:48 | trees to get the oranges into that one
basket, you're going to have a lot more switches.
| | 01:53 | You're going to waste a lot of time
and a lot of energy going back and forth
| | 01:58 | between all those different
gathering points for oranges.
| | 02:02 | I have to make less trips going to fewer
trees, so I go faster and I win the competition.
| | 02:09 | The same thing happens in your day.
| | 02:12 | If you have a lot of gathering points,
you expend a lot of time and energy going
| | 02:18 | back and forth between them.
| | 02:20 | So by reducing the number of gathering
points you have, you'll gain precious time
| | 02:25 | in your day, allowing you to focus on
more important, more valuable activities.
| | 02:31 | Later on in this course, we'll get into the
specifics of reducing your gathering points.
| | 02:36 | For now remember this, the more
gathering points you have, the more switches you
| | 02:41 | make, so have as few
gathering points as possible.
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| Understanding principle 2: Mind| 00:00 | The second fundamental principle of time
management is, stop using your mind as a gathering point.
| | 00:07 | In the last video, I explained how a
gathering point is any place where things
| | 00:12 | that are unprocessed gather.
| | 00:13 | So if you use your mind as a gathering
point, that means that you're allowing a
| | 00:18 | lot of to-do's and tasks
and projects to swirl around in your head.
| | 00:24 | Think about the last hour. How many
times did you interrupt yourself when a new
| | 00:28 | thought popped into your head?
| | 00:30 | Each one of those little self-
interruptions was a switch, and switches, remember,
| | 00:35 | will cause things to take longer,
cause you to make more mistakes, and will
| | 00:39 | increase your stress levels.
| | 00:41 | A mind filled with to-do's and action
items is constantly in a state of switching.
| | 00:47 | This is terribly inefficient, very
stressful, and a recipe for lots of mistakes.
| | 00:52 | It's part of the reason why many of
you who I call the 'lost souls' once were
| | 00:57 | organized and are now disorganized.
| | 01:00 | You've allowed the to-do's to spill
into your mind and distract your thoughts.
| | 01:05 | I've seen instances of people who
damage personal relationships simply because
| | 01:10 | their mind is filled with
too many unresolved tasks.
| | 01:14 | I've also seen people who don't sleep
well because they go to bed at night
| | 01:18 | thinking about all the things that
they need to do and wake up in the morning
| | 01:22 | thinking about all the
things that they need to do.
| | 01:25 | An entire section in this course is
devoted to help you find a better system for
| | 01:30 | getting all these things
out of your mind forever.
| | 01:34 | This will allow you to better focus
throughout your day on the tasks at hand and
| | 01:39 | not distract yourself.
| | 01:41 | So in summary, principle two is
never use your mind as a gathering point.
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| Understanding principle 3: Time| 00:00 | The third and final principle that you
should live in order to master your time
| | 00:05 | deals with how you view time itself.
| | 00:08 | In particular, avoid
paying interest on your time.
| | 00:12 | What do I mean when I say "interest on time?"
| | 00:15 | Well, perhaps you've heard
the phrase, "time is money."
| | 00:19 | I don't know if time always is money,
but time certainly behaves like money,
| | 00:23 | because it's a scarce resource.
| | 00:25 | Many people have experienced
firsthand the negative consequences of going
| | 00:30 | into debt with money.
| | 00:32 | The number one consequence of going
into debt with money is that you have to
| | 00:36 | repay it with interest.
| | 00:37 | In other words, when you buy something
on credit, rather than budgeting for it
| | 00:42 | and paying cash all upfront, you end
up paying much more in the long run.
| | 00:47 | Would you be surprised if I
told you that you can borrow time?
| | 00:51 | In fact, I would guess that most
people are borrowing time every single day.
| | 00:56 | Now, I'm not saying that you can
magically get 25 hours in a day, because you
| | 01:01 | can't. But you can borrow from
one activity to pay something else.
| | 01:06 | For example, you can borrow from sleep
to pay work, you can borrow from work to
| | 01:11 | pay a hobby, you can borrow from your
family time to pay work. And what is the
| | 01:16 | consequence of all that borrowing?
| | 01:18 | Well, you always have to repay the
time with interest, and time demands a
| | 01:24 | brutal interest rate.
| | 01:26 | I'll give you a very simple example.
| | 01:28 | Let's say that you repeatedly borrowed
time from sleep to pay work, that you're
| | 01:34 | sleeping less than your body requires.
| | 01:36 | Well, if you continue to do that,
you'll end up spending more time recovering,
| | 01:42 | being tired and sluggish,
and you'll be less productive.
| | 01:45 | Continually do this over a long
period of time, and studies have shown that
| | 01:50 | you'll also have an impact on other
aspects of your health, which will really
| | 01:54 | cost you a lot of time.
| | 01:56 | The key to living this principle of
avoiding paying interest on time is to live
| | 02:02 | within your means, live within a
time budget and never overspend.
| | 02:07 | In fact, begin the habit of under-spending time.
| | 02:11 | The average person tries to cram 65
minutes worth of activity into a 60-minute
| | 02:17 | hour or 25 hours worth of
activity into a 24-hour day.
| | 02:22 | Instead of getting more done by doing
that, they get less done, because they're
| | 02:27 | retracing their steps.
| | 02:29 | They end up repaying interest on borrowed time.
| | 02:33 | So just as happiness comes from
spending $1 less than what you make, and misery
| | 02:39 | comes from spending $1 more, so also
does happiness come from spending five
| | 02:45 | minutes less than what you have, and
misery comes from attempting to spend five
| | 02:51 | minutes more than you have.
| | 02:53 | Later in the course, I'll show you the
specific steps that you can take to begin
| | 02:58 | living within your means and
living within a time budget.
| | 03:01 | By doing that you'll actually get
more done, you'll have less stress, and
| | 03:06 | ironically, you'll have more time.
| | 03:09 | For now, just remember this
principle: avoid paying interest on time.
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4. Principle 1: SpaceTaking inventory of your gathering points| 00:00 | Let's begin helping you
live the principle of space.
| | 00:04 | We'll start by finding out how
many gathering points you have.
| | 00:08 | Remember, a gathering point is any
place where you gather unprocessed items,
| | 00:13 | things like email, tasks, to-dos, ideas,
busywork, assignments, projects, and so on.
| | 00:19 | Unprocessed means you haven't clearly
decided yet either what to do with it,
| | 00:24 | when to do it, or where is its home.
| | 00:27 | If any one of those three things are
missing--what, when, where--then the place
| | 00:32 | where that item is is a gathering point.
| | 00:36 | We've provided you with a very simple
worksheet you can use to determine how
| | 00:39 | many gathering points you have.
| | 00:41 | On this worksheet, for each type of
gathering point that you have, add one.
| | 00:47 | So for instance, in the example at the top
of the worksheet, you'll see voicemail.
| | 00:52 | If you have three voicemail accounts,
such as a personal voicemail, cell phone
| | 00:57 | voicemail, and work voicemail, then the
number you put there would be three.
| | 01:03 | Go ahead and pause this video and then
after you complete the gathering points
| | 01:07 | worksheet, come back and I'll
discuss your results with you.
| | 01:14 | Great! You've completed the
Gathering Points worksheet.
| | 01:17 | For many people, that
worksheet is a real eye-opener.
| | 01:21 | Let's take a look how your gathering
points number compares with the average
| | 01:26 | results that I've seen through the
years of doing this exercise with clients.
| | 01:31 | The average person prior to
completing this course has between 30 and
| | 01:36 | 40 gathering points.
| | 01:38 | So if you had a number somewhere
between 30 and 40, that's about average.
| | 01:43 | The lowest I've seen from
someone who hasn't completed this time
| | 01:47 | management course is 12.
| | 01:49 | I would expect someone with the number
around 10, 11, 12 or even lower, to be
| | 01:54 | close to falling into that zen
master time management personality.
| | 01:58 | The highest number I've ever
seen is 161 gathering points.
| | 02:05 | If you're in that range, it's a
significant number, and we have a lot of work to
| | 02:09 | do, but we also have the
greatest opportunity for improvement.
| | 02:15 | Now that you understand where you fit on
the scale of gathering points, I'll tell
| | 02:19 | you the target number that we're
going to shoot for in this training.
| | 02:23 | The number of gathering points that
you want to strive to have at the end of
| | 02:27 | this training is six.
| | 02:30 | In the next videos, I'll explain what
the six gathering points are and steps you
| | 02:35 | can take to get to that number.
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| Narrowing your gathering points| 00:00 | In order to manage time effectively and
reduce the number of switches that take
| | 00:05 | place in your day, you should strive
to have six or less gathering points.
| | 00:11 | These will be your six approved gathering
points, the gathering points you choose.
| | 00:16 | I'll begin by outlining the six
gathering points I use, and recommend.
| | 00:20 | Then in future videos I'll discuss each
of my gathering points in greater depth.
| | 00:25 | The first one is an inbox
meaning a physical inbox.
| | 00:30 | A physical inbox is the place where
everything that is physical and unprocessed
| | 00:35 | should go: papers, receipts,
magazines, books even cords, cables--
| | 00:41 | things that haven't been put away.
Everything should go into this one physical
| | 00:45 | inbox. Because you don't
ever want it to be too full,
| | 00:49 | I recommend that you have
a reasonably large inbox.
| | 00:52 | The second gathering point is a portable inbox.
| | 00:56 | The portable inbox is simply the
mobile extension of your inbox.
| | 01:00 | It's something that you take with you
wherever you go, with the rare exception of
| | 01:04 | maybe a night on the town or perhaps
swimming. But all the rest of the time, you
| | 01:09 | should carry a portable inbox with you.
| | 01:11 | Understand, a portable inbox is not the
entire briefcase; rather it's one spot
| | 01:17 | with in the briefcase, or it's
one pocket within your planner.
| | 01:21 | I use a portable inbox like this.
| | 01:24 | The third gathering point is a notepad.
| | 01:28 | Notepads come in all shapes and sizes.
Whatever form factor works best for you use that.
| | 01:34 | Notepads are unique in that you're
going to have a combination of unprocessed
| | 01:39 | action items and just general notes.
| | 01:42 | The fourth gathering point is an email inbox.
| | 01:46 | Now if you're like me, you may
have multiple email accounts.
| | 01:49 | However, all my email accounts
funnel into just one email inbox.
| | 01:55 | That saves time from my having
to check many different accounts.
| | 01:58 | I only need to go to one place
to see all my unprocessed email.
| | 02:03 | You could do this with almost any email
program. It's very easy to retrieve email
| | 02:08 | from other places with just a
few changes in your settings.
| | 02:12 | This will save you a considerable
amount of time from having to check email
| | 02:16 | at multiple places.
| | 02:18 | And the fifth gathering point is voicemail.
| | 02:21 | Voicemail is still a necessity for most
everyone, but you only need to check one
| | 02:26 | voicemail account at most.
| | 02:28 | In a future video, I'll show you some
steps that you can take to minimize the
| | 02:33 | number of voicemail accounts that you have.
| | 02:36 | And finally, the sixth gathering point
is left open to you; it's the wild card.
| | 02:41 | There are several different options
that could work, but you want to choose the
| | 02:45 | one that will make the most sense for you.
| | 02:48 | This could be a raw task list
where you're just listing to-do's.
| | 02:52 | It could be text messaging, it could
be a dedicated personal assistant, or it
| | 02:57 | could be a social media web site inbox.
| | 03:00 | You can also choose to be even more
productive and efficient by choosing to not
| | 03:05 | have the sixth gathering point.
| | 03:07 | You'll just make sure that
everything goes into the other five.
| | 03:11 | But in order to keep this program flexible,
I'm going to leave the choice up to you.
| | 03:16 | In a future video, I'll give you some
guidance on how to select a wild-card
| | 03:20 | gathering point that fits your unique needs.
| | 03:23 | So, in summary, your six approved
gathering points are one inbox, one portable
| | 03:29 | inbox, one notepad, one email inbox,
one voicemail, and one wild-card gathering
| | 03:38 | point, if necessary.
| | 03:40 | Continuing on, I'll discuss the
first gathering point, the inbox.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up an inbox gathering point| 00:00 | Your inbox is the most important tool when
it comes to keeping your space organized.
| | 00:06 | Your inbox will become the home
for all unprocessed physical items.
| | 00:11 | By home, I mean that if there's
anything out of place, anything unresolved, or
| | 00:17 | anything where you don't have a
scheduled time in your calendar or task list to
| | 00:21 | deal with it, you should
go into the physical inbox.
| | 00:25 | Think of your inbox as one big box that
sits on your desk or close to your workspace.
| | 00:31 | Anything that you see that's out of place
should be picked up and put into that inbox.
| | 00:37 | Papers, receipts, cables, books, magazines,
anything that's physical should go in there.
| | 00:44 | Part of the problem that people have
is they allow these things to pile up
| | 00:49 | in different places and then in a
whirlwind of frustration they put everything away.
| | 00:54 | I call this binge-and-purge
organization, and it's a huge waste of time.
| | 00:59 | Instead, cultivate the habit of putting things
into the inbox rather than putting them away.
| | 01:06 | Then at a set scheduled time you go
through that inbox with a regular system
| | 01:12 | and clear everything out, bringing
it to empty at least once per week.
| | 01:16 | I'll show you how to do that
processing in a future video.
| | 01:20 | Make sure that your inbox is large
enough for your everyday needs with work.
| | 01:25 | How big should the box be?
| | 01:27 | Make sure that it's big enough
that it never gets to overflowing.
| | 01:31 | If you're someone that deals with just a
handful of papers each week, then maybe
| | 01:35 | a small plastic tray will work for you.
| | 01:38 | This is a great example of a large inbox.
| | 01:41 | It leaves plenty of room for
everything that you might encounter in a week
| | 01:45 | without getting too full.
| | 01:47 | Maybe you deal with larger items.
For instance, I once worked with an
| | 01:52 | interior design company that had
swatches of fabric and granite and lots of
| | 01:58 | different kinds of samples.
| | 02:00 | They needed to go get a
very large tote-sized baskets.
| | 02:05 | There's no right or wrong inbox;
get whatever works for you.
| | 02:08 | So take a moment right now and decide
what inbox you're going to use for all of
| | 02:14 | your physical gathering going forward.
| | 02:17 | This is an important first step
toward becoming more productive and getting
| | 02:21 | more time.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with a portable inbox| 00:00 | The second gathering point you'll
want to select is one portable inbox.
| | 00:05 | I previously explained that your main
inbox is the home for anything physical
| | 00:10 | that's out of place in your workspace.
| | 00:13 | The portable inbox is the mobile
extension of that physical inbox.
| | 00:18 | It's what you take with you when you're
on the road, when you're out and about,
| | 00:21 | or when you go to the store.
| | 00:23 | Really, any place that you go you'll want
to carry this portable inbox with you.
| | 00:28 | Then when someone hands you a business
card or a receipt, or a piece of paper,
| | 00:32 | you just put it into that space.
| | 00:35 | Any space that's large enough for the type of
paper that you receive in your day will work.
| | 00:41 | Keep in mind that when I say a
portable inbox, I'm not referring to an entire
| | 00:45 | briefcase or a purse.
| | 00:47 | You may have lots of other
documents and papers in your briefcase.
| | 00:52 | However, only one slot in that
briefcase should be designated as the portable
| | 00:57 | inbox. Or if you're carrying a
planner or padfolio only one pocket in that
| | 01:03 | planner or padfolio
would be your portable inbox.
| | 01:06 | For instance, this is my portable inbox.
| | 01:09 | I have one pocket in here that's large
enough for a regular-sized piece of paper.
| | 01:14 | So, when hands an item to me, I put it
into that pocket. Then when I get to my
| | 01:21 | office, I take my portable inbox,
open it up and dump all of its contents
| | 01:26 | into my physical inbox.
| | 01:29 | Choose whatever form of the portable
inbox that works best for your situation.
| | 01:34 | Just make sure that you have a clearly
designated spot, and it's something you're
| | 01:38 | comfortable taking with you wherever you go.
| | 01:41 | Now, just a comment from
experience about the portable inbox.
| | 01:45 | Some of you are uncomfortable with the
idea of carrying around a large planner,
| | 01:50 | briefcase, or purse wherever you go.
| | 01:53 | If that's your personality,
let me recommend an alternative.
| | 01:57 | Have a small pocket or high-quality
file folder that you put in your car.
| | 02:03 | Then whenever you're at an event
or at a store and someone hands you
| | 02:07 | something, you can take those new
items back with you and put them into that
| | 02:12 | folder in your car.
| | 02:14 | In general, I don't recommend this,
because it adds two extra steps to your
| | 02:18 | system that are unnecessary,
| | 02:20 | one being that you have to remember
to take items back to your car, and two
| | 02:25 | being that you have to remember to take
the folder out of your car, take it into
| | 02:29 | your office, and dump it
into your portable inbox.
| | 02:32 | But if you're concerned about carrying
around bulk, putting a portable inbox in
| | 02:37 | the car is an option that some of my
clients have found helpful in the past.
| | 02:42 | Take a moment now to decide what
portable inbox you're going to use from
| | 02:47 | this point forward.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Getting the most from a notepad| 00:00 | A notepad is a flexible gathering point
| | 00:03 | you can take with you wherever you
go to jot down ideas, notes, and action
| | 00:08 | items very quickly.
| | 00:10 | The notepad is a little bit unique
in that it combines some of your hand-
| | 00:13 | written notes with no direct action
required with other concrete action items
| | 00:19 | that need to be processed.
| | 00:21 | First, let's talk about what
kind of notepad you might use.
| | 00:25 | Personally, I use a notepad the
size of a full-size sheet of paper.
| | 00:30 | I combined that notepad in my padfolio
with a portable inbox, making it easy for
| | 00:36 | me to carry both gathering
points with me wherever I go.
| | 00:40 | Some people also have had success with
very small notepad, such as this one here.
| | 00:45 | You can find these notepads at any
office supply store at a very small expense.
| | 00:51 | These are nice because you can carry
them with you in your pocket wherever you go.
| | 00:56 | Another option for a notepad for some
people is a tablet PC or a tablet device
| | 01:03 | which allows them to handwrite
their notes in a digital form.
| | 01:06 | These digital tablets can be
used in the same way one would use a
| | 01:10 | larger physical notepad.
| | 01:12 | Whichever one of these notepads
that you use, here are a couple of best
| | 01:16 | practices for gathering items
to the notepad. Number one,
| | 01:21 | make sure that you
clearly indicate action items.
| | 01:25 | Separate them from just your general
notes by using some sort of a symbol.
| | 01:30 | In my case, I use an open check box,
which lets me know that I need to process it.
| | 01:37 | This is very different than
completing it, and I'll show later on how you
| | 01:41 | process these items.
| | 01:42 | But for now, just whenever you
encounter some sort of action item, give it a
| | 01:47 | symbol, a star, an open box, or even
placing little plastic tags on the side
| | 01:53 | has been successful for some people.
| | 01:56 | The second best practice is that when
you get back to your inbox, or to your
| | 02:01 | office, if you're using a paper notepad,
rip off all the pages and bring them to blank.
| | 02:07 | Then put all of those pages into the inbox.
| | 02:11 | This makes it easy for you to not have
to remember to go back and look through
| | 02:15 | the notepad to find those action items.
| | 02:18 | This practice gives you a blank slate
each day, helping you do not multitask
| | 02:23 | during the day and be distracted by
other unresolved items that you've
| | 02:26 | written down previously.
| | 02:28 | Take a moment right now and decide
what kind of notepad you're going to carry
| | 02:33 | with you wherever you go.
