Pete's Eats

Following on from my previous post about how busy things have been for me recently, I thought I’d write a little bit about the time management processes and devices that I’ve adopted. There’s probably nothing original here, but most of them have been born out of necessity and not from research in my case. I’m sure this helps with the adoption of new working practises though.

• No Friday Meetings – This is the most recent innovation for me. I’ve found that meetings on Fridays are unlikely to result in dynamic follow through on any resulting actions. The urgency is lost because of the weekend and Monday will bring it’s own pressure to bear too. Friday, for me, has become the best day to focus on admin issues, paperwork and inbox catchup and I’ll generally try to make it a work-from-home day if I’m in the country. Losing the commute to either London or Reading gives me back much needed extra hours and I have a no-guilt policy if I finish early too – any time gained here is more than paid back during the rest of the week without a doubt (you try working between GMT and GMT -8!!!). Fridays have become incredibly valuable now and very much improved by overall ability to cope with the workload.
• Scheduling Time Slots – Throughout the week I make sure to schedule timeslots in my calendar called ‘A-Time’. Our calendars are shared at MS and when trying to book some time with you people will look for the free slots, thus actually putting in these ‘appointments’ helps to keep some time reserved for actual tasks too. During these times I screen my calls and do not answer any new emails (Outlook’s filters are great at separating old unread email from new emails). I make sure that going into each of these a-time sessions, I have my tasks mapped out – they’re designed to make sure that I complete specific things and make a real dent in my to-do list.
• Phone Email – I used to think it was pretty cool to get my email on my mobile phone. I don’t anymore. MS, unsurprisingly, issue Windows Mobile Smartphones for us to use for business and their integration with Exchange Server is seriously impressive. But actually checking, and maybe responding, to email on them can really eat into your time. So I’m super-critical when screening my email on my handset now and only read/respond to things that genuinely require it. Why take 5 mins to answer a mail now when it will take 30 secs on your laptop later? Unless it’s urgent of course…
• Microsoft OneNote – Mac users are completely missing out on this. OneNote is completely brilliant at helping you to organise thoughts, notes and document drafts. It’s ability to use smart copy & paste with different media types and enhance the workflow between other applications is a marvel. I’ve come to really rely on OneNote a lot – which made it all the more painful yesterday when I deleted the wrong thing and lost some info… The clostest thing I’ve seen on the Mac is Voodopad, but it’s really not in the same league.
• Now – I have a general policy that if something can be dealt with immediately then that’s how it gets done. I won’t put anything easy off ’till later because it piles up before you know it, and maybe it’s just me, it clouds my ability to get things done. A head full of reminders is a surefire way to forget things.

There are probably more things I’ve adopted/evolved but haven’t even observed them myself yet. The end result for me, is a realisation that it’s not my workload that I need to manage all the time – it’s my headspace. I’ve had to learn to think about a wider range of issues in a clear and precise way and it’s not easy (for me anyway). The more I manage my day and build process and routine into it, the easier I find things to manage. It’s hard because I’m not a very structured person generally. I definitely like to be a little more freeform with my life but this process of awareness is helping me to compartmentalise my work/life balance.