There is nothing more enjoyable than unexpected free time for me. I dislike an over-scheduled and inflexible calendar. But my old mehod of post-it notes and to-do lists was not cutting it for me anymore. To be fair, I was going through a personal loss and trying to act like nothing had happened. Even so, I went looking for something to help me.
I came across an article on using Timeboxing for time management. I had used a similar tool to keep track of my time years ago when I had to book my time to projects. It was a useful tool in retrospect and didn’t seem like it would take much of a shift to use it in advance.
Here is how I use it in Microsoft Outlook.
I don’t have any to-do lists, tasks, etc. When I have something I would have put on a to-do list, I create an appointment in Outlook for the time I think it will take to complete the task. I use “Show Time as Tentative” and a Category of To Do for all of these. I put a reminder 15 minutes ahead.
If you read Jon Acuff’s book Finish, you know that you will frequently underestimate the amount of time that is needed to do a task or reach a goal. If something doesn’t get finished in the appropriate time and you can’t extend, you need to create another appointment to finish it.
I don’t dismiss anything unless I am doing the task. If I have to shift it and don’t have time to do it right then, I snooze it until I can reschedule it. (This one is hard if you have a lot of reminders dinging.)
Before I leave at night I make sure everything for the day has been moved.
I let people who schedule meetings with me frequently know that if something is showing as Tentative, I am available to meet.
If I am planning something ahead or prepping for a meeting, I put “Due by ___” in the subject line of the appointment. This way, if it needs to be moved, I know right away, when it needs to be completed by. I don’t have to waste time searching through project notes.
This system gives me a ton of flexibility, because I can move projects as long as I make the deadlines. More than once, I have been ahead of schedule because I prepped in advance knowing that I wouldn’t have time closer to the deadline. At the end of the day or week, I can see exactly what I have accomplished. I am also able to more accurately estimate when I can complete new projects because I know how far out my time is scheduled. I am also getting better at estimating the amount of time that a task or project will take.
Maybe the most surprising side-benefit is that I have been less stressed even though my calendar is completely full. Some days you just handle things so fast that you don’t even remember what you did. With this system, I can look back and see all the 15-minute things I knocked out and feel accomplished. It also helps me communicate my workload and realistic free times. When people say “can you do this” I used to try to make it happen and completely stress myself out. Now I can say “not this week unless I move something else” immediately. This moves the conversation immediately to priorities, which is usually pretty easy to figure out. Finally, even with countless projects on my radar, I usually have 2-3 things that I want to finish that day. Once those are done I can work ahead.
What is your favorite time management tip? How do you juggle multiple things without stressing yourself out?
I came across an article on using Timeboxing for time management. I had used a similar tool to keep track of my time years ago when I had to book my time to projects. It was a useful tool in retrospect and didn’t seem like it would take much of a shift to use it in advance.
Here is how I use it in Microsoft Outlook.
I don’t have any to-do lists, tasks, etc. When I have something I would have put on a to-do list, I create an appointment in Outlook for the time I think it will take to complete the task. I use “Show Time as Tentative” and a Category of To Do for all of these. I put a reminder 15 minutes ahead.
If you read Jon Acuff’s book Finish, you know that you will frequently underestimate the amount of time that is needed to do a task or reach a goal. If something doesn’t get finished in the appropriate time and you can’t extend, you need to create another appointment to finish it.
I don’t dismiss anything unless I am doing the task. If I have to shift it and don’t have time to do it right then, I snooze it until I can reschedule it. (This one is hard if you have a lot of reminders dinging.)
Before I leave at night I make sure everything for the day has been moved.
I let people who schedule meetings with me frequently know that if something is showing as Tentative, I am available to meet.
If I am planning something ahead or prepping for a meeting, I put “Due by ___” in the subject line of the appointment. This way, if it needs to be moved, I know right away, when it needs to be completed by. I don’t have to waste time searching through project notes.
This system gives me a ton of flexibility, because I can move projects as long as I make the deadlines. More than once, I have been ahead of schedule because I prepped in advance knowing that I wouldn’t have time closer to the deadline. At the end of the day or week, I can see exactly what I have accomplished. I am also able to more accurately estimate when I can complete new projects because I know how far out my time is scheduled. I am also getting better at estimating the amount of time that a task or project will take.
Maybe the most surprising side-benefit is that I have been less stressed even though my calendar is completely full. Some days you just handle things so fast that you don’t even remember what you did. With this system, I can look back and see all the 15-minute things I knocked out and feel accomplished. It also helps me communicate my workload and realistic free times. When people say “can you do this” I used to try to make it happen and completely stress myself out. Now I can say “not this week unless I move something else” immediately. This moves the conversation immediately to priorities, which is usually pretty easy to figure out. Finally, even with countless projects on my radar, I usually have 2-3 things that I want to finish that day. Once those are done I can work ahead.
What is your favorite time management tip? How do you juggle multiple things without stressing yourself out?
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