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| Consolidating multiple email accounts| 00:00 | Email has become a part of our everyday lives,
although some people wish it was less so.
| | 00:06 | In a later video, I'll show you how
to reduce the amount of email you have
| | 00:10 | to deal with in a day.
| | 00:12 | Right now, I just want to help you
reduce the number of email gathering
| | 00:16 | points you may have.
| | 00:18 | To keep your gathering points down, I
recommend you have only one email inbox.
| | 00:24 | This means that if you have multiple
email accounts, for instance, a Gmail
| | 00:28 | account, a Hotmail account, a Yahoo!
| | 00:30 | account, a corporate account, no
matter how many accounts you have, you want
| | 00:34 | them all to go into one email inbox.
| | 00:38 | Because there are so many kinds of
software programs available for handling
| | 00:42 | email, it's not practical for me to
give you a full walkthrough in this
| | 00:46 | training of how to
consolidate accounts for every program.
| | 00:50 | There are resources available on
lynda.com that will help you to understand
| | 00:55 | these various email programs better, and
I encourage you to take those courses.
| | 01:00 | However, what you'll want to do right
now is, if you have many email accounts,
| | 01:05 | combine all of those into
one central email program.
| | 01:10 | Some people may be concerned by this
concept, feeling they want to keep work
| | 01:14 | and personal separate.
| | 01:16 | Now if there are legal considerations
behind that, or if your work requires you
| | 01:20 | to keep them separate, then you're
going to have to have an extra gathering
| | 01:24 | point, and there's really no
way that we can avoid that.
| | 01:27 | But if you have the ability to combine
work and personnel, I highly recommend it.
| | 01:33 | You'll actually gain a much greater
amount of efficiency and productivity if you
| | 01:37 | deal with both personal and work at the
same time when it comes to processing.
| | 01:43 | By handling all of your emails in one
spot, you'll get into a rhythm of making
| | 01:47 | those decisions faster and easier.
| | 01:50 | Also keep in mind that most email
programs also give you the flexibility of
| | 01:55 | being able to respond to an email
using the account that it was sent to you.
| | 02:00 | You can also have separate signatures
that automatically go out depending on
| | 02:05 | which account you're using.
| | 02:07 | For instance, you can have a work
signature automatically attached to your email
| | 02:12 | when you're replying to work emails
and a personal signature automatically
| | 02:17 | attached to email when you're
replying to personal emails.
| | 02:21 | Take a moment right now and consider
all the different email accounts that you
| | 02:25 | have. Then decide what one central email
software program you're going to use to
| | 02:31 | handle email in the future.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Consolidating multiple voicemail accounts| 00:00 | How many voicemail accounts do you have?
| | 00:03 | No matter how many voicemail accounts
that you have, your goal should be to get
| | 00:07 | to where you only need to
check one place for all voicemail.
| | 00:12 | The simplest way to do this is to set up
call forwarding on one of your phone lines.
| | 00:17 | For instance, if you have a work
voicemail and a cell phone voicemail, set either
| | 00:23 | your work phone to forward to your cell
phone if the call isn't answered, or set
| | 00:28 | your cell phone to forward to your work
phone number if the call isn't answer.
| | 00:32 | In this way only one voicemail account
will be used, and you only have to check
| | 00:37 | one of those voicemails.
| | 00:39 | Another option--and this works for some
people--is to delegate the responsibility
| | 00:44 | of checking the voicemail.
| | 00:45 | For instance, if one of your voicemail
accounts is a home voicemail, but your
| | 00:51 | spouse does most of the checking
right now, see if you can delegate the
| | 00:54 | responsibility for checking all of the
voicemail to your spouse. Or perhaps if
| | 00:59 | you have an assistant, you could
have them check your voicemail for you.
| | 01:03 | These examples may not apply in your
particular situation, but this as an option for some.
| | 01:09 | Another option is to eliminate the need
for voicemail completely. How do we do that?
| | 01:14 | Well, some office phone systems are
now advanced enough so that when someone
| | 01:19 | leaves a voicemail it forwards the
voicemail as an audio attachment in an email.
| | 01:25 | This actually eliminates a gathering
point, because even though you can check
| | 01:29 | your voicemail through
that system, you don't need to.
| | 01:33 | It's now pushed all of your voicemail
into the email gathering point, eliminating
| | 01:38 | the need to even check
voicemail as a separate gathering point.
| | 01:42 | There are also several systems
available now that can replace your cell phone
| | 01:47 | voicemail and will also forward the
audio file, or even a transcription of the
| | 01:52 | call, to your email account.
| | 01:55 | For just two examples, Google Voice
provides this functionality of recording
| | 02:00 | voicemails as attachments and
sending them to your email account.
| | 02:05 | YouMail is a service that can replace
your cell phone voicemail and create a
| | 02:09 | transcription of voicemails
left and send you an MP3 as well.
| | 02:14 | New services come online monthly
that provide comparable features.
| | 02:18 | By searching for a 'voicemail
transcription' or 'voicemail to email' you can
| | 02:23 | explore these options.
| | 02:25 | However you decide to handle your
voicemail, it's important for you to get down
| | 02:30 | to one, or even zero, voicemail accounts.
| | 02:33 | Doing this will increase your
efficiency by reducing the number of switches
| | 02:38 | that take place in your day of going back
and forth between multiple voicemail accounts.
| | 02:44 | Right now, please write down all of
the voicemail accounts that you're
| | 02:48 | currently using and decide how you're
going to consolidate them into one, or no,
| | 02:54 | voicemail accounts.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Establishing a wild card gathering point| 00:00 | The sixth and final gathering point
that you may have I call the wild card.
| | 00:06 | This wild card gathering point just
represents whatever gathering point you need
| | 00:11 | to fit your unique situation.
| | 00:13 | For instance, if you need a separate
personal email inbox from a work email
| | 00:19 | inbox, the wild card allows you a space
among the sixth gathering points to do that.
| | 00:26 | Briefly, I want to discuss some other
possible wild card gathering points.
| | 00:31 | The first is a raw task list.
| | 00:33 | A raw task list is simply a running
list of to-do's that are unprocessed.
| | 00:39 | It's different than a traditional to-
do list though, in that you're not going
| | 00:43 | to check things off as you complete
them; instead you're going to check them
| | 00:48 | off as you process them.
| | 00:51 | Remember, processing is simply
deciding what you're going to do with it, when
| | 00:56 | you do it, and where its home is.
| | 00:58 | Once you've made the what, when, where
decisions, you can check an item of
| | 01:03 | your raw task list.
| | 01:04 | Raw task lists it can be paper, such as
having a spot in your paper planner,
| | 01:09 | or they can be digital, such as
having a list of tasks within Outlook that
| | 01:14 | aren't categorized.
| | 01:16 | Another potential
gathering point is text messaging.
| | 01:19 | If you're someone who sends and
receives a lot of text messages in you day, or if
| | 01:24 | your work environment requires you to
use text, then I would recommend that you
| | 01:29 | treat text messaging as a gathering point.
| | 01:33 | Have a set time and a set place to go
through those text messages along with the
| | 01:38 | other processing that you do.
| | 01:41 | Social networking sites are
another wild-card option for some people.
| | 01:45 | For instance, if your Facebook account
doesn't forward to your email, then you
| | 01:50 | would need to check it separately.
| | 01:52 | If you're fortunate enough to have a
dedicated personal assistant, meaning that
| | 01:56 | person who handles your schedule and
acts as a gatekeeper for you in a dedicated
| | 02:01 | way, then you can use that
person as a gathering point.
| | 02:05 | This means that whenever something
comes into your mind that you have to do, you
| | 02:09 | can turn to your dedicated personal
assistant and say, "Remind me to do that."
| | 02:13 | Now, by the way, many people do ask
others for reminders, but they're asking
| | 02:18 | coworkers or family members. This just
creates a random gathering point that's unreliable.
| | 02:23 | In short, you don't have to use the
sixth wild card gathering point, but I leave
| | 02:29 | it to you as an option, because I
understand that this course needs to be
| | 02:32 | adaptable to a wide variety of situations.
| | 02:36 | So right now take a moment and
consider, do you need a sixth gathering point?
| | 02:41 | And if so, what will you choose as
that sixth wild card gathering point?
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Separating work and personal gathering points| 00:00 | Once you've established your gathering
points, a common question comes up: should
| | 00:05 | you separate work and personal gathering points?
| | 00:09 | In other words, should you have
two of each kind of gathering point?
| | 00:13 | Should you have a
personal inbox and a work inbox?
| | 00:16 | Should you have a personal
voicemail and a work voicemail?
| | 00:19 | My answer to that is try to avoid having two
of each kind of gathering point if possible.
| | 00:26 | The key phrase in there is
"if possible," because for some people it's not
| | 00:31 | practical for them to combine
work and personal into one space.
| | 00:36 | A physical inbox, for instance, only
works well for both personal and work if
| | 00:41 | you're working from a home office.
| | 00:44 | But if you have to travel to work and
then have lots of unresolved things at
| | 00:48 | home, you're probably going to have
a personal inbox at home as well.
| | 00:53 | Remember the principle that I shared
with you about space: the more gathering
| | 00:57 | points you have, the more switches you make.
| | 00:59 | This means that every gathering point
you allow in your life will slow you down,
| | 01:04 | cause you to make more mistakes,
and increase your stress levels.
| | 01:09 | So to answer the question of should I have
one of each gathering point work and personal,
| | 01:15 | my answer is try as much
as possible to not do that.
| | 01:21 | Keeping your gathering points
down will increase your efficiency.
| | 01:26 | It will reduce your mistakes, and
it will reduce your stress levels.
| | 01:30 | Most of the people I've worked with
have found that when they combined gathering
| | 01:35 | points and process work and personal
together, they're much more efficient and
| | 01:40 | much more effective.
| | 01:41 | Remember, processing isn't actually
performing tasks; it's simply deciding what
| | 01:48 | you're going to do, when you're going to
do it, and where the homes for the items are.
| | 01:52 | So you'll be able to schedule personal
tasks and appointments during personal
| | 01:57 | time and schedule work
items during your work hours.
| | 02:02 | So in short, try to reduce the number
of gathering points by combining work and
| | 02:08 | personal if possible.
| | 02:10 | This will increase your likelihood of
success. But this course is flexible
| | 02:15 | enough that if you need to have both
work and personal, you can still succeed.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Taking the next step toward controlling your space| 00:00 | I've now given you an overview of the
six gathering points and an in-depth
| | 00:04 | explanation on what each of them are,
and how to make the best use of them.
| | 00:09 | At this point, I would recommend that
you do not continue until you have those
| | 00:14 | gathering points clearly identified.
| | 00:16 | Make sure you have clearly decided on,
and designated homes for, the following:
| | 00:22 | your physical inbox, your
portable inbox, a notepad--
| | 00:28 | only one--only one email inbox, only
one voicemail account, and a wild-card
| | 00:36 | gathering point if necessary.
| | 00:38 | After you've done that, you're ready to
move on to the next step and begin taking
| | 00:43 | action to implement this
training for everyday use.
| | 00:47 | Keep in mind that all of these gathering
points exist for you to put things in them.
| | 00:53 | Try not to put anything unresolved any
place other than these gathering points.
| | 00:59 | The next time you're tempted to write a
note on the back of an envelope or stuff
| | 01:04 | something in the drawer to be dealt
with later, instead use one of the six
| | 01:08 | gathering points you've chosen.
| | 01:10 | Get in the habit of whenever you find
something unprocessed, use the gathering point.
| | 01:15 | I would also recommend you come back to
this section and review the principles,
| | 01:20 | perhaps every three to six months, to
make sure that you still have the optimum
| | 01:25 | number of gathering points,
and that you're using them properly.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Principle 2: MindSelecting your mind clearing options| 00:00 | The second principle I recommend you
practice in order to have time mastery and
| | 00:05 | improve your productivity is to
make sure that your mind is clear,
| | 00:09 | a mind that is uncluttered with to-do's,
action items, and unresolved ideas.
| | 00:15 | In order to keep your mind clear, you
have to have a system ready at a moment's
| | 00:19 | notice to clear your mind of any
ideas that come into your head.
| | 00:23 | Here are three quick principles
to keep in mind when selecting your
| | 00:27 | mind-clearing option.
| | 00:28 | First, the faster the option,
the more likely you are to use it.
| | 00:33 | Meaning when an idea comes into your
head, you need to be able to get it out of
| | 00:37 | your mind as quickly as possible
and put it into an approved gathering point.
| | 00:42 | You want your option to be fast.
| | 00:45 | Second, the easier it is to use the
option, the more likely you are to use it.
| | 00:49 | If you have to fumble through your
computer or find the program, not only
| | 00:54 | will that slow you down, but it's just a
mental barrier for you clearing out your mind.
| | 00:59 | Make sure that you use an easy
option for clearing your mind.
| | 01:03 | Third, the more portable the option,
the more likely you are to use it.
| | 01:09 | Because I'm going to show you how to
clear out your mind, no matter where you are,
| | 01:13 | you definitely need to use mind-
clearing options that are portable, so that
| | 01:18 | no matter where you are, no matter
what's you're doing, if an idea pops into
| | 01:22 | your head or a task that's
unresolved comes to mind, you can get it out
| | 01:27 | quickly and easily.
| | 01:29 | Now in terms of selecting which mind-
clearing option you are going to use, any
| | 01:34 | of the six approved gathering points will work.
| | 01:36 | I'll just walk you through a few of the
most common mind-clearing options people use.
| | 01:42 | At the end of this video, I suggest you
decide which two you're going to use.
| | 01:47 | So keep that in mind as I talk to
you about the different options.
| | 01:51 | The first is a small notepad or notebook.
| | 01:54 | The great thing about this is that you can
carry it with you wherever you go. It's very fast.
| | 02:00 | It's zero technology, and it's so
portable it fits those three principles I
| | 02:05 | talked to you about.
| | 02:06 | Really, the only downside is that you
may have to transfer the notes to your
| | 02:11 | portable inbox or to your inbox and then
process it later. And also because it's
| | 02:17 | not digital, there may be the
necessity of retyping notes that you've made.
| | 02:22 | A second option is a paper
list of unprocessed tasks.
| | 02:26 | This would fit into that wildcard
gathering point that I mentioned before.
| | 02:31 | This is simply a running list of to-do's.
| | 02:34 | It's portable, fast, easy,
and zero technology skills required.
| | 02:39 | However, it can be bulky to carry
around a separate list from a notepad.
| | 02:45 | A third option is your phone,
meaning typing notes into your phone.
| | 02:51 | There are two ways that you can do this.
| | 02:53 | Either you can type items into a
task list on your phone, or you can
| | 02:58 | send yourself an email.
| | 03:00 | This is definitely portable, and
it can be fast depending on how
| | 03:04 | technologically advanced you are.
| | 03:07 | It may not be easy though.
| | 03:09 | There may be multiple steps to get to this.
| | 03:13 | So if you're not a power phone
user, this may be too slow for you.
| | 03:18 | But if you find that using your phone
is very easy for you, then that's a great
| | 03:23 | option for clearing out your mind.
| | 03:25 | Another option is a dictation service.
| | 03:28 | Now obviously, if you have a personal
assistant, you can send them a voicemail
| | 03:33 | message and they can dictate it
for you and send it to you by email.
| | 03:37 | That's a great option.
| | 03:38 | Most people don't have a personal
assistant though, so that's not practical.
| | 03:43 | A couple of options that I've
recommended to clients are recall or jot.
| | 03:48 | These options allow you to call a
number and leave yourself a message.
| | 03:52 | These services will transcribe the
message and send it to you in an email.
| | 03:58 | That way you get it out
of your mind very quickly.
| | 04:01 | You didn't take a lot of time, and it put
the message into an approved gathering point.
| | 04:07 | This is great for mobile
situations, where you're out and about;
| | 04:11 | you can't take the time to pull out
a notepad and write something down.
| | 04:14 | The only disadvantage is that some of
the options may cost you a little bit of
| | 04:19 | money, and it may take a little bit
of time to set up for a learning curve.
| | 04:24 | Finally, the last option for
clearing your mind would be making a note to
| | 04:29 | yourself on the computer.
| | 04:31 | This is great when you're sitting at your desk.
| | 04:34 | It's digital, so you don't
have to recopy the notes.
| | 04:37 | You could perhaps type it into a notepad
program like Microsoft OneNote or EverNote.
| | 04:43 | The disadvantages are that it's slow to boot
up sometimes, and it's not highly portable.
| | 04:48 | So if you're not at your computer,
you're not going to use this option.
| | 04:53 | So I've talked to you about
several different options:
| | 04:55 | a notepad, a task list, using your phone,
dictation service, or making notes to
| | 05:01 | yourself on your computer.
| | 05:03 | To wrap up this video, I'd like you to
select the top two options that you're
| | 05:08 | going to use from this point
forward to clear tasks out of your mind.
