Basic time management strategies

An incomplete introduction

ABC

More of an abstract theory than a canned plan, the ABC Plan is worth mentioning because it's an oldy-goody, and the basis for many, many other systems. The rules are easy to understand and follow, and you have a wide array of choices of how you personally implement them, which is nice, if you are looking for an umbrella philosophy to drive what you already do, or you want a system that's really flexible.

ABC divides all tasks into one of three groups: A, B, or C (surprise!)

• A tasks are urgent (have a deadline soon) and important

• B tasks are important but not urgent (they can be done at any time or later)

• C tasks are not important or urgentWhen you get a task, you immediately triage it and assign it to one of the three groups. The A list is your daily to-do list; that's what you immediately pay attention to. If you make it through all your A list tasks, you start picking from B. Finish B? Move to C.

More ABC

At the end of a day (or, for some, a week), take some time and look at the tasks that you have not completed from the B list. You must then move all those remaining B tasks to either the A list or the C list. Any C tasks that are suddenly important? They move to B. They have to be both important and urgent in order to move to the A list.

You then start the new day doing your A list tasks. New tasks get triaged as they come in. Finish A tasks, move to newly-triaged B tasks, then C tasks.Do your daily/weekly assessment (move remaining B tasks to A or C). Repeat. Repeat.A tasks are always given first priority. B tasks are given second, and must, eventually, be re-considered as first or third priority. C tasks are the "if I have time" stuff, always.

Still ABC

Pros• You can set up the ABC system in a

million different ways. Use lists in a notebook, use sticky notes, a white or chalk board, a mind mapping or note taking app or program, or on a calendar (digital or one with enough room to write your lists per day).

• It's quick to set up, can appeal to visually-oriented thinkers (depending on how you set it up), and you can choose the medium of tracking (paper, digital, both) based on what appeals and is available.

Dangers• Requires you to be brave and a

little ruthless. The sentimental will put altogether too many tasks in their A lists, and can get overwhelmed, whereas the point of the system is that most tasks fall into the C column, eventually.

• The ABC system doesn't have an obvious way to track dates and appointments either, unless you treat each appointment as a task and only look at the ones that are immediately upcoming.

The Pomodoro Technique

Yes, pomodoro, as in tomato. The only required tool for this technique is a timer (you can purchase, if so inclined, a wide variety of tomato-shaped timers).You pick a task from your to-do list (the technique doesn't specify how you keep such a list, so you are free to wing that as you choose). Then, you set that timer for 25 minutes, and just work on that one task -- without stopping, changing focus, or allowing yourself to be interrupted -- for the full 25 minutes. Once the timer goes off, you take a 5 minute break.That 30-minute cycle is called a pomodoro.

You complete one pomodoro...

Take the break, and then set the timer for another 25 minutes, and get back to work on a task, then take a 5 minute break. Repeat. Repeat. After the fourth consecutive pomodoro cycle, you take a longer break (15 - 30 minutes).

Pomodoