Effective Time Management

Hi ladies. So this is the second video out of three about being more efficient and productive. And here I wanted to talk about time efficiency. Some things that have helped me to be more efficient with how I spend my time. The first one is called chunking. It's when you do groups of activities together so that you spend less time doing them. If you think about all the things you have to do in a day, how many calls you have to make, emails you have to send, places you have to go, meetings you have to be in zoom calls these days. Think about all the different types of things you have to do right in a week, let's say put them together in chunks. So if you have to do three different follow up calls, make sure you put all of them at the same time. Like I'll call this, then call this, then call this. If you have to do emails, I'm going to sit for one hour and do all the emails. It's more efficient than switching between tasks. If you do a call, then an email, then a meeting, then a call, then a meeting, then an email, then a call, you're losing time in between everything and it's not as efficient. You're not in that mode and everything about your brain has to switch to the other thing. Sometimes you even have to move physically to where you are. Of course, you can't always control these things like meetings with other people. But if your calendar is in your control or aspects of the work you're doing are in your control, do them together. Even when you have to do things like report writing, when you have to do things like reading, when you have to do stuff on a computer, versus when you have to do stuff physically, when you have to go somewhere to do the field research or go to town or go outside, make sure you're putting those kinds of tasks together. I have the luxury of mostly managing my own schedule so I can decide which days are for meetings and which days are for research and writing. Because if I'm trying to do both, one is not going to work. I'm thinking about the research. I was in the middle of reading this part and then I have to go for this meeting. It doesn't help if I do meetings back to back. I know exactly what I'm doing because I'm in meeting mode. This, then this, then this, then this. Next, next, next. So with all types of tasks you do in life, not just for work, essentially you can chunk them and see, like when you're doing kitchen things or when you're doing bedroom things, if you are cleaning the house, you wouldn't go clean this one part of the kitchen. Then I go to the bedroom, Then I go back to the kitchen. Then I go back to the bedroom. It just doesn't make sense. You're losing efficiency. So chunk things together. Another helpful thing is instead of making just a long to do list of all the things you have to do, schedule those things immediately. Don't put them in a to do list. Open your calendar and put this is the task I have to do. Where can I fit it? Is it going to take one hour? Is it going to take three hours? Can I do this on Tuesday morning or is Wednesday night better? Put it straight in your calendar and then on the time make sure you actually do it rather than having this long pending to do list. And then you procrastinate and procrastinate and procrastinate. When will I find time to do this? Put it straight in your calendar. And if you practice doing this for a couple of weeks, it gets really efficient because you get used to actually acting on the to do items and then you're achieving more and you feel more satisfied and you gain momentum and you get things done. Another thing I always tell people is remove notifications in your phone. That is just all the companies using you. There is no intentionality. You are not in control. Everyone says, oh, I don't check Facebook that much. Oh, I don't do this. I assure you you are spending more time than you think you are on your phone. And most smartphones these days can even show if you go in your settings or somewhere how much time you actually spend in each app. Switching off notifications helps because we are not doctors, 99.9% of us. If you don't check your phone, no one is going to die. Nothing bad is going to happen. You are just addicted to the distraction. So switching off notifications helps you to focus. At least do it for chunks of time. If you know you have a report to write and you only have two hours to do it, switch off your notifications. If someone really has to call you, they'll call you. And even then, look, do you really have to answer now? I'll call them when I'm done so that you stay in the zone and you stay focused and that way you get stuff done. Distractions are just eating away at our efficiency. Especially these days with short adverts. With so much social media, our brains are just being eroded by distract, distract, distract. It's hard to focus for several hours at a time the way that generations before us could, and that's something we are losing out on. Switching off your notifications is a small thing you can do. It will be painful for a few days and then you get used to the peace. You can check when you want to check. I'm not saying delete all your accounts. You'll check whenever you want to check, even if it's every 45 minutes. At least you had 45 minutes of quiet, of peace, of focus to do what you are supposed to be doing. Another important thing about efficiency is keeping accurate records. We lose a lot of time trying to find things. I know now we live in a more digital age, but imagine you had to go look for a specific file every time you needed something in a room full of files and you don't know where they are, and they're not labelled or organized, you would lose time. And that's what we do all the time, because we don't keep track of where things are. People who work efficiently, if you say, I need that file or I need that contract, or I need this page or that photo or that poster, they know exactly where it is. It's labeled in a folder of that date of that time or with the tag. And it saves you so much time. I really love taking notes digitally or like doing stuff with Google Drive or with Evernote or all these apps, because it's much easier to search. As long as you've labeled something accurately, it's easy to type it in. Search and it'll be one of the options that comes. But that takes practice. Also, you have to get used to saving things where you know you'll be able to find them. And you've labelled it correctly so that a year from now, if you're looking for a specific file, it doesn't take you three days to find it. Scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll. What's it called? This. Let me check. I know the feeling. I've also done that. But if you get in the practice of saving things efficiently and keeping track of where you put things, these are habits you can build. It's like keeping your keys in the same place in your house every day. Some people lose their keys every single day. Where did I put my keys? You don't put them in the same place. If you make a habit about exactly where you put your keys, you will always know your keys are always there. And you can take that same attitude with all the files you use for your work, for your business, for your cv, for your family photos, for anything you want. But make an efficient system and have the labels there accurately, correctly. Dates are useful. What is that file about is useful? Who? Whoever it's involving, it's useful. There's no limit to what you can put in that title to help you to find it later. And if you have to file things manually, have a system. Don't just say, I dumped them all in this cupboard, because the day you need to find it, you're not going to want to dig through that cupboard and all that does to look for that one folder. So it really makes a big difference with your efficiency.