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| Clearing your mind using mental triggers| 00:00 | Now that I've explained the principle
of keeping your mind clear, let's talk
| | 00:05 | about how you actually go about
clearing your mind of its many to-do's.
| | 00:09 | If you're like most people, then you
have accumulated a vast pile of to-do's,
| | 00:14 | unresolved items that are
floating around in your head.
| | 00:18 | We have to clear all of those items
out of your head and get them into an
| | 00:22 | approved gathering point;
| | 00:24 | this will make it easy for you
to process them in the future.
| | 00:28 | The easiest way to do this is
to use a list of mental triggers.
| | 00:32 | We've provide a handout that you can
download that gives you a list of triggers
| | 00:36 | for every single aspect of
your life, both work and personal.
| | 00:41 | Please download the mental triggers
list, and I'll show you how this is done.
| | 00:46 | By using this list, you'll be able to
clear everything from your mind and get it
| | 00:50 | into an approved gathering point.
| | 00:53 | The process is really pretty simple.
First, read through each trigger on the
| | 00:58 | list one at a time and think about that trigger.
| | 01:01 | If anything comes to mind that's
unresolved, write it down. Then move to the
| | 01:06 | next trigger on the list and repeat.
| | 01:09 | If something comes to mind that's
completely unrelated to the trigger, great.
| | 01:14 | Go ahead and write that down, and if
nothing comes to mind, that's fine too. Just
| | 01:19 | move on to the next one on the list.
| | 01:21 | I compare this to mining for gold.
| | 01:24 | As you go through the list, you'll
have lots of spots where nothing comes to
| | 01:29 | mind, and then finally, you'll hit a rich
vein of unresolved tasks and to-do's, and
| | 01:34 | you'll just mine that for a while.
| | 01:37 | So don't feel that you need to only
write down one item per trigger or that
| | 01:43 | you're not doing things
right if nothing comes to mind.
| | 01:46 | This will be easier to understand if I
show you an example of how this is done.
| | 01:51 | You're welcome to follow
along on this practice run.
| | 01:54 | I'm going to read a trigger from
the list and you will think about the
| | 01:58 | trigger. Then you will put down the
tasks in an approved gathering point, in
| | 02:04 | this case a notepad.
| | 02:06 | Let's go ahead and practice
for just five items on the list.
| | 02:10 | Got your gathering point ready? Let's
begin. Filing and a reference plan,
| | 02:18 | gathering points, areas to
organize or clean, computers, monitors or
| | 02:27 | printers, software. Let's stop here.
| | 02:34 | By now you should have a good idea of
how this mind-clearing activity works.
| | 02:39 | It's fairly simple.
| | 02:41 | Now while you can do this by yourself, I'd
recommend you find a partner to help you.
| | 02:47 | It's easier to clear your mind with a
partner, because having someone else read
| | 02:52 | the list aloud, will help you have less
distraction and switches, allowing you
| | 02:57 | to stay focused on clearing on your mind.
| | 03:00 | If you don't have a partner that's
available right now to help you, you may want
| | 03:04 | to contact someone and set up a time
in both your calendars when you can sit
| | 03:09 | down and go through the entire list.
| | 03:11 | In my experience this process takes
about an hour. Once you're finished, your
| | 03:17 | mind will be cleared and you're to-do's
will be in an approved gathering point.
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| Setting a mind-clearing schedule| 00:00 | Once you've completed your first
session of clearing your mind of unresolved
| | 00:05 | to-do's and tasks and actions, you're
likely to feel some initial relief.
| | 00:09 | You've been storing all these items in
your head, and now you've cleaned them out.
| | 00:14 | Right now, it's important that you
understand that just doing this exercise
| | 00:19 | once is not enough.
| | 00:22 | Think about the initial mind-
clearing exercise like a spring cleaning.
| | 00:27 | You cleared everything out of your head and
you gave yourself a blank slate to work with.
| | 00:33 | Over time you'll do better at avoiding
filling your mind with clutter because
| | 00:38 | you have a system to keep
things out of your mind.
| | 00:41 | However, it's very normal to miss
things, to allow those unresolved items to
| | 00:47 | begin to accumulate once again in your head.
| | 00:50 | So, we need to build a system or a schedule
for you to clear those items out of your head.
| | 00:56 | I would recommend that you set up a
time every three months, once per quarter,
| | 01:01 | to clear out the tasks in your head.
| | 01:04 | At the scheduled time, you're going to
go back through the mental triggers list
| | 01:09 | just like you did the first time.
| | 01:11 | Once you've completed watching these
videos, open up your calendar and create a
| | 01:15 | recurring appointment with yourself
every three months, once a quarter, to clear
| | 01:20 | your mind out of all the
unresolved tasks and action items.
| | 01:24 | Now you'll probably find that these
future recurring mind-clearing activities
| | 01:28 | will go much faster than the initial one,
because you're really just looking for
| | 01:33 | all the little tasks that are hidden
in the corner, rather than dumping an
| | 01:37 | entire backload of ideas.
| | 01:40 | Go ahead and open your calendar right
now, schedule a recurring appointment for
| | 01:45 | one hour, every three months, to make
sure that your mind stays free and clear
| | 01:51 | of unresolved tasks and action items.
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| Taking the next step toward keeping your mind clear| 00:00 | At this point you may be concerned
about this huge list of tasks and action
| | 00:05 | items that you've cleared out of your mind.
| | 00:08 | If you find yourself in that
position, I would encourage you to move on
| | 00:12 | through the training.
| | 00:13 | A little later in this course, we'll
get into the habit of processing, and I'll
| | 00:18 | show you, step by step, how to take each
item on the list and decide what you're
| | 00:23 | going to do with it, when you're
going to do it, and where it belongs.
| | 00:28 | Remember, from this point forward,
cultivate the habit of clearing anything out
| | 00:33 | of your mind the moment it
begins to interrupt your thoughts.
| | 00:36 | The moment the thought of a to-do
comes into your head, immediately pull out
| | 00:41 | an approved gathering point and write it down.
| | 00:43 | Get into that habit.
| | 00:45 | Don't let anything swirl
around there. Get it out.
| | 00:49 | Remember, your mind is not
an acceptable gathering point.
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|
|
6. Principle 3: TimeChoosing the right calendar for you| 00:00 | I imagine it's not a big surprise when
I say to you that your calendar is the
| | 00:05 | most important tool when it comes to
time management in your organization.
| | 00:10 | However, this video shows you
how to view your calendar from a
| | 00:13 | unique perspective.
| | 00:15 | Think of your calendar as your time budget.
| | 00:17 | What does that mean?
| | 00:19 | It means that you have a
weekly limit of 168 hours.
| | 00:24 | That's your time budget.
| | 00:25 | When you schedule things into your
calendar, think of it in the same way that
| | 00:29 | you would think about taking
money out of a bank account.
| | 00:32 | You should live within your
budget and never overdraw.
| | 00:36 | If you overdraw, you'll go into time debt
and you'll end up paying interest on time.
| | 00:42 | Interest on time means things
take longer due to switching cost,
| | 00:46 | you will make more mistakes, and
you'll increase your stress levels.
| | 00:51 | Because the calendar is so critical to
helping you live within your time budget,
| | 00:55 | I want to take a moment and discuss the
options that you have for your calendar.
| | 01:00 | When it comes to using your calendar,
there are two main options: paper or digital.
| | 01:06 | You can use either paper or digital,
but each has its advantages and disadvantages.
| | 01:12 | First, the classic paper planner.
| | 01:15 | Paper planners are great
| | 01:16 | because they're affordable,
they're very fast to access,
| | 01:20 | they don't really require any training
to use, and it's easy to keep in one place
| | 01:25 | along with your gathering points, like
your portable inbox and your notepad.
| | 01:30 | However, there are some big
disadvantages with paper planners.
| | 01:35 | First, it has limitations when it
comes to recurring appointments.
| | 01:39 | Let's say every Tuesday at 3 o'clock
you have an appointment with your coworker.
| | 01:45 | Putting that into a paper
planner is very difficult.
| | 01:49 | You'll have to recopy that
appointment every single week.
| | 01:53 | Paper planners can also be pretty
bulky because you're carrying around
| | 01:57 | many weeks at a time.
| | 01:59 | Finally, setting a reminder times
for tasks can be a bit slow, and these
| | 02:05 | reminders won't be automatic,
| | 02:07 | meaning if you forget to look at your
task list, you may forget to do your tasks.
| | 02:12 | However, if you do choose to use a paper
planner, get a weekly view planner that
| | 02:17 | shows the hours of each day.
| | 02:20 | Avoid planners that don't
show the hours of each day.
| | 02:23 | The reason is because if a planner
doesn't show the hours, it ceases to
| | 02:28 | become an effective time budgeter,
because you really don't have any idea how
| | 02:33 | much time you have left.
| | 02:35 | The second option is the digital calendar.
| | 02:38 | You have multiple options for digital
calendars, ranging from your computer to
| | 02:42 | your smartphone to a PDA. Whichever
option you choose for digital calendar can
| | 02:47 | work provided you're able to access it
at any time, no matter where you are.
| | 02:52 | That means if you have a calendar on
your computer, such as Microsoft Outlook,
| | 02:57 | you need to make sure that it syncs
with a smartphone, so that you can carry
| | 03:01 | your calendar with you wherever you go.
| | 03:04 | If you have a calendar on the Internet,
such as Google Calendar, you need
| | 03:08 | to make sure that you have a phone
that syncs with that calendar and allows
| | 03:13 | for on-demand access.
| | 03:15 | For a digital calendar,
please follow this rule of thumb.
| | 03:18 | Use a phone that's based on the
same software as your calendar.
| | 03:24 | I call this the rule of lost in translation.
| | 03:27 | If you do business with someone who
speaks a language other than yourself, you
| | 03:31 | need to use a translator.
| | 03:34 | Can you do business with them?
| | 03:35 | Yes, but going through a translator
increases the likelihood of mistakes and
| | 03:41 | confusion and slows the process down.
| | 03:45 | It's the same thing when you try to
use a phone that doesn't match the
| | 03:48 | software of your calendar.
| | 03:51 | Take a moment right now and decide
and commit to which calendar option that
| | 03:56 | you're going to use for your time budget.
| | 03:58 | This decision is very important for
everything that we do in the training
| | 04:02 | going forward.
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| Using your calendar effectively| 00:00 | The calendar is a critical tool for
your success when it comes to time
| | 00:05 | management and productivity.
| | 00:07 | Over the years of working with
clients, I've found there are five
| | 00:10 | fundamentals that you should follow
to help you get the most from your
| | 00:14 | calendar and avoid common mistakes.
| | 00:17 | First of all, understand
the time behaves like money;
| | 00:21 | it must be budgeted,
because when it's gone, it's gone.
| | 00:25 | Therefore, whenever you process
something that's going to take longer than 15
| | 00:30 | minutes, put it on your calendar.
| | 00:33 | That way you can make a withdrawal on
your time budget and assure that you don't
| | 00:38 | overcommit yourself.
| | 00:40 | This leads to the second principle:
avoid double-booking yourself.
| | 00:45 | Now this is a recipe for disaster.
| | 00:48 | It's a bit like spending time on a credit card.
| | 00:51 | When you double-book yourself, even if
you think one of the appointments might
| | 00:55 | fall through, you're creating a
situation where you're going to be tempted to
| | 01:00 | multitask, which will cause you to
lose lots of time and make mistakes.
| | 01:05 | You'll have to often
reschedule and retrace your steps.
| | 01:10 | The third principle will help you
avoid double scheduling, which is, never
| | 01:15 | commit to an appointment without
having your calendar resource on hand.
| | 01:20 | Sometimes people will make an
appointment and say, "let's do lunch next week,"
| | 01:25 | or, "I'll call you next Tuesday at 3 o'clock,"
but they don't put it into their calendar.
| | 01:31 | This is a critical mistake
you should avoid; otherwise
| | 01:35 | you'll put the pressure on your mind to
remember when you're supposed to do things.
| | 01:40 | Also, you may not allocate a proper
amount of time when you can't see the
| | 01:45 | appointment visually in your calendar.
| | 01:48 | So always keep your calendar with you and
always put your appointments in your calendar.
| | 01:54 | Forth, schedule buffer and
travel time for appointments.
| | 02:00 | In other words, avoid having
appointments that are back to back,
| | 02:04 | 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock,
with no room to breathe in the middle.
| | 02:10 | This isn't practical or realistic,
| | 02:12 | especially in today's
information-overloaded world.
| | 02:16 | You need to leave space between
your appointments for the unexpected
| | 02:20 | interruptions, to take a moment to
breathe and relax, to prepare for the next
| | 02:25 | meaning that you have.
| | 02:26 | And certainly if you have to travel
from one meeting to the next, make sure to
| | 02:31 | give yourself even more buffer time to travel.
| | 02:35 | The fifth and final principle:
think of your calendar as a commitment.
| | 02:40 | It's a commitment to yourself
and it's a commitment to others.
| | 02:44 | When you budget time in a calendar, stick to it.
| | 02:48 | Don't put suggestions of when you
might do things into the calendar.
| | 02:54 | When you reach the point in the course
that discusses processing, I'll explain
| | 02:59 | in depth about the difference between
calendared items and tasked items. But for
| | 03:04 | now understand that only things that
are less than 15 minutes and don't have a
| | 03:10 | deadline can go to your task list.
| | 03:14 | And anything that has a deadline and
anything that is longer than 15 minutes has
| | 03:19 | to go to your calendar, so that you've
properly budgeted time to complete those
| | 03:24 | items and complete them in a timely manner.
| | 03:27 | So in summary: first, remember
that time behaves like money;
| | 03:32 | second, avoid double scheduling yourself;
| | 03:36 | third, never commit to an
appointment without your calendar on hand;
| | 03:40 | forth, schedule buffer time and
travel time; and fifth, when you schedule
| | 03:46 | something on your calendar, commit to it.
| | 03:49 | Follow these principles and you'll
be using your calendar effectively.
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| Saying no to others| 00:00 | There is one word that's more powerful
than any other when it comes to focusing
| | 00:05 | your time and that word is 'No'.
| | 00:09 | I'd like to help you gain the art of
saying no gracefully and tactfully to others.
| | 00:14 | As you become more productive and
manage your time better, others will see
| | 00:18 | that and they'll want you to participate in
projects, causes, things that they have going on.
| | 00:25 | This isn't to say that you'll always
say no, but you should say no more often
| | 00:30 | than you say yes, because whenever
you say yes to one thing, you're always
| | 00:35 | saying no to something else.
| | 00:37 | In other words, spreading yourself
thin will sabotage the success of anything
| | 00:42 | you're already committed to.
| | 00:44 | Here is a simple effective technique
that you can use whenever someone asks you
| | 00:48 | to participate in something.
| | 00:50 | Ask for the request through
email. This does several things.
| | 00:55 | First, it gives you time to consider
the request in a calm environment, where
| | 00:59 | you can look at your calendar and
consider whether you truly have the time in
| | 01:04 | your budget to participate.
| | 01:06 | Second, it allows you to prepare a
response that's diplomatic and kind in the
| | 01:11 | case that you do have to say no.
| | 01:14 | It allows you to prepare a response in
a written format, rather than making an
| | 01:18 | excuse in person, or worse yet, saying
yes, simply because you're uncomfortable
| | 01:24 | saying no face to face.
| | 01:26 | And third, it creates a situation
where the person may not actually follow
| | 01:31 | through with asking you.
| | 01:33 | Many people ask for help simply
because you're face to face, but they weren't
| | 01:37 | really committed to having you involve.
| | 01:40 | This gives them the opportunity to back
out gracefully or fail to follow through.
| | 01:45 | Now what if it's your boss
making the request, or your customers?
| | 01:50 | Often you'll need to say
yes in these situations.
| | 01:54 | However, make sure that you always
get a when, meaning a date and time of
| | 02:00 | completion or action.
| | 02:02 | For instance, let's say that your
boss asks you to get a report to them.
| | 02:07 | You can ask the question,
what's the deadline for this report?
| | 02:11 | This will allow you to make prioritized
decisions about what you have in your calendar.
| | 02:17 | A common mistake of managers and
leaders is that they delegate many
| | 02:20 | responsibilities to their employees
but don't provide clear deadlines on when
| | 02:26 | they should be accomplished.
| | 02:27 | This causes confusion and makes it
difficult for employees to budget their time.
| | 02:33 | Help your superiors or customers
out by asking them to give you a 'when'
| | 02:37 | whenever they delegate.
| | 02:39 | Part of saying no is also asking the
question, "When?" Maybe you're not going to
| | 02:44 | say no to it altogether, but you are
going to say, "Not now, but later. This is
| | 02:50 | when I'm going to do it."
| | 02:52 | By tactfully learning the art of saying
no to others, you'll protect your time
| | 02:57 | budget, protect your focus, and make
sure that you're able to focus your actions
| | 03:02 | on your most valuable activities.
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| Saying no to yourself| 00:00 | I've said that 'no' is the most powerful word
in your vocabulary when it comes to focus.
| | 00:06 | Many people don't have a challenge
with saying no to others, but they have a
| | 00:11 | significant challenge saying no to themselves.
| | 00:14 | I see this occur most often in
entrepreneurs, or in people who are in
| | 00:19 | highly creative fields.
| | 00:21 | They have many ideas that compete for
their attention, but instead of saying no
| | 00:26 | to some of these ideas, they put them
all on their calendar and end up spreading
| | 00:31 | themselves, and their
available resources, very, very thin.
| | 00:35 | I would like to help you gains some
skill in the art of saying no to yourself
| | 00:41 | and saying it actively.
| | 00:43 | The easiest way to say no to yourself
is to create what I call a Perhaps List.
| | 00:49 | A Perhaps List is filled with ideas
innovations, things that you might want to
| | 00:54 | do someday, but haven't made
the commitment yet to do them.
| | 00:59 | When an idea comes into your head, if
you're not fully committed to it, put it
| | 01:04 | on the Perhaps List.
| | 01:06 | This will allow you to consider it
later on without tying up valuable resources
| | 01:11 | needed to focus on the
commitments you've already made.
| | 01:15 | Set a recurring appointment for
yourself to review this Perhaps List,
| | 01:20 | usually once a month to once every
three months. Then as you review the Perhaps
| | 01:26 | List, you can take a moment and decide
whether or not you want to take action on
| | 01:31 | that idea at that time, delete it, or
leave it on the list for future review.
| | 01:37 | The principle of 'when' also applies
to saying no to yourself, meaning when
| | 01:43 | are you going to do it?
| | 01:45 | Ask yourself, when a new idea comes
into your head, do I need to do this now
| | 01:50 | or can I do it later?
| | 01:53 | As long as you are using your
calendar properly as a time budget,
| | 01:57 | procrastination can actually be your friend.
| | 02:01 | Procrastination can help you, because
you're still going to complete those
| | 02:06 | ideas, but do so by putting them into
the calendar further into the future.
| | 02:13 | So if you do need to add something
new to your calendar--a new project, a
| | 02:17 | new idea, a new initiative--ask yourself,
when is the latest that I can complete this?
| | 02:24 | Then put it into your calendar to
begin working on it as late as possible.
| | 02:31 | This will allow you to focus on the
tasks at hand and not get distracted by
| | 02:36 | every idea that pops into your head.
| | 02:39 | By learning the skill of actively saying no
to yourself, you won't be stretched so thin.
| | 02:44 | You'll be able to better focus and
complete the projects that you already have
| | 02:49 | on your plate and seeing more success
by bringing projects to full completion
| | 02:56 | before switching your attention.
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|
|
7. Equipping Yourself for ActionPreparing for action| 00:00 | Up to this point in the course, I have
primarily been sharing with you principles.
| | 00:05 | We haven't talked too much about the action,
| | 00:07 | although you've picked up some great
tips and some things that you can use in
| | 00:10 | general. The next section of this
course goes into hands-on implementation of
| | 00:16 | your productivity and time-management
strategy. Because of that, make sure that
| | 00:21 | you watch this next section in your workspace.
| | 00:24 | What do I mean when I say workspace?
| | 00:26 | It's the place where you are most
often when you handle things like email,
| | 00:32 | paperwork, and scheduling.
| | 00:33 | Most people have some sort of a home
base when it comes to doing their work,
| | 00:39 | and that's what I mean.
| | 00:40 | If you have a mobile office, that's fine;
just make sure that your briefcase and
| | 00:45 | all of the resources that you normally
use when doing your work are at hand when
| | 00:50 | you go through the next section.
| | 00:52 | You'll get the maximum benefit from this
training if you complete it in your workspace.
| | 00:58 | I can't emphasize that enough.
| | 01:00 | Once you have the time budgeted to
complete the training, and once you're in
| | 01:04 | your workspace, then there's a third
component that you'll also need, which is
| | 01:08 | the Resources Checklist.
| | 01:10 | We've provided a simple
checklist for you to download.
| | 01:14 | Keep in mind that this list we've given
you isn't necessarily a shopping list.
| | 01:19 | If you already have these items on hand,
you don't need to go buy them. But if
| | 01:24 | you're missing any items, I recommend
that you go get them prior to going into
| | 01:29 | the Action section of this training.
| | 01:32 | It's very possible you won't need to use every item on
this list, but it's much better to have
| | 01:38 | these items on hand and then return
any unused items rather than find your
| | 01:44 | training process interrupted
because you're missing a resource.
| | 01:48 | First, you'll want to have some large
boxes--at least eight of them. Really any
| | 01:54 | kind of box where you can put things
will work. Then you will want to have an
| | 01:59 | electronic labeler, similar
to this one that I have here.
| | 02:02 | The exact make and model doesn't matter.
| | 02:05 | There are plenty of inexpensive options
out there. Just get the less expensive
| | 02:09 | option. Also make sure that the
labeler has the batteries it needs.
| | 02:14 | I recommend that you also have some
place to put your DVDs or CDs in case you
| | 02:19 | have some, like this storage wallet.
| | 02:21 | You may find stray discs that need to
be put away as you go through the process.
| | 02:27 | Then you will want to have an inbox,
something like this really deep file box
| | 02:31 | that's legal-sized--the bigger the better.
| | 02:34 | Next, you will want to have a set of
hanging file folders that match the size of
| | 02:39 | your filing cabinet.
| | 02:41 | So if you have a letter-size filing
cabinet, then get the letter-size hanging
| | 02:44 | file. And if you have a legal-
sized filing cabinet, of course get the
| | 02:48 | legal-size hanging file folders.
| | 02:51 | Then you'll want to have a set
of manila folders, usually 100.
| | 02:56 | Again, whether you get the legal or
regular size depends on your filing cabinet.
| | 03:01 | Next, I recommend you pick up two
sets of something like these, which are
| | 03:06 | alphabetical guides for hanging file folders.
| | 03:10 | These are not absolutely necessary,
but you will save yourself a lot of time if
| | 03:15 | you don't have to write out letters by hand.
| | 03:18 | So save yourself a little bit of time
and headache and make sure you have these
| | 03:22 | on hand. Then you'll want to have a
set of stacking trays--six, minimum.
| | 03:28 | The plastic ones are the cheapest.
| | 03:30 | You can get higher quality if you're
more concerned with the aesthetics of
| | 03:33 | your office. But if you're trying to save
money, any stacking plastic letter tray will do.
| | 03:39 | I recommend the horizontal loading
kind instead of the vertical, or the ones
| | 03:44 | that load wide rather
than the ones that load deep.
| | 03:47 | This layout makes it easier to
put papers in and pull them out.
| | 03:51 | And finally, if you've made a decision
to change to a new calendaring system,
| | 03:56 | different than what you've used in the
past, make sure that you have that system
| | 04:00 | in hand or installed and
ready to go on your computer.
| | 04:04 | In other words, if you decided to start
using Outlook, make sure that Outlook is
| | 04:09 | installed in your computer.
| | 04:11 | Once you have all of these items and in your
workspace and you've budgeted the time
| | 04:16 | to complete this course,
| | 04:18 | you're ready to go.
| | 04:19 | So, let's get started.
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|
|
8. Gathering to Your InboxPreparing to gather| 00:00 | Now we're ready to start taking action.
| | 00:03 | It's time to clean this desk.
| | 00:05 | The first step that we're
going to take is gathering.
| | 00:08 | We're going to reduce the number of
physical gathering points that you have, and
| | 00:12 | we're going to do it quickly.
| | 00:14 | The way that we're going to do that is
we're going to gather everything that's
| | 00:17 | unprocessed into an inbox.
| | 00:20 | When I say processed I mean you know
what to do with it, you know when to do it,
| | 00:25 | and you know where it belongs.
| | 00:27 | If any one of those three things is
missing, then it's unprocessed and it
| | 00:33 | should be gathered.
| | 00:34 | Now you may have enough unprocessed
items at the moment that if we gather them
| | 00:38 | all, they won't fit into one inbox.
| | 00:41 | That's why I asked you to get those
large boxes, and to have them on hand.
| | 00:47 | No matter how many boxes we end up
with, think of it as gathering things
| | 00:51 | into one big inbox.
| | 00:55 | Before I actually walk you through
this office and show you how to gather,
| | 00:59 | we need to be very clear about what should
be gathered and what shouldn't be gathered.
| | 01:04 | Things that you shouldn't gather
are things that are where they belong.
| | 01:08 | I use this phrase: everything has
a home and no visitor is allowed.
| | 01:13 | If something is in its home, it's
where it belongs. That's processed;
| | 01:18 | it shouldn't be gathered.
| | 01:19 | But if you have things mixed into a home--
let's say we've got stickies on your computer--
| | 01:25 | we want to pull those pieces of
paper off and put them into the inbox.
| | 01:30 | Also, set aside one special box right
now. You'll never do this again, but for
| | 01:36 | this training it's important to do it.
| | 01:39 | Just pick one box and set
it away from the others.
| | 01:43 | As you're going through the
gathering process, I want you to make one
| | 01:47 | important distinction.
| | 01:49 | This one box is where you put
anything that needs to be dealt with or
| | 01:53 | accessed in the next week.
| | 01:56 | Put it into that box
rather than the other boxes.
| | 01:59 | That box, that one-week box is going to
be a place where you start processing.
| | 02:05 | The reason for this is we don't want
you to bury something that needs to be
| | 02:09 | dealt with while you're still
developing your time-management systems.
| | 02:13 | So just for the purpose of this course--
this time only--put everything that
| | 02:18 | needs to be dealt with or
accessed in the next week into this box.
| | 02:23 | Put everything else into the other boxes,
| | 02:26 | absolutely everything.
| | 02:29 | Don't throw it away, don't sort, don't organize;
| | 02:32 | just put unprocessed items into the boxes.
| | 02:36 | Now that we have the
ground rules set, let's begin.
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| Gathering to your inbox: At your desk| 00:01 | The more gathering points you have,
the more switches will take place in your
| | 00:04 | day, making you much less productive.
| | 00:06 | In this video, I'm going to show you
how to reduce the number of physical
| | 00:10 | gathering points in your office.
| | 00:13 | Before you begin, make sure you're
in your office or your workspace.
| | 00:18 | We're going to take all the gathering
points that are physical and in your
| | 00:22 | office and put them into the inbox.
| | 00:25 | Make sure you have a temporary one-week box.
| | 00:28 | This is where you'll put anything
that you need to deal with or access
| | 00:32 | during the next week.
| | 00:33 | Remember, you'll only use this the
first time you gather, never again.
| | 00:38 | You'll also need a good
number of large file boxes.
| | 00:42 | Most people need about five to seven,
though you may need a few more or a few
| | 00:47 | less depending on how
unorganized your office is.
| | 00:51 | We're going to take everything that's
in here that's unprocessed and we're
| | 00:55 | going to put it in the box.
| | 00:57 | Let's start with the obvious
stuff you have on your desk.
| | 01:00 | Sticky notes are good for
one thing and one thing only:
| | 01:04 | making notes for someone else.
| | 01:07 | You're going to start using
your calendar for the reminding.
| | 01:10 | So we don't have to depend on whether
or not you look at that piece of paper to
| | 01:15 | remember when to do stuff.
| | 01:17 | Let's rip off all these
sticky notes and throw them in.
| | 01:20 | This needs to be dealt with this week,
| | 01:22 | so I'll put it in there, and the
rest of these can go in the big inbox.
| | 01:28 | Now let's find any other
things that are unprocessed.
| | 01:32 | One principle that really helps us
do that is 'everything has a home and
| | 01:37 | no visitors allowed.'
| | 01:38 | So if you see something that's sharing a
space with something else, I call that a visitor.
| | 01:43 | You need to get it out and put in the box.
| | 01:46 | Then later you can process it
and put it in its correct home.
| | 01:52 | This pair of scissors is sharing the
home with pens, so it needs to go.
| | 01:57 | I also recommend that people use
slots for plastic stacking trays.
| | 02:03 | Use horizontal ones instead of the
vertical ones, because it's easier to put
| | 02:07 | things in and it's easier to
get things out. All right!
| | 02:12 | So this top page here needs
to be dealt with this week.
| | 02:15 | I'll rip that out and put that into this
week, and everything else can go in the
| | 02:21 | big inbox, and I know this can too.
| | 02:26 | Now let's check the drawers
and see what we've got here.
| | 02:34 | Everything has a home and no visitors allowed.
| | 02:37 | So, looks like this should
be the home for the pens.
| | 02:40 | We'll put all the pens here, and this
is the home for the clips so the clips
| | 02:44 | belong there, paperclips here,
and posted notes there, oh, and the batteries,
| | 02:52 | get away from the gum.
| | 02:54 | Okay, so I recommend that you use
divider trays like this, or even small baskets,
| | 03:00 | and that way you can have
more slots and have more homes.
| | 03:04 | It's a great way to take a drawer that's
just wide open and turn it into a place
| | 03:08 | where you can have many different homes.
| | 03:11 | Now I'm going to pull out the labeler.
| | 03:13 | Creating labels allows you to be able
to see where things are very quickly and
| | 03:18 | remember how to put things away quickly.
| | 03:20 | For just one example, I'm going
to create a label called pens.
| | 03:24 | I'll use this label to show where I'm
keeping my extra pens, and it doesn't
| | 03:37 | matter where you put the label;
just put it some place where you can
| | 03:40 | remember where you put it.
| | 03:42 | You can create many different labels for
the different places within your drawer,
| | 03:46 | but for right now, I'll
just give you one example.
| | 03:53 | Here is a good rule of
thumb when creating homes:
| | 03:56 | Things that you use multiple times
in a day, such as pens or a stapler or
| | 04:00 | even these sticky notes,
| | 04:02 | you want to be able to have them right at hand.
| | 04:05 | Things that you use maybe once a week,
you want to have at some place like
| | 04:08 | the drawers. And things that you use
less than once a month, you can have
| | 04:12 | them out of the room.
| | 04:14 | Now when we're gathering stuff, I
don't want you to throw anything away.
| | 04:18 | I want you to throw it in the inbox
unless it's a banana peel or a candy wrapper.
| | 04:23 | Here is why.
| | 04:24 | We're developing muscle memory, so that
when you see something out of place, you
| | 04:29 | put it in the inbox.
| | 04:31 | Many people are in the habit of what
I call binge-and-purge organization.
| | 04:36 | They allow the disorder to grow
until they say, "I can't take it anymore!"
| | 04:41 | Then they take a whole day, they throw
things away, and they put them where they belong.
| | 04:46 | This becomes a cycle that
they repeat over and over.
| | 04:49 | By cultivating the habit of putting
things in the inbox, you'll never get that
| | 04:54 | disorganized ever again.
| | 04:56 | So keep telling yourself, "Everything
has a home, no visitors allowed," and
| | 05:00 | anything that violates that, take
it out and throw it in the inbox.
| | 05:05 | But it looks like we've
gathered everything here.
| | 05:07 | When you come to your office every day
and see all these things pushed aside
| | 05:12 | into corners, it's actually very
stressful and very draining on your day.
| | 05:16 | In the back of your mind you think,
oh, I should've taken care of this.
| | 05:19 | I should've taken care of that.
| | 05:21 | Well, we are going to take care
of absolutely everything in here.
| | 05:26 | We're going to process it one at a time
using the system that I'm going to show you.
| | 05:31 | So in summary, here are your action steps.
| | 05:34 | Number one, move all
unprocessed items into one big inbox.
| | 05:39 | Number two, remember to put items that
need to be dealt with or accessed in the
| | 05:44 | next week into the temporary one-week inbox.
| | 05:48 | Number three, don't throw anything away.
| | 05:51 | Number four, remove anything
that is visiting in the wrong home;
| | 05:56 | these are unprocessed items.
| | 05:58 | Number five, dump any
miscellaneous drawers or files into the inbox;
| | 06:03 | these are unprocessed items.
| | 06:06 | Number six, create more homes for
items as necessary. And number seven, label
| | 06:12 | homes as you create them.
| | 06:14 | Now that you've watched this
video, it's time to take action.
| | 06:17 | Gather everything from your
office and put it all into your inbox.
| | 06:22 | This will help you cultivate the habit
of never putting anything unprocessed
| | 06:27 | anywhere other than your inbox.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Gathering to your inbox: Elsewhere| 00:00 | Now that we've gathered everything
from your desk, you may think that we're
| | 00:04 | done, but we're not.
| | 00:06 | We need to cover every single area
where you might have gathering points.
| | 00:10 | Remember, we did that exercise before,
where we counted all those different
| | 00:14 | gathering points that you have?
| | 00:16 | We need to gather all of them.
| | 00:18 | So now I'd like you to stand up
and take a look around your office.
| | 00:23 | Are there any places that you missed?
Are there any spots behind cabinets where
| | 00:27 | papers may have fallen or may have gotten lost?
| | 00:30 | How about closets or storage areas?
| | 00:33 | You can go into those storage areas
and take a close look at them and ask the
| | 00:37 | question, are there any visitors
here that are in the wrong home?
| | 00:41 | Remember, everything has a
home and no visitors allowed.
| | 00:46 | We want to leave no stone unturned when
it comes to gathering, so that we don't
| | 00:51 | have to go through this process ever again.
| | 00:54 | Cultivate the habit, from this point
forward, that whenever something is out of
| | 00:58 | place you put it in the inbox and nowhere else.
| | 01:02 | You may have a question about large items.
| | 01:05 | Let's say that you have a picture frame
that needs to be hung up and it's larger
| | 01:09 | than all the boxes put together.
| | 01:11 | That's a common issue.
| | 01:12 | If you have something that's bigger
than the boxes, make a note to deal with it
| | 01:17 | later and put that note into one
of your approved gathering points.
| | 01:21 | That's a way of putting it into the
inbox without having to look at all of the
| | 01:25 | information, or to put the
entire object in the box.
| | 01:29 | Now that you've gathered everything from
all the nooks and crannies and put them
| | 01:33 | into the boxes, we have one
final step related to your office.
| | 01:38 | Take a broad look around your office
and ask yourself, are there any changes
| | 01:43 | that I would make here?
| | 01:44 | Do you need different shelving? Do you
want to repaint or redecorate something?
| | 01:49 | Are there pictures that need to be hung
up? And are there things on shelves you
| | 01:53 | don't want there anymore?
| | 01:55 | Any kind of aesthetic changes that you
want to make to your office, anything
| | 01:59 | that you see, write down a note and
put it into an approved gathering point.
| | 02:04 | We've completed the gathering of the
office, or your workspace, and that's
| | 02:08 | usually where most of
your unprocessed items are.
| | 02:12 | However, what about some of the other areas?
| | 02:15 | What about your car?
| | 02:17 | What about your home office?
| | 02:18 | What about your home?
| | 02:20 | What about the basement of the garage?
| | 02:22 | We also need to gather from those areas.
| | 02:25 | At this point, you should be an
expert in the process of gathering, right?
| | 02:29 | You know how to find things,
and you know how to put them in boxes.
| | 02:32 | You understand the principle of
everything has a home and no visitors allowed.
| | 02:37 | So pull out your calendar and budget
some time to gather from those places.
| | 02:42 | If you need to gather from your car,
budget some time to gather from your car.
| | 02:47 | Usually that takes most people only 15
minutes to a half an hour. Then budget time
| | 02:52 | in your calendar to go through the
other areas of your life that maybe we
| | 02:56 | haven't gathered from yet--perhaps your
home, basement, the garage, or a storage
| | 03:01 | area. Whatever it is, write down
enough time to gather from those areas.
| | 03:07 | Usually it takes, for those
larger areas, about an hour per room.
| | 03:12 | Remember, when you put something into
your calendar, it's a commitment you're
| | 03:16 | making to yourself, so please don't
schedule something in your calendar that
| | 03:20 | you're not willing to commit to.
| | 03:22 | If you need more time before your
schedule is free enough to complete this
| | 03:26 | gathering, then schedule it out
further. Schedule it out two weeks or three
| | 03:31 | weeks to complete the gathering process.
| | 03:34 | Once you complete the entire gathering
process for every aspect of your life,
| | 03:39 | you'll find that a strong habit has formed.
| | 03:42 | You'll find it easier to avoid falling
back into binge-and-purge organization.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Dealing with full inboxes| 00:00 | We just took everything unprocessed in
your life and gathered it into one place.
| | 00:07 | Do you feel relieved?
| | 00:08 | Do you feel scared?
| | 00:10 | Do you feel excited?
| | 00:11 | Whatever you're feeling
right now is perfectly normal.
| | 00:16 | When I've asked clients in the past at this
point, how do they feel, many are concerned,
| | 00:22 | because they put all of their
unprocessed items into one place but they don't
| | 00:26 | know what to do with it.
| | 00:28 | Now is the time for you to continue on
through the training of the rest of the course.
| | 00:34 | I am about to show you exactly what to do
with every single item in all of those boxes.
| | 00:41 | However, we're not going to do it all at once.
| | 00:45 | We're going to take one step at a time,
helping you learn new habits, new muscle
| | 00:51 | memory, so that pretty soon processing
all these items correctly will become
| | 00:56 | second nature to you, as easy as
putting on your clothes each morning.
| | 01:00 | But first, we need to learn a new way of
dealing with these items, one item at a time.
| | 01:06 | Let's move on, and I'll show you the
first step to begin processing your inbox.
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|
|
9. Understanding ProcessingMastering the "what, when, where" processing system| 00:00 | If you've completed all the training
up to this point, you'll understand how
| | 00:04 | critical it is to process.
| | 00:06 | Processing is simply the act of
deciding what the next step is to completing
| | 00:10 | something, when you're going
to do it, and where its home is.
| | 00:14 | "What, when, where" processing is at the
heart of everything you need to do in
| | 00:19 | order to master your time.
| | 00:21 | In this video, I'll provide a brief
overview of the "what, when, where" system.
| | 00:24 | Then in the next videos, I'll analyze
each part of the system in greater depth.
| | 00:30 | The first step of the "what, when,
where" processing system is to take one item
| | 00:35 | from one of your approved gathering points.
| | 00:38 | Remember, an approved gathering
point is one of those six places where
| | 00:42 | everything that you do should be put.
| | 00:43 | When it comes time to process,
| | 00:45 | you pull out one item and begin
processing just that one item. That's very
| | 00:50 | critical that you take only one item at a time.
| | 00:53 | If you pick up two or three items or
halfway through processing one, stop and
| | 00:58 | pick up another your switch tasking,
which is going to cause you to have
| | 01:02 | switching costs, make more
mistakes, and increase your stress.
| | 01:07 | So pick up one item and
ask yourself the question.
| | 01:11 | What is the next step, meaning what's
the next step it takes to move this
| | 01:16 | thing toward completion.
| | 01:18 | The second question you ask yourself
is, when will it be done, meaning when
| | 01:23 | during my available time should I do that step?
| | 01:26 | Should I do it now? Should I
do it later? When is that time?
| | 01:30 | Then finally, ask yourself the question,
where is its home, meaning where does
| | 01:35 | this thing belong? Should I file it
away? Should I stuff it into a drawer?
| | 01:39 | Should I throw it away?
| | 01:41 | Get in the habit of asking yourself
these three questions every single time
| | 01:45 | you pick up an item during processing:
What is the next step? When will it be
| | 01:50 | done? Where is its home?
| | 01:51 | In fact, when processing in the beginning,
ask yourself these questions out loud.
| | 01:57 | What is the next step? When
will it be done? Where is its home?
| | 02:00 | Condition yourself by repeating
this over and over until you get to the
| | 02:05 | point that you can't pick up a new
item until you heard yourself asking
| | 02:09 | these three questions.
| | 02:11 | What is the next step? When
will it be done? Where is its home?
| | 02:14 | If you consider these three
questions, you'll realize you're already
| | 02:18 | processing. Everyone has to process. You have
to answer these questions or nothing gets done.
| | 02:24 | However, if you haven't been
following a system like this, you've probably
| | 02:29 | haven't been doing it consciously;
you've been doing it on the fly without
| | 02:33 | deliberately making choices. You're
switching throughout your day answering the
| | 02:37 | what, when, where questions haphazardly,
and it's causing you to lose significant
| | 02:42 | amounts of time, make lots of mistakes.
| | 02:45 | It's causing you stress.
| | 02:47 | What we are going to do is rather than
processing randomly throughout the day,
| | 02:52 | we're going to have a set time and a
set place to go through this processing.
| | 02:56 | This will help you process
quickly and with minimal effort.
| | 03:00 | It all begins with these three questions.
| | 03:03 | What is the next step? When will
it be done. And where is its home?
| | 03:07 | In the next videos, I'll
discuss each question in depth.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Processing question 1: What is the next step?| 00:00 | Let's take a close look at the first question
of processing, which is, what is the next step?
| | 00:07 | When processing, it's critical that
you figure out just the next action step,
| | 00:12 | just the next thing you must do to
move this item, this piece of paper, this
| | 00:17 | email--whatever it is you have in
front of you--forward, toward completion.
| | 00:22 | Make sure that you take the time to
think about this, and make a decision.
| | 00:27 | It only takes about five to ten
seconds of mental effort to make a clear
| | 00:31 | decision about what the next step is.
| | 00:34 | But many people jump over
determining the next step.
| | 00:38 | It's part of the reason why
items get stuck in the inbox forever.
| | 00:44 | A person picks up an item, they sense
that something is needed to complete it,
| | 00:47 | and then they put it back in
the inbox. Please don't do that.
| | 00:52 | Once you've decided what the next step
is, ask yourself, is this something that
| | 00:57 | I want to be doing with my life?
| | 00:59 | That may sound like a very broad
question, but it's very common for people,
| | 01:03 | particularly in an information-
overloaded world to get themselves engaged in
| | 01:08 | things they really don't want
to be doing with their life.
| | 01:11 | They overload themselves with activities
simply because the activities presented
| | 01:16 | themselves, not because they made
a conscious choice to participate.
| | 01:20 | So if it doesn't fit the things that
you want to be doing with your life, then
| | 01:24 | disengage from it, find a way to get out
of it, find someone else to fulfill the
| | 01:28 | obligation, or just plain tell yourself,
| | 01:31 | "I'm not going to waste any
more time working on this thing."
| | 01:35 | Also, be aware that the next step may be
'waiting for', meaning you're waiting for
| | 01:42 | something to come to you.
| | 01:44 | Waiting for is a type of action. When
you get to the next step of processing,
| | 01:49 | which is when it will be done, you
make a decision about how long you should
| | 01:53 | wait. But sometimes, the next
action is to just simply wait.
| | 01:59 | Also, consider, should this next
step be delegated to someone else?
| | 02:04 | Many of the tasks that you do, while
they're important, are not necessarily things
| | 02:09 | that you should be doing.
| | 02:11 | Perhaps, someone else is better
qualified to do them, or perhaps it's a more
| | 02:16 | valuable use of someone else's time,
where your time is more valuable when
| | 02:20 | spent doing other things.
| | 02:23 | And finally, when considering the next
step, remember that if you do decide to
| | 02:28 | delegate something out to someone else,
whenever you delegate out, it's always
| | 02:34 | 'awaiting for in', meaning if you do
delegate you also need to create a next step
| | 02:40 | for yourself reminding you that
you're waiting for them to complete it.
| | 02:45 | A 'delegate out' always means a 'waiting for in'.
| | 02:50 | So, in summary, when you ask yourself
what the next step is, make sure that you
| | 02:54 | focus on just the next action step.
| | 02:58 | If it isn't something you want to be
doing with your life, then disengage from it.
| | 03:03 | If you need to wait, waiting
for is a type of step or action.
| | 03:09 | Sometimes the best next step is to
delegate it to someone else. And whenever you
| | 03:15 | delegate something out, that always
creates a 'waiting for in' for yourself.
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| Processing question 2: When will it be done?| 00:00 | After you've decided what the next step is,
now you get to decide when you will do that step.
| | 00:07 | The question when it will be done
doesn't apply to the entire thing that you're
| | 00:12 | dealing with, or the entire project.
| | 00:14 | It's just referring to when
the next step will be done.
| | 00:19 | Here are a few good rules of thumb to keep
in mind when answering the "When" question.
| | 00:25 | First of all, if the item can be done in five
minutes or less, do it right then. Why five minutes?
| | 00:32 | Well, it will probably take you a
couple of minutes to schedule a step in your
| | 00:37 | task list or your calendar.
| | 00:39 | However, we also have to account
for the switching cost involved.
| | 00:43 | Remember, switching cost is the
transition time of mental effort and energy when
| | 00:49 | you switch from one task to the other.
| | 00:51 | So if something can be done in five
minutes or less, do it right then.
| | 00:56 | Next, calendar the item if it will take
more than 15 minutes or if it has a deadline.
| | 01:03 | If something takes more than 15 minutes,
even if it doesn't have a deadline, and
| | 01:08 | even if it's of minor importance, it
must be budgeted in a calendar. Why?
| | 01:14 | Well, if you don't budget the time in
your calendar for an item that's longer
| | 01:18 | than 15 minutes, it's
really unlikely to get done.
| | 01:22 | So if it takes more than 15
minutes, put it in your calendar.
| | 01:26 | Also, if its time sensitive, meaning
it has a deadline--this step has to be
| | 01:32 | completed by a certain date--
| | 01:33 | you also need to put that in your calendar.
| | 01:36 | Your calendar is a firm, rigid commitment
of how you're going to spend your time.
| | 01:42 | Now, if the next step will take between
five and 15 minutes and doesn't have a
| | 01:47 | deadline, go ahead and put
that step to a task list.
| | 01:51 | The task list is most effective when
used for short, brief, and flexible actions.
| | 01:58 | Use the task list to give you
reminders or suggested dates and times of when
| | 02:04 | you're going to do things.
| | 02:05 | If you don't perform the task at that
specific time, you can snooze a reminder
| | 02:11 | or schedule the task again later.
| | 02:13 | Another rule of thumb when deciding
on when you will do the next step is
| | 02:18 | group repetitive tasks.
| | 02:20 | For instance, if I have a series of
bills to pay, rather than have a bunch of
| | 02:25 | separate calendar items
scattered throughout my week or month,
| | 02:28 | it may be wise to have a recurring
appointment in my calendar to pay all the bills at once.
| | 02:35 | Grouping repetitive tasks has always
been an efficient way to get in the groove
| | 02:40 | and accomplish many things
of the same type efficiently.
| | 02:44 | Another rule of thumb: after you
determine the when for your action step, always
| | 02:49 | include a date and time in your calendar
or task reminder, to just say, "I'm going
| | 02:56 | to do it sometime next week,"
is not a strong enough 'when'.
| | 03:01 | Choose a specific time, such as, I'm
going to do it next Tuesday at 3 o'clock.
| | 03:07 | Or if the next step is a task, you're
going to say I believe I can do it next
| | 03:12 | Wednesday at 4 o'clock.
| | 03:14 | A last rule of thumb:
| | 03:16 | leave space between appointments.
| | 03:19 | When you over-schedule yourself or
when you put appointments back to back to
| | 03:24 | back, you're not being realistic
and not leaving enough breathing room
| | 03:27 | between those appointments.
| | 03:29 | Always leave a little bit of extra time
before and after your calendared items.
| | 03:34 | Leave at least 10 minutes
between every hour of buffer space.
| | 03:39 | So if you have a two-hour appointment,
that means you're going to need to leave
| | 03:44 | 20 minutes of buffer
space after the appointment.
| | 03:48 | Leaving buffer space will leave enough
room for you to stay on top of the little
| | 03:52 | interruptions and give you time to
prepare for your next appointment.
| | 03:56 | So in summary, when scheduling the 'when',
| | 04:00 | do it now if it can be
done in five minutes or less.
| | 04:03 | Calendar it if it will take more
than 15 minutes or is time sensitive.
| | 04:08 | Task it if it will take between five
and 15 minutes and is not time sensitive.
| | 04:14 | Group repetitive tasks. Include a
specific date and time, and leave space
| | 04:21 | between appointments.
| | 04:23 | By considering these rules of thumb,
when answering the 'when' will it be done
| | 04:28 | question, you make better
use of your available time.
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| Processing question 3: Where is its home?| 00:00 | The final step of the simple "what, when,
and where" processing system is, where is its home?
| | 00:07 | This means that you need to decide
where you're going to store a physical or
| | 00:11 | digital item, and also where you
need to be to perform the next step.
| | 00:16 | Here are a few rules of thumb to keep
in mind when answering the processing
| | 00:21 | question, where is its home.
| | 00:23 | The first phrase to remember is
everything has a home and no visitors allowed.
| | 00:28 | This means that items of a similar
type should be grouped together and kept
| | 00:33 | separate from everything else.
| | 00:35 | This makes it much more efficient and easy to
find things and put things away in the future.
| | 00:41 | What kind of home should you use?
| | 00:43 | Well, you can use things like folders,
boxes, shelves. The method that you use
| | 00:48 | doesn't matter so much, just as long
as you create clear boundaries between
| | 00:53 | different items and don't mix them together.
| | 00:56 | Next, what if you think you
need to throw the item out?
| | 01:00 | You may have heard the rule,
when in doubt throw it out.
| | 01:03 | I would say that's a good rule of thumb
when it comes to physical items, such as
| | 01:08 | pieces of paper, and so on.
| | 01:10 | When it comes to digital items
though, when in doubt, keep it.
| | 01:15 | The reason for this is that the cost of
digital storage goes down and down every
| | 01:20 | single year, and the ability for search
engines to locate these items gets better
| | 01:25 | and better all the time.
| | 01:27 | So when it comes to physical:
when in doubt, throw it out.
| | 01:32 | When it comes to digital: when in doubt, keep it.
| | 01:36 | This leads two another
rule of thumb regarding where.
| | 01:40 | Keep the information of all the
contacts you have, phone numbers, emails,
| | 01:44 | addresses, and so on.
| | 01:46 | Keep them all in one place
that you can access at any time.
| | 01:50 | If you're using a computer rather than
a paper planner--which I recommend--then
| | 01:55 | make sure your computer syncs
easily with your mobile device.
| | 01:59 | That way you don't waste time
searching for those contacts again, or worse yet
| | 02:04 | calling coworkers and asking them to look
up information, which interrupts both of you.
| | 02:09 | Another rule of thumb when deciding
on the 'where' of processing includes
| | 02:14 | categorizing tasks and calendar items.
| | 02:17 | Put them into groups of types of tasks,
and in particular, according to where
| | 02:23 | you are or what kind of
resources you'll need at hand.
| | 02:27 | For instance, you can group all of
the tasks that could be performed on the
| | 02:33 | computer into the @computer category.
Or you can group all of the items that you
| | 02:39 | need to shop for, into the @shopping category.
| | 02:44 | This makes it easy to find them, depending
on the context of where you are at the time.
| | 02:49 | You can also use a category
for recurring meetings.
| | 02:52 | For instance, if I have a regular
meeting with Susan every single week at 10
| | 02:57 | o'clock, if I put all the items I
need to discuss with her in my task list
| | 03:02 | under the category of One-to-One Susan,
then when I go to the meeting with Susan
| | 03:08 | I can pull open the list and
there they all are in one place.
| | 03:13 | So to summarize, the rules of thumb
for the where is its home step of
| | 03:17 | processing, everything has a
home and no visitors allowed.
| | 03:22 | With physical items: when in doubt, throw it out.
| | 03:25 | With digital items: when in doubt, keep it.
| | 03:28 | Keep all contacts in one central
location, preferably mobile, and categorize all
| | 03:36 | your tasks and calendar items.
| | 03:38 | Use these rules of thumb to answer the
where is its home question in processing,
| | 03:44 | and you make it easier to both put
things away and find them again quickly.
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| Filing made simple| 00:00 | What I want to do is demystify filing
| | 00:03 | and make this as simple as possible for you.
| | 00:06 | First, when filing papers that
aren't financial use a simple alphabetical
| | 00:12 | system. Set up hanging file folders and
label each file folder alphabetically.
| | 00:17 | You can usually purchase hanging file folders
in groups of 25, one short of the full alphabet.
| | 00:24 | So if you find yourself a folder short,
combine the letters X and Y, which
| | 00:29 | brings you to a total of
25 file hanging folders.
| | 00:33 | Then whenever you have some new
document that you need to file, pull out a
| | 00:37 | manila folder, write on the manila
folder what you're going to put in there,
| | 00:41 | and then put that piece of paper in the folder.
| | 00:45 | Use a manila folder rather than putting
items directly into the hanging file folder.
| | 00:51 | This will make it easier to
retrieve items in the future.
| | 00:54 | So let's take an example
with this piece of paper.
| | 00:57 | This is a poem that I really enjoy.
| | 00:59 | It's an inspirational quote.
| | 01:01 | I might want to copy this and share it
in a meeting, or just refer back to it.
| | 01:05 | Where do I file this piece of paper?
| | 01:08 | Well, I simply file it under the
first letter that comes to mind.
| | 01:13 | So if I think of P for poems, then I
pull out a manila folder, write poems on
| | 01:19 | it, stick that in there, and
then put in under P for poems.
| | 01:36 | Now perhaps Q might come to your mind for
quotes, so you put it under Q for quotes.
| | 01:41 | What letter you choose doesn't
really matter, and that's part of the
| | 01:44 | simplicity of this system.
| | 01:46 | Just write down the first thing that
comes to mind, stick the papers in, and
| | 01:51 | then put the manila folder
into the hanging file folder.
| | 01:55 | This system works very well for any
miscellaneous type of document that you have.
| | 02:01 | But what if we have a client? What if
we need a filing system for all of our
| | 02:06 | clients? Or what if we have
a specific set of vendors?
| | 02:09 | Well, in that case we'll create a
separate set of alphabetical hanging file
| | 02:14 | folders. Then whenever you file a
client folder away, you put it in there
| | 02:20 | according to alphabetical order.
| | 02:22 | For instance, here is a document
from the Explorer California Company.
| | 02:27 | So I'll pull out a manila folder I
already had created for them in my clients
| | 02:32 | files under E. I'll stick the document in
that manila folder, put it back, and I'm done.
| | 02:40 | What about financial documents though?
| | 02:43 | If you work in a larger company,
there probably already is a well-
| | 02:47 | established accounting filing system,
so I'm not going to go into the more
| | 02:51 | complex filing systems.
| | 02:53 | But for an individual financial filing,
let's say you're just working out of a
| | 02:57 | home office, or you have a solo
business with you as the only employee,
| | 03:01 | here is a very simple, practical system
for filing all your receipts and documents.
| | 03:07 | Create a set of 12 file folders, one
for each month of the year. Then whenever
| | 03:13 | you receive a statement or receipt,
any financial document, put it into the
| | 03:18 | month in which it was dated, or you
received it, if there wasn't a date.
| | 03:22 | This simple system works well for home-
based businesses, service professionals,
| | 03:28 | or just individual finances.
| | 03:30 | You'll need to keep those records for at
least seven years, so create a new set of
| | 03:35 | 12-month folders for each new year.
| | 03:39 | In summary, use alphabetical files,
use a manila folder for each type of item
| | 03:45 | that you create and put
it into that file folder.
| | 03:48 | Create a separate set of
alphabetical files for groups of files such as
| | 03:53 | clients, vendors, and so on. And when
filing financial records on a personal
| | 03:58 | level, set up 12 file folders,
one for each month of the year.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Processing your first inbox| 00:00 | Now that you understand how "what, when,
where" processing works, it's time for
| | 00:05 | you and me to start practicing.
| | 00:07 | I want "what, when, where" processing to
become second nature to you, to get you
| | 00:12 | conditioned so that when you pick up
an item you're processing you quickly
| | 00:16 | take the best action with it.
| | 00:18 | In the beginning, this system may be a
little bit awkward for you, and that's okay.
| | 00:24 | Just take your time, be patient,
and repeat the process until it becomes automatic.
| | 00:30 | During the gathering video, I asked you
to separate into one box any items that
| | 00:35 | need to be dealt with this week.
| | 00:38 | We're going to begin practicing with this box.
| | 00:40 | I'm going to show you
right now how this is done.
| | 00:44 | First, I pick up one item
out of the gathering point.
| | 00:49 | It's an offer for a credit card.
| | 00:50 | So I ask myself the first
question: what is the next step?
| | 00:55 | Well, in this case, do I
need a credit card? No.
| | 00:58 | I don't need another credit card.
| | 01:00 | So I'm going to throw it away.
| | 01:01 | That's the next step.
| | 01:03 | When will it be done?
| | 01:05 | Well, I'm going to do it
now. Where is its home?
| | 01:09 | I want to be safe with my identity.
| | 01:11 | So I'm going to throw it into a plastic slot
that I've set aside and labeled for shredding.
| | 01:17 | So, I can shred that later.
| | 01:19 | What I just did may seem very slow for
something that seemed obvious to you.
| | 01:25 | Keep in mind that repetition is a
powerful teacher, so practice always asking
| | 01:31 | yourself the what, when, where
questions, even on obvious items.
| | 01:36 | Let's take another one.
| | 01:38 | Here is a bank statement.
| | 01:40 | What's the next step?
| | 01:42 | The next step is I need to review
it and make sure there aren't any
| | 01:45 | strange charges on it.
| | 01:47 | When will that step be done?
| | 01:49 | Well, can I do it in five minutes or less?
| | 01:51 | Yes, in this case I can do
it in five minutes or less,
| | 01:55 | so there is no need to schedule
it, no need to even pull out my
| | 01:58 | calendaring system.
| | 02:00 | So I'm going to take it out and
look at it. Where is its home?
| | 02:04 | When I'm doing this step, its
home is right here in my hands.
| | 02:08 | So I'm going to go ahead
and do it right now. Great!
| | 02:12 | It looks good. Am I done yet?
| | 02:15 | I reviewed it and everything looks good.
| | 02:17 | So I processed the item, right?
| | 02:19 | Not yet, because there are still
more steps until it's complete.
| | 02:23 | I need to process it again right now by
repeating the what, when, where questions.
| | 02:29 | What's the next step?
| | 02:30 | Now the next step is I need to file it.
| | 02:34 | When will it be done?
| | 02:36 | I can definitely file it in five minutes or less,
so I'm going to do it now. Where is its home?
| | 02:42 | Well, its home is right here in the financial
files that I set up for the month of January.
| | 02:49 | So I stick it to the month of
January, and I'm done with that.
| | 02:54 | Now let's take one that's a little bit
more complex, that requires a little more
| | 02:59 | action on my part than just
filing something or throwing away.
| | 03:03 | I have a note here to myself to follow
up with Bob Jones about his interest in
| | 03:08 | buying my product, and I need to
follow up in three to four months.
| | 03:11 | So what's the next step?
| | 03:13 | The next step is to send
him an email about this.
| | 03:17 | When will it be done?
| | 03:18 | Three to four months from now.
| | 03:20 | That's pretty flexible. Can I do it now?
| | 03:24 | No, I can't do it now.
| | 03:26 | Should I calendar it or task it?
| | 03:29 | Will it take me more than 15
minutes, or is it time sensitive?
| | 03:33 | Its completion date is flexible, and I
doubt that sending email will take more
| | 03:37 | than several minutes.
| | 03:38 | So this belongs in the task list.
| | 03:41 | I am going to put on the
task list to email Bob Jones.
| | 03:45 | Let's open this up on the
computer screen so you can see it.
| | 03:49 | I'm using Outlook right now,
| | 03:51 | but most any program that handles tasks can
do these simple things I'm going to do here.
| | 03:56 | All I need to do is create
a task to contact Bob Jones.
| | 04:02 | Down in the Notes box, I could put
some notes to remind me about our
| | 04:07 | conversation if I want, and then I'm
going to put the time and the date on which
| | 04:14 | I think I'll contact him.
| | 04:18 | Now for the last question of processing: I have
a what, I have a when, but now I need a where.
| | 04:25 | Where is its home?
| | 04:27 | The where in this case is going to be
a category for the task, where I need
| | 04:33 | to be when I do it.
| | 04:35 | And I need to be at my computer.
| | 04:37 | So I put @Computer for this task. I save it,
| | 04:44 | throw the paper in the
recycle bin, and I'm done.
| | 04:49 | I've decided what the next step is, when
it will be done, and where its home is.
| | 04:54 | The beautiful thing is now I can
completely forget about this task.
| | 04:59 | I don't need to worry about it anymore.
| | 05:02 | So let's do one more quick example, so
I can show you how to use the calendar.
| | 05:06 | Right here, I have a pile of thank you cards.
| | 05:10 | These thank you cards are for
people who hired me to speak for their
| | 05:14 | company last month. Let's process it.
| | 05:17 | What is the next step?
| | 05:18 | Now I need to write a handwritten
note for each one of these clients and I
| | 05:22 | have several cards.
| | 05:24 | When will it be done?
| | 05:26 | Can I do this in five minutes or less?
| | 05:28 | No, because I want to write a
thoughtful note to each client.
| | 05:31 | In fact, it will probably
take me about 30 minutes.
| | 05:35 | Because it's going to take me over 15
minutes, I know immediately this step has
| | 05:40 | to go to the calendar.
| | 05:42 | I open up my calendar to set a time.
| | 05:44 | Again, any calendaring program has
this ability, even a paper planner.
| | 05:49 | I am going to set a time in my calendar
to complete these thank you cards next
| | 05:55 | week on Thursday at 9 am.
| | 05:59 | That should give me plenty of time to
go through and write thoughtful notes.
| | 06:05 | I also want to look at my calendar
and make sure there is plenty of buffer
| | 06:09 | space on either side of this that are not
cramming this in, and Thursday at 9 looks good.
| | 06:16 | I've got at least a half an hour of space on
either side of this, which is more than enough.
| | 06:21 | Now that that's scheduled, I ask myself the
last processing question: where is its home?
| | 06:27 | There are two parts to this.
| | 06:29 | First, I'll put the category of @Office
to the calendar item because I need to
| | 06:35 | be in my office for the appointment.
| | 06:38 | Second, I still have these cards, right?
| | 06:41 | So I pull out a manila folder,
label it Thank You Cards,
| | 06:46 | put the cards in, file it under T in
the miscellaneous folders, and I am done.
| | 07:02 | I have processed the item, and it's complete.
| | 07:05 | Now it's your turn.
| | 07:06 | Begin processing items
from your inbox one at a time.
| | 07:10 | Spend at least one hour practicing
with the existing items that you have.
| | 07:16 | This will help make this processing
system becomes second nature for you, and
| | 07:20 | condition your mind to get faster and
faster at "what, when, where" processing.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting your processing schedule| 00:00 | If you completed the task that I
assigned to you earlier, then you've
| | 00:04 | already spent one hour going through and
processing items one at a time out of your inbox.
| | 00:10 | If you haven't done that yet, I
encourage you to schedule one hour right now to
| | 00:14 | complete that task first
before watching this video.
| | 00:17 | Once you've completed that first hour
of processing, you'll realize that while
| | 00:22 | you're off to a good start, you likely
still have a lot more processing to do.
| | 00:26 | In fact, you'll always be
processing, for the rest of your life.
| | 00:30 | With processing, you're going to
process every item one at a time from each of
| | 00:35 | your six gathering points.
| | 00:37 | How do we handle that?
| | 00:39 | The easiest way to do that is to set a
recurring appointment in your schedule to do processing.
| | 00:45 | My recommended weekly allowance
of processing is five hours a week.
| | 00:50 | Some people need less and some people need more.
| | 00:53 | After you've worked your system
for a while, adjust to your needs.
| | 00:57 | But let's start with five hours for now.
| | 01:00 | When should you schedule that five hours a week?
| | 01:03 | To find the best time for your recurring
processing schedule, consider the times
| | 01:08 | at which you are least likely to be interrupted.
| | 01:12 | All of us have interruptions in our day,
but there are also ebbs and flows in
| | 01:17 | your weekly schedule to those interruptions.
| | 01:20 | Look at your calendar and find the
natural times at which you are least
| | 01:24 | likely to be interrupted.
| | 01:26 | For instance, let's say that earlier in the
morning, I'm usually not bothered by other people.
| | 01:32 | In that case, I could schedule every
morning from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. for processing.
| | 01:38 | That would give me five hours a week
based on a Monday-through-Friday week.
| | 01:43 | Incidentally, I recommend you do not schedule
in increments of less than one hour of time.
| | 01:49 | Why? Because usually you get in to your
rhythm when it comes to processing at about
| | 01:55 | the 25 to 30 minute mark, so
schedule at minimum one hour at a time.
| | 02:02 | You can even schedule entire chunks of time,
such as five hours of processing in a day.
| | 02:07 | What if I prefer to work
in a larger chunk of time?
| | 02:10 | I could schedule every
Friday from 8 a.m. to noon.
| | 02:14 | That's four hours, and I'll give myself
an hour lunch break, and then schedule
| | 02:18 | another hour from 1 to 2.
| | 02:21 | That way I get all my
processing done in one day.
| | 02:24 | Are you concerned that I'm
asking you to spend five hours a week?
| | 02:29 | Keep in mind that you're probably spending
two or three times that right now already.
| | 02:34 | When are you processing right now?
| | 02:37 | You're processing throughout your
day back and forth, all over the place.
| | 02:41 | All this system is asking you to do is
to do it at a set time, at a set place,
| | 02:46 | and leave all the rest of the time for
doing the work, for performing the tasks.
| | 02:52 | Processing is simply the act of
deciding what, when, and where.
| | 02:56 | It's up to you to decide
what works best for you.
| | 03:00 | Right now, please pause the video and
set up in your calendar your recurring
| | 03:05 | schedule for processing, at
least five hours each week.
| | 03:09 | Then come back for one last step.
| | 03:11 | Pause here to schedule your
recurring processing here.
| | 03:12 | We're almost done with scheduling
your processing, but not completely.
| | 03:19 | What about the backlog,
| | 03:21 | in particular, the backlog of all those
boxes? Some of you may not have had very
| | 03:28 | many boxes when you did the gathering,
| | 03:30 | but some of you may have
many boxes--perhaps dozens.
| | 03:34 | No matter how many boxes you have,
you'll need to schedule extra time for
| | 03:38 | processing, just this once.
| | 03:41 | In general, schedule one extra
hour per large unfinished box.
| | 03:47 | This means that if you had ten boxes
beyond your normal inbox, you'll have to
| | 03:52 | schedule an extra ten hours of processing.
| | 03:56 | You don't need to go through it all now
or even next week, but try to schedule
| | 04:01 | this to occur as soon as you possibly
can, and is reasonable for your schedule.
| | 04:06 | Try to complete the processing of
these boxes within the next month.
| | 04:12 | I've seen many clients have a very
liberating experience when they bring the
| | 04:17 | backlog of inboxes to zero for the first time.
| | 04:21 | So please, once this video stops, go
to your calendar immediately, and also
| | 04:26 | schedule time for your
backlog of large inbox processing.
| | 04:31 | Schedule at least one hour
per large unfinished box.
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|
|
10. Processing EmailApplying "what, when, where" processing to email| 00:00 | The system of "what, when, where"
processing applies to email as easily as it does
| | 00:05 | your physical inbox.
| | 00:07 | To quickly review "what, when, where"
processing, take one item at a time from one
| | 00:12 | of your approved gathering
points and answer the questions.
| | 00:15 | What is the next step?
| | 00:17 | When will it be done?
| | 00:18 | And where is its home?
| | 00:19 | Your goal in processing your email
is the same as your goal in processing
| | 00:24 | your physical inbox.
| | 00:25 | Bring it to zero, meaning
completely empty, at least once per week.
| | 00:30 | Some people keep emails in their inbox
to serve as reminders of things that they
| | 00:35 | need to do, items that are unresolved.
| | 00:38 | Some keep email in their inbox
because they're worried about losing them.
| | 00:41 | Other people depend on the highlights
or the bold emails to let them know of
| | 00:46 | emails that they haven't answered yet.
| | 00:48 | You should keep your email inbox empty,
so that you can stay focused while
| | 00:52 | working and processing.
| | 00:54 | When you keep unprocessed email in the
same folder as your processed email, you
| | 00:59 | lose a great deal of productivity.
| | 01:02 | You make it unnecessarily difficult
to find things, and increase your switch-
| | 01:06 | tasking while working.
| | 01:07 | Remember, switchtasking--what many
people called multitasking--is the biggest
| | 01:12 | culprit behind the inefficiency
that you're feeling in your day.
| | 01:15 | I'll show you how to file processed
email away quickly and easily, so you can
| | 01:21 | bring your inbox to zero each week.
| | 01:24 | For the section on email, I
will use Outlook to demonstrate the
| | 01:28 | "what, when, where" processing system.
| | 01:30 | But keep in mind, all of the features
that I use in this video can be found in
| | 01:34 | other common email programs, such as
Thunderbird, Mac Mail, Gmail, and so on.
| | 01:40 | It really doesn't matter what email
program you choose to use because the
| | 01:44 | "what, when, where" processing is very flexible.
| | 01:47 | In this chapter, I'll show you how to
apply this system to processing email.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up an email resource folder| 00:00 | Do you hoard email in your inbox?
| | 00:03 | If so, you're losing a lot of
productivity from the little attention switches
| | 00:08 | that come from disorganized email.
| | 00:10 | Because of that, we need to set up a very
quick and easy method for filing email.
| | 00:15 | If you get a lot of email like I do,
you might find the concept of filing away
| | 00:20 | email to be a little
intimidating and horribly time consuming.
| | 00:23 | There was a time when I would create
separate folders and put individual emails
| | 00:28 | into their separate folders.
| | 00:30 | However, with the very effective search
engines that are available now for email
| | 00:35 | programs, there is actually no need
to subcategorized emails that you've
| | 00:38 | processed. This applies to any of the
new email search engines, such as Outlook,
| | 00:44 | Mac Search, and Gmail's robust search engine.
| | 00:47 | So let's make this as simple as possible.
| | 00:50 | All you need to do is create
an email folder called Resource.
| | 00:54 | You can do this in Outlook by right-
clicking on personal folders, selecting New
| | 01:00 | Folder, and then naming it Resource.
| | 01:04 | To make it easy to find again, I'll
also take that Resource folder and drag it
| | 01:10 | up into the favorite folders window.
| | 01:13 | Then whenever I'm done processing an
email by walking it through the "what, when,
| | 01:18 | where" processing system I answer the
question, where is its home, by dragging and
| | 01:25 | dropping email into the Resource folder.
| | 01:28 | I do this with every kind of email.
Don't worry about subcategorizing it and
| | 01:33 | putting it into separate folders.
| | 01:35 | That would just duplicate work that's
unnecessary. Email search engines allow
| | 01:41 | you to quickly and easily find email
with a simple text search or a more
| | 01:46 | advanced search by date sent, sender, or subject.
| | 01:51 | If you do find yourself searching
regularly for certain search terms, many email
| | 01:57 | programs give you the
option for a pre-sorted search.
| | 02:02 | Outlook accomplishes this
by creating a search folder.
| | 02:07 | In the folder list to the left, you'll
see Search Folders. When I right-click on
| | 02:12 | it I'll see a window pop up and
I'll select New Search Folder.
| | 02:19 | Then I can search for certain criteria.
| | 02:23 | I can find mail to and from certain
people, or I can put the name of someone
| | 02:28 | that I search for email the most.
| | 02:30 | Then I click OK and it'll
add that person into the list.
| | 02:35 | This allows me to have a folder I can
look at with a single click, but it
| | 02:41 | saves me the time of sorting
email into different folders.
| | 02:46 | When it comes to filing your emails,
keep it simple. Just use a single folder
| | 02:51 | and everything you process just throw
it into that folder and let the search
| | 02:56 | engines do the work.
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| Creating email rules or filters| 00:00 | Before I walk you through how to process
email, I need to take a moment and show
| | 00:04 | you how to set up email rules--
sometimes referred to also as filters.
| | 00:09 | Email rules, or filters, are
automatic rules on how to deal with certain
| | 00:14 | emails when they come in.
| | 00:16 | The most basic example of this is a
coupon email from your favorite business.
| | 00:22 | Many people are afraid to sign up for
coupons because they're worried that it's
| | 00:26 | going to clog up their email inbox.
| | 00:28 | I'll show you what I do and why I sign
up for every coupon site for vendors that
| | 00:34 | I frequent regularly, and why it
doesn't affect my inbox at all.
| | 00:39 | Here we have a coupon from a local pizza place.
| | 00:42 | I like to order pizza from them, and I'd like
to be able to get coupons that I use regularly.
| | 00:47 | So what I'll do on this email is I'll
right-click on the email, and then you'll
| | 00:52 | see an option that says create a rule.
| | 00:55 | I can also create rules at Home, the
Move section, the Rules button, and
| | 01:01 | clicking on Manage Rules and Alerts, and
set them up manually, but it's easiest
| | 01:06 | to do with an existing email. So I'm
going to right-click, go to Create Rule.
| | 01:13 | You'll see this window where you
can create a wide variety of different
| | 01:16 | rules for an email.
| | 01:17 | If I get an email from a certain email
address, if it has certain words in the
| | 01:21 | subject, is sent to certain
email accounts, and so on.
| | 01:24 | There are more advanced options too,
but really all we need is the most simple
| | 01:29 | kind of rule: what email
address did it come from?
| | 01:33 | I'll select the rule if I get an email
from this pizza place and I'm going to
| | 01:38 | automatically move the item to a folder.
| | 01:41 | Now it asks me to select a folder.
| | 01:44 | Remember that Resource
folder that I had you create?
| | 01:47 | Here it's okay to create a
new folder under Resource.
| | 01:51 | I can do this for one reason;
| | 01:53 | this is automatic filing.
| | 01:54 | It requires no future effort on my part.
| | 01:58 | Also, using a separate presorted folder
saves time by making it easy for me to
| | 02:03 | find these rule-based
emails when I need them again.
| | 02:07 | So I'm going to create a folder called
Coupons, and then I click OK. Then I'll
| | 02:12 | make sure that I check the mark
where it says Apply to all emails in this
| | 02:17 | folder, and then click OK.
| | 02:20 | Now you'll notice that it searches the
email inbox and throws the email into the
| | 02:25 | Coupons folder I created.
| | 02:27 | This makes it very, very easy for me in
the future if I ever need to buy something.
| | 02:32 | I can just go to the Coupons folder, or
I can search for the email and find it
| | 02:37 | very quickly to get the
discounts or the best deals.
| | 02:40 | You can apply these same kinds of
rules for all sorts of informational emails
| | 02:44 | that you get, such as
newsletters and software updates.
| | 02:48 | I once worked with a mortgage company
that would get rate updates multiple times
| | 02:52 | through the day, and then we
put them all into that folder.
| | 02:56 | That way it didn't clog up the inbox,
but they could still access it at any time
| | 03:01 | once they needed the newest information.
| | 03:04 | Now an important caution: avoid setting
a rule for an email where you may have
| | 03:09 | to process it manually.
| | 03:12 | Doing so would create more
than one email gathering point.
| | 03:16 | The only place you should even
need to check email is your inbox.
| | 03:20 | Let me give you an example.
| | 03:23 | Let's say your favorite aunt has the habit of
sending you funny pictures and stories a lot.
| | 03:29 | Be careful about creating a rule for
her because if she does send you something
| | 03:34 | it does have critical
information, then you may miss out on it.
| | 03:39 | Remember, when you set a rule for an
email you're telling the computer to
| | 03:43 | automatically answer all of the "what,
when, where: processing questions for you.
| | 03:48 | What's the next step? Store the email.
| | 03:50 | When will it be done?
| | 03:51 | Right now. Where is its home? The folder.
| | 03:54 | It handles all of that automatically
for you, so make sure that you don't set a
| | 03:59 | rule for any email account where you might
have to check the email and process it.
| | 04:06 | Rules and filters, when used properly,
can save you valuable time and make
| | 04:11 | processing even easier.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Processing email| 00:00 | Now we're ready to do a brief walkthrough.
| | 00:02 | I'm going to show you how to
process a few example emails.
| | 00:06 | This first email is a
newsletter that I want to receive.
| | 00:09 | I am going to ask myself, what is the next step?
| | 00:12 | The next step is to create the rule.
| | 00:15 | When will it be done?
| | 00:16 | Right now, because it's five minutes or less.
| | 00:19 | And where is its home?
| | 00:22 | Let's answer that by creating the rule.
| | 00:24 | I'll right-click and select Create Rule.
| | 00:27 | I'll select whenever it's an email
from this person, move the items to this
| | 00:32 | folder, and then I'll create a
folder under Resource called Newsletters.
| | 00:42 | I'll click OK, click yes to all emails in
the folder, and there, I've created the rule.
| | 00:48 | It's processed.
| | 00:49 | Let's do another email.
| | 00:51 | Here is an email from Judith asking me
if I can attend an appointment next week.
| | 00:56 | So I ask myself the
question, what is the next step?
| | 01:01 | The next step is I check my
calendar and see if I'm available.
| | 01:05 | When will it be done?
| | 01:06 | Well, can I check my
calendar in five minutes or less?
| | 01:09 | Yes, of course I can.
| | 01:11 | So I open up my calendar and take a look.
| | 01:13 | The time they suggested will not
work for me. I have a conflict.
| | 01:17 | So I need to start the
processing system over again.
| | 01:21 | What's the next step?
| | 01:22 | Send a reply to them proposing a new time.
| | 01:25 | When will it be done?
| | 01:26 | Well, it can be done now, because it
can be done in five minutes or less,
| | 01:31 | and where is its home?
| | 01:32 | When I'm done with it, I'll
put it in the Resource folder.
| | 01:36 | So I send a reply saying here is
the time that I'll be available.
| | 01:40 | And then I hit Send, and now I am
done with that email, so I can drag and
| | 01:45 | drop it into Resource.
| | 01:47 | But before I do that, let's imagine
it's really important that I have this
| | 01:53 | meeting with Judith.
| | 01:54 | Let's say that I have to follow up and
make sure that the meeting takes place.
| | 01:58 | In that case, there is a
next step after this, right?
| | 02:02 | So what I'm going to do is take this
email and create a task for myself by
| | 02:07 | copying and pasting the details from the email.
| | 02:10 | So I copy all the information from
the email, and then I open up a task and
| | 02:17 | paste that into the notes of that task.
| | 02:20 | By the way, in Outlook, all I have to
do with that email is drag and drop it to
| | 02:25 | the Tasks button and that
will get me the same result.
| | 02:29 | Then I type in the Subject line, I'm
waiting for Judith's reply on the meeting.
| | 02:34 | Finally, I have the
answer to where it is its home.
| | 02:38 | I am going to put a reminder to myself
of the date and time by which I want to
| | 02:43 | hear back from Judith.
| | 02:44 | Finally, I have to answer
the where is its home question.
| | 02:48 | Well, the home for this one is going to be
the category of @ Waiting For. I hit Save.
| | 02:57 | Finally, I'm done with the email,
so I drag and drop it to the Resource
| | 03:02 | folder and I'm done.
| | 03:04 | Now I don't have to worry about it anymore.
| | 03:06 | The computer will do all the reminding for me.
| | 03:09 | Let's do one more quick example
dealing with scheduling some work for myself.
| | 03:15 | Here is an email with someone telling me
that I need to visit this site to learn
| | 03:19 | more information to see if
this is a service we want to use.
| | 03:23 | So I ask myself, what's the next step?
| | 03:26 | It's to visit the site.
| | 03:28 | When will it be done?
| | 03:29 | Well, let's say it's something that I think
I really want to give some good thought to.
| | 03:34 | I may spend 30 minutes looking at the
site and really analyzing it carefully.
| | 03:39 | So in that case, the 'when will it
be done?' must be calendared. Why?
| | 03:45 | Because since it will take over 15
minutes, I must budget time for this step.
| | 03:50 | So I copy the email, then I open up
the Calendar window, and create a new
| | 03:56 | appointment, and paste in the email info.
| | 03:59 | So I'm going to schedule this time
for 30 minutes, making sure that I
| | 04:04 | have buffer space on either side, because I
don't want to schedule myself too tightly.
| | 04:09 | I'll categorize this appointment as
@ Computer, meaning the only resource I
| | 04:15 | need is my computer.
| | 04:17 | Finally, where is its home?
| | 04:20 | All processed email, except for the
obvious deletions, go into the Resource folder.
| | 04:25 | I drag and drop it there, and it's complete.
| | 04:29 | Processing email is very
similar to processing physical items.
| | 04:34 | The only difference is the medium and
the tool you're using, but the principle
| | 04:38 | stays exactly the same.
| | 04:41 | Now that I've given you a walkthrough
of three different emails, it's time for
| | 04:45 | you to practice and start to
condition yourself to using the "what, when,
| | 04:50 | where" processing system.
| | 04:52 | Now is the time for you to
begin building muscle memory.
| | 04:55 | So to practice the training I just gave
you, spend one hour processing your email.
| | 05:01 | Do it right now.
| | 05:03 | Get through as many emails
as you can within one hour.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Processing email vs. checking email| 00:00 | At this point, you should have spent
at least one hour processing your email
| | 00:04 | to develop a habit.
| | 00:06 | If you find yourself still with many
unprocessed emails, you're going to need to
| | 00:10 | schedule extra time for processing.
| | 00:13 | Typically, by scheduling one hour per
100 unprocessed emails, you can gradually
| | 00:18 | chip away at the pile. So if you have
500 emails in your inbox, you probably
| | 00:24 | need to schedule an extra five
hours of email processing.
| | 00:28 | It might take you less than that time,
but it's always better to overestimate
| | 00:33 | how long things take.
| | 00:35 | If you have over 1,000 emails in your
Inbox, I first recommend that you take
| | 00:39 | everything older than two months,
and just drag and drop them to your resource
| | 00:44 | folder first, before scheduling
your extra email processing time.
| | 00:50 | That will make this manageable for you.
| | 00:52 | Remember, during the processing time your
goal is to bring your email inbox to zero, empty.
| | 01:00 | Right now, go ahead and schedule some
time to process the backlog of email,
| | 01:06 | pause this video, and then
after you do that, come back.
| | 01:14 | Before I wrap up the training on
email, I want to make a comment about
| | 01:18 | processing email versus checking email.
| | 01:22 | At this point in the training, you
should have already established a regular
| | 01:26 | processing time, starting at five hours
per week, and you should have that time
| | 01:31 | set up in your schedule.
| | 01:33 | This should be enough for most people
to bring all their gathering points to
| | 01:36 | zero, using the "what, when,
where" processing system.
| | 01:40 | But what about the emails that comes
in between your scheduled processing?
| | 01:45 | What if you feel you need to
check your email more often?
| | 01:50 | Processing email is the act of deciding
what is the next step, when will it be
| | 01:55 | done, and where is its home.
| | 01:57 | Checking email is different.
| | 02:00 | It's just looking at your email and
deciding if there's anything that needs to
| | 02:04 | be dealt with right now.
| | 02:05 | I will show you on the screen what I mean.
| | 02:08 | Let's say that it's been a few hours
since I've processed, or it's been a day or
| | 02:12 | two since I have processed, and I
have accumulated a lot of email.
| | 02:16 | I want to have a regularly scheduled
time to check my email, maybe for 15
| | 02:22 | minutes two times a day
at noon and at 4 o'clock.
| | 02:26 | During this checking time, I'm going to
just simply scan through the emails and
| | 02:31 | ask myself one question: can this
wait until my scheduled processing time?
| | 02:37 | If it can wait until my schedule
processing time, I'm going to leave it alone.
| | 02:43 | I look at this one.
| | 02:44 | Can it wait until my
scheduled processing time? Yes.
| | 02:49 | But this next email, can it wait
until my schedule processing time? No.
| | 02:55 | If I have one like that, then I
immediately go into processing that email.
| | 03:01 | What's the next step?
| | 03:02 | When will it be done, and where is its home?
| | 03:05 | I process that email. In brief,
| | 03:08 | it's okay to check email, and it's okay
to process email that's urgent when it
| | 03:13 | needs to be dealt with immediately.
| | 03:15 | But don't check email continually, or
you will fall back into a very inefficient
| | 03:21 | habit of switchtasking.
| | 03:23 | Instead of leaving your email window
open all day long, have a regularly
| | 03:28 | scheduled time to check your email.
| | 03:30 | The specific times and frequency don't
matter, just as long as it's scheduled.
| | 03:35 | There is no hard and fast rule about
when is the right time for everyone.
| | 03:40 | It depends a great deal on what your job
description is and what industry you're in.
| | 03:44 | So take a moment right now
and choose an email-checking schedule that
| | 03:49 | makes sense for you.
| | 03:51 | If you're having a hard time coming up
with a checking schedule that would work,
| | 03:55 | I would say three times a day:
| | 03:57 | beginning of the day, middle
of the day, end of the day.
| | 04:01 | Give yourself only about 15
minutes per checking time.
| | 04:05 | That will force you to deal with only
the urgent issues--only the ones that need
| | 04:10 | to be dealt with today--and get you in
the habit of putting off anything else
| | 04:15 | until your regularly scheduled processing time.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
11. Your Time BudgeterUnderstanding "you time" vs. "work time"| 00:00 | The first step to creating a time budget
is to understand the difference between
| | 00:05 | you time and work time.
| | 00:07 | Many of the problems that people
experience with work-life balance, and time
| | 00:11 | management in general, is that they
make no clear distinction between the two.
| | 00:16 | To simplify this principle, I'm going to
give you a very clear definition of work time.
| | 00:22 | Work time includes time spent working,
of course, travel time to and from work,
| | 00:28 | and time spent thinking about work
while at home, or away from work.
| | 00:34 | It's usually that last part of the
definition, the time spent thinking about
| | 00:38 | work, that really causes
people to stop and think.
| | 00:41 | Take a moment to write down an estimate
of how many hours you believe you spend
| | 00:46 | working in an average week.
| | 00:48 | Use the definition I just gave you.
Include travel time to and from work, and
| | 00:53 | time spent thinking about work while at home.
| | 00:57 | The reason why I ask you to include that in
the definition is because of switching cost.
| | 01:02 | If you're thinking about work while at
home or somewhere else, that's work time
| | 01:07 | because that's where your focus is.
| | 01:09 | I'll give you an example.
| | 01:11 | I worked with a CEO and helped her
estimate where she was spending her time.
| | 01:16 | She accounted for approximately 190
hours of activity in a 168-hour total week,
| | 01:23 | which of course is physically impossible.
| | 01:26 | When we analyzed her time estimates,
she realized that while every evening she
| | 01:31 | thought she was spending time with her
family, she was really spending time in
| | 01:35 | the presence of her family doing stock research.
| | 01:38 | In other words, she was working but
not spending you time or family time.
| | 01:44 | So for the purposes of this discussion
about time budget, anything related to
| | 01:49 | work--whether you're doing work,
thinking about work, whether you have multiple
| | 01:54 | jobs, you're working on two businesses--
all of that together is considered work,
| | 02:00 | and everything else is considered you time,
| | 02:02 | including recreation time, sleep time,
eating time, family time. That way we can
| | 02:08 | keep the discussion clear between the two.
| | 02:11 | Next, we need to establish a boundary
line between work time and you time.
| | 02:16 | Many people, particularly those who
are inherently very driven, adopt the
| | 02:21 | attitude that they'll work until it gets done.
| | 02:24 | They work however late is
necessary to get their projects complete.
| | 02:29 | They work late hours--8 o'clock,
9 o'clock, 10 o'clock, end of the evening--
| | 02:34 | believing that they're a hard
worker and being more productive.
| | 02:38 | The reality is that while you may be
able to be successful, to a degree, working
| | 02:42 | long hours, you can be even more successful and
productive by stopping at a set time each day.
| | 02:50 | When you create a line in your day that
says 'I will not cross this line between
| | 02:55 | work time and you time',
| | 02:56 | it forces you to be more
creative with your time budget.
| | 03:00 | It forces you to analyze your personal
systems more and make wiser decisions
| | 03:05 | about how you use the
scarce resource of your time.
| | 03:09 | Remember, time will always fill up space.
| | 03:13 | If you allow too much time for
things to take place, you'll automatically
| | 03:17 | fill up that space.
| | 03:19 | Rather than giving yourself a blank
slate to an endless amount of time, give
| | 03:23 | yourself a limited space, a budget to work with.
| | 03:27 | You'll find that you get
just as much done, but faster.
| | 03:31 | Right now, take a moment and look at
your calendar and create that boundary line.
| | 03:37 | Make a commitment of the time you're
going to stop work and focus on you time.
| | 03:42 | There is no right or wrong
answer here, other than just do it.
| | 03:47 | If you've been in the habit of working
till 9 or 10 o'clock at night, try to
| | 03:51 | create a line at perhaps 8:30. Or if
you want to stop working on the weekends
| | 03:56 | commit that weekends are off-limits,
beginning at 5 o'clock on Friday.
| | 04:02 | Create that clear boundary line in your
calendar and try to make a commitment to
| | 04:06 | never cross that line again.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Establishing "most valuable activities"| 00:00 | Few people have a work position that
requires them to do only one thing.
| | 00:05 | Most people have job descriptions
that require them to perform several
| | 00:09 | different activities.
| | 00:11 | Typically, the higher up the
organization chart you move, the more and more of
| | 00:16 | those activities you're likely to have.
| | 00:18 | In particular, business owners seem
to have the highest number of different
| | 00:23 | activities to perform.
| | 00:24 | However, of all the different activities
that you perform, only a couple of them
| | 00:31 | are truly the most valuable.
| | 00:33 | How do I define the value of an activity?
| | 00:36 | To me the value of an activity is the
amount of money that you would pay someone
| | 00:41 | else to perform the same
task at the same quality.
| | 00:46 | That means the activities that
would cost you the most per hour to pay
| | 00:51 | someone else to do,
| | 00:53 | those would be your most valuable activities.
| | 00:56 | I sometimes call them MVAs for short.
| | 01:00 | Now when I talk about most valuable
activity, keep in mind I am talking about
| | 01:05 | work time only, not you time.
| | 01:08 | For instance, there's no way to put
a value on being a parent or being a
| | 01:14 | friend to someone else.
| | 01:15 | But we can very clearly put a value
on what it would cost us to replace
| | 01:20 | certain work activities.
| | 01:22 | All the other activities that you do
during work time, other than those two
| | 01:27 | MVAs, are your less valuable activities or LVAs.
| | 01:32 | If you're like most people, you're
spending the majority of your work time in
| | 01:37 | these very low value, low impact LVAs.
| | 01:42 | When I speak to executives, I'll do an
on-the-spot poll and ask the audience how
| | 01:48 | much time are they spending in
their top two most valuable activities.
| | 01:53 | And consistently, I find that the
average executive spends less than 20% of
| | 01:59 | their time in their most valuable activities.
| | 02:03 | This is significant, because what
it means is that while they have the
| | 02:07 | capacity to do work that is worth
several hundred dollars per hour, instead
| | 02:12 | they're choosing to spend the
majority of their time in activities that are
| | 02:16 | worth much, much less.
| | 02:19 | In order to achieve maximum results
during the limited amount of work time
| | 02:23 | that you have each week, you need to focus
your actions on your most valuable activities.
| | 02:29 | In this next section, I'll take you
through a process that will help you discover
| | 02:34 | your top two most valuable activities
and create a time budget to make sure you
| | 02:39 | spend appropriate amounts
of time on them each week.
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| Identifying your most valuable activities| 00:00 | Let's go through a brief exercise
to help you identify your top two
| | 00:05 | valuable activities.
| | 00:07 | You can use a piece of paper for this
exercise, but you may find it faster to
| | 00:11 | use the handout we've provided.
| | 00:13 | We'll use this simple chart to list all
the different activities that you perform.
| | 00:18 | On the handout that we've given you,
I've already added two activities for you.
| | 00:22 | The first is travel, meaning travel
time to and from work, and the second is
| | 00:27 | wasting time, meaning choosing to
waste time at work, such as viewing social
| | 00:32 | media sites or spending
excessive time gossiping with coworkers.
| | 00:37 | Now begin listing the other
activities that you perform during work.
| | 00:40 | For example, managing employees,
calling for sales, marketing, writing press
| | 00:46 | releases, booking travel, or
janitorial. Think of them as mini-positions.
| | 00:52 | Imagine yourself wearing many
different hats, each of them representing the
| | 00:57 | position, and every time that you
have to switch hats that would be a
| | 01:01 | different activity.
| | 01:03 | Go ahead and list as many of those
activities as you can think of in the first column.
| | 01:09 | Pause the video right now and do
that. Then come back when you're done.
| | 01:17 | Now that you've filled in that first
part, let's get to the next column.
| | 01:21 | In the second column next to each of
those positions that you listed, write what
| | 01:26 | you think an average annual salary
would be for someone on that job,
| | 01:31 | assuming you hired them full time.
Go ahead and write that number down in
| | 01:35 | the column next to it.
| | 01:37 | If you don't know the annual salary, you
can usually use a search engine to look
| | 01:41 | up salary information for
different types of positions.
| | 01:45 | However, don't be too particular
about it. Just give your best guess on the
| | 01:50 | number and write it down.
| | 01:51 | We're looking for rough
numbers here, not perfection.
| | 01:54 | Go ahead and pause the video right now
and list the annual salary that someone
| | 02:00 | would be paid for each of these positions.
| | 02:06 | Now that you've listed the activities
that you perform and you've listed the
| | 02:10 | annual salary, the last step that we
need to do in the third column is list the
| | 02:16 | estimated hourly wage.
| | 02:18 | Divide the annual salary by 2080. 2080
represents 52 for the weeks of the year
| | 02:27 | and 40 for an average
workweek of 40 hours per week.
| | 02:32 | Divide each of those annual
salaries by 2080 and then put the result.
| | 02:38 | What you'll end up with is an estimated
hourly wage for each of those activities.
| | 02:43 | Again, this is a rough estimate
designed to give us a normalized scale for the
| | 02:48 | value of each activity.
| | 02:50 | Go ahead and pause the video
now to complete this column.
| | 02:58 | And finally, the last step is to rank
the different activities according to
| | 03:02 | their value per hour.
| | 03:04 | The first two that I gave you are
traveling and wasting time. These are both
| | 03:09 | worth zero, absolutely nothing.
| | 03:11 | So wait to rank them until the
end, as they'll be dead last.
| | 03:16 | Once you've created a rank for all these
different activities, you'll be able to
| | 03:20 | easily identify your top
two most valuable activities.
| | 03:25 | These are the things that you do that
are worth the most in your week, that are
| | 03:30 | the most difficult to replace,
and bring the most bottom-line impact to both
| | 03:35 | your company and your career.
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| Budgeting time for your most valuable activities| 00:00 | Once you've identified your top two
most valuable activities, it's time for us
| | 00:05 | to move to the calendar to create a time budget.
| | 00:08 | The time budget is different
than your normal working calendar.
| | 00:12 | You're not actually going to schedule
anything into this time budget; instead,
| | 00:17 | you'll use it as a tool and a frame of reference.
| | 00:21 | Many calendaring systems allow you to create
multiple calendars and compare them side by side.
| | 00:26 | In Outlook I'm going to go to the
Calendar screen and right-click on the
| | 00:31 | calendar. I'll select New and
I'm going to add a new calendar.
| | 00:36 | I'm going to name this
new calendar Time Budget.
| | 00:40 | Now I'm going to create a time budget
for my top two most valuable activities.
| | 00:46 | How much time should you spend in
each of your most valuable activities?
| | 00:49 | That's completely up to you.
| | 00:51 | Choose an amount of time that's
reasonable for your career and your industry.
| | 00:56 | However, I would recommend you strive
to spend at least 40% of your total work
| | 01:02 | time in just those two most valuable activities.
| | 01:06 | For most people, this would be a
significant improvement, as the average
| | 01:10 | executive is spending less than
20% of their time in their most
| | 01:14 | valuable activities.
| | 01:15 | However much time you're spending on
your MVAs right now, try to budget a
| | 01:21 | little more time. Stretch yourself.
| | 01:24 | Let's say, for example, that I
identified my two most valuable activities as
| | 01:29 | writing and developing business systems.
| | 01:32 | So I'm going to set aside time in my
calendar to devote to just these two activities.
| | 01:38 | First, let's do writing.
| | 01:40 | I find that Fridays are typically slow days.
| | 01:43 | Most people are too busy to talk with
me during those days because they're
| | 01:47 | winding up for the end of the week.
| | 01:50 | I also find that I'm more clear in
my thinking for writing earlier in the
| | 01:54 | day, so I'm going to schedule hours on Friday,
beginning in the morning, to devote to writing.
| | 02:02 | Let's say that my work time budget is
45 hours a week. So if I took 40% of
| | 02:08 | that, that's 18 hours.
| | 02:10 | I'm going split my writing and business
systems time in half, so that's going to
| | 02:16 | be nine hours to each of them.
| | 02:19 | So I need to schedule nine hours for
writing, and I'm going to set aside my
| | 02:25 | entire day on Friday for writing.
| | 02:29 | Next I'll create a time budget for my
second most valuable activity, which is
| | 02:35 | developing business systems.
| | 02:38 | Again, I need to schedule 9
hours a week to this budget.
| | 02:43 | I don't want to devote an entire day to
this. I'd rather spread it out a little
| | 02:47 | bit, so I'm going to spend part of my
day on Wednesday and part of my day on
| | 02:54 | Thursday working on business systems.
| | 02:58 | Now I created my time
budget, but how do I use it?
| | 03:01 | I use it as a guide when answering the
when will I do it question, in the "what,
| | 03:06 | when, where" processing system.
| | 03:09 | I want to try to schedule tasks and
projects related to these most valuable
| | 03:13 | activities in those timeslots I just budgeted.
| | 03:17 | I also want to avoid scheduling
anything else during those timeslots because
| | 03:22 | they should be protected.
| | 03:24 | One final note about using the time
budgeter. Some people find it helpful to
| | 03:29 | also budget time for one or two of
their least valuable activities, their LVAs.
| | 03:35 | Why would we want to do that?
| | 03:37 | Because we want to limit the amount of
time that we're spending on those activities.
| | 03:42 | By using the time budget for our least
valuable activities and creating a small
| | 03:47 | window of time for them, it forces us to
constrain the amount of time that we're
| | 03:53 | going to devote to those activities.
| | 03:56 | Use this new time budget as a guidepost
to make sure you spend sufficient time
| | 04:01 | in your most valuable activities each week.
| | 04:04 | This will also help you to avoid
allowing your schedule to get filled up with
| | 04:08 | many less valuable activities.
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| Using your time budgeter| 00:00 | Now that you've created a time
budgeter for your most valuable activities, I'd
| | 00:05 | like to take you through a few
examples of how you can use it effectively.
| | 00:09 | Watch how I use the time budgeter as a
tool to help me answer the 'when will it
| | 00:14 | be done' question of the "what,
when, where" processing system.
| | 00:17 | For example, let's suppose I'm about to
process a note I wrote down reminding me
| | 00:23 | to create a system to train Aaron
on how to better manage employees.
| | 00:27 | What's the next step?
| | 00:29 | The next step is I'm going to pull out
my systems template and begin writing.
| | 00:33 | When will it be done this is definitely
going to take me longer than 15 minutes,
| | 00:38 | so I know what has to go to the calendar.
| | 00:40 | I think it'll be probably take me 90
minutes. I then refer to my time budget
| | 00:45 | calendar, which shows me the best
time to complete this type of activity.
| | 00:50 | So, I first find the time that I budget
on Wednesday afternoon to write systems
| | 00:57 | and I scheduled those 90 minutes there.
| | 01:00 | Here is another example.
| | 01:01 | Let's say that I have an idea or an
opportunity to write an article for a
| | 01:06 | newspaper. Writing is one of
my most valuable activities.
| | 01:11 | So what is the next step?
| | 01:12 | I'm going to brainstorm ideas for the article.
| | 01:16 | When it will be done?
| | 01:17 | Well, let's say it's going to take me
30 minutes to brainstorm. I scheduled
| | 01:22 | Friday as my writing time budget.
| | 01:25 | I'm going to schedule 30 minutes in my
calendar during that writing time budget.
| | 01:31 | Having the time budget makes it easy
for me to figure out where to put things.
| | 01:36 | What if I'm processing an item
that isn't my most valuable activity?
| | 01:40 | It's an LVA, or least valuable activity.
| | 01:43 | Let's say my accountant sent me an
email that says we need to review my
| | 01:48 | finances for last year.
| | 01:51 | It's important but not one of my
top two most valuable activities.
| | 01:56 | My accountant in his email asks me if I
can scheduled the meeting on Friday at
| | 02:01 | 10 o'clock during the
time I budgeted for writing.
| | 02:05 | You'll have situations just like
this where you'll be tempted to schedule
| | 02:10 | less valuable activities on top of your
time budget for your most valuable activities.
| | 02:16 | Don't do it. Just because someone
proposed a meeting time to you does not mean
| | 02:21 | you have to respond to the
first option that they give you.
| | 02:25 | So I replied back to my accountant
and say I'm not available Friday at 10
| | 02:30 | o'clock. Can we meet on--and I look at my
calendar and find a place where I don't
| | 02:37 | have any conflicts on my time budget.
| | 02:42 | Monday morning looks good, so I send an
email, can we meet Monday at 11 instead.
| | 02:49 | For some of you, protecting your time
budget might not be a challenge.
| | 02:54 | For everyone else, for those of you who
have the tendency to say 'yes' too quickly,
| | 02:59 | make sure you use your time budget as a
guide. Refer back to it before making a
| | 03:04 | schedule commitment, whether you're
responding to a meeting request or you are
| | 03:09 | scheduling work for yourself to do.
Protect your most valuable activities and
| | 03:14 | you'll increase the value of your time.
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|
ConclusionMaintaining your productivity gains| 00:00 | Congratulations on completing the
Time Management Fundamentals course!
| | 00:04 | I've shown you the basic principles
that I recommend you live in order to get
| | 00:09 | the most from your time.
| | 00:11 | As I mentioned at the very beginning
of this course, my job was to introduce
| | 00:15 | you to the principles and not necessarily
show you the details of the tools behind
| | 00:21 | those principles, meaning the software
programs that you use or the computers
| | 00:25 | that you access and so on.
| | 00:27 | However, there are many, many
resources on lynda.com to help you maximize the
| | 00:33 | value that you've received from this training.
| | 00:35 | I would recommend that you complete the
courses in the software programs you intend to use.
| | 00:41 | Learning how to better use the
individual software programs will help you
| | 00:46 | achieve even greater success,
especially now that I've shown you the
| | 00:49 | fundamentals of successful time management.
| | 00:52 | Remember, the principles are
more important than the tools.
| | 00:57 | As long as you live the correct principles,
almost any system or tool can work for you.
| | 01:02 | Also, I would recommend that you
create an action item for yourself to review
| | 01:09 | the videos in this Time
Management course every two months or so.
| | 01:14 | We all get caught up in the day-to-day
grind and our mastery of even the most
| | 01:19 | basic principles will fade over time.
| | 01:22 | By reviewing these videos regularly,
you'll increase the likelihood of your
| | 01:26 | success with time management.
| | 01:28 | Thank you for allowing me to share
these principles, with you and may you
| | 01:33 | continue to be even more
productive in the coming weeks and months.
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|
BonusDave Crenshaw on getting himself organized| 00:02 | If you really want to know what I was
like before I started training on this
| | 00:07 | and learning about this, you can ask
my wife, because it was just it was so
| | 00:12 | chaotic to be with me.
| | 00:13 | And there's still some of the chaos
because that's inherently who I am.
| | 00:16 | But it was on a completely different level.
| | 00:19 | You literally had to use a shovel to
get from the front door to my desk.
| | 00:23 | I was jumping around from
career to career to career.
| | 00:26 | I was a salesperson.
| | 00:28 | I was a religious youth
educator. I had a a band.
| | 00:31 | I had a music booking business.
| | 00:33 | I mean the list kept going on and on.
| | 00:36 | So it was almost a career and a
personal internal chaos that was going on.
| | 00:40 | It was the point at which I
actually met with a psychologist and I said
| | 00:45 | something is wrong with me.
| | 00:46 | And he gave me two tests and then he
said the words I'll always remember.
| | 00:50 | He said, "You're off the charts ADHD.
| | 00:53 | If there's a fifth standard
deviation you'd be in it."
| | 00:56 | So when I speak to people about time
management I'm coming from the standpoint
| | 01:00 | of somebody who, this is
not the natural thing for me.
| | 01:05 | This something that I've had to learn
to overcome, and I think that's part of
| | 01:09 | the reason why it sticks so much for
people versus other options that they might
| | 01:13 | have that are easily built by
people who are inherently organized.
| | 01:18 | And it's natural for them, trying to
get the rest of us slobs to get organized.
| | 01:24 | And so what I did was look at the way
in which my day was structured and my
| | 01:28 | perspective on systems is
that they have to be simple.
| | 01:31 | So for me I needed it to have as
few steps as I possibly could have.
| | 01:37 | And then by having just a few
steps it made it easy to followthrough.
| | 01:42 | Another part of it is that I made
myself accountable to my own program.
| | 01:48 | So I have a business coach.
| | 01:50 | He holds me accountable for my own program.
| | 01:53 | I've seen lots of people in my
industry who teach one thing and practice
| | 01:59 | something else and I want to make sure that
I had integrity in what I said I was living.
| | 02:04 | So for me, it's also been a really big
reconditioning process, to change the
| | 02:10 | way that I operate.
| | 02:11 | The principles are universal and they
apply regardless of what business you're in,
| | 02:16 | and I've even had people who maybe
they stay at home and they're a parents
| | 02:21 | and they're at home, say that the
principles have helped them with that too.
| | 02:24 | Honestly for me personally being a
father, the ones that are most rewarding are
| | 02:29 | when someone comes to me and says
"You saved my marriage" or "I'm actually
| | 02:34 | paying attention to my
children more than I used to."
| | 02:37 | So part of my personal mission is not
just to help people make more money or be
| | 02:42 | more productive in business but it's
also to help bless their life, so that
| | 02:47 | they can be really efficient during
the time that they work, but not have to
| | 02:50 | work excessive hours.
| | 02:52 | They can be there for their
loved ones and have a full life.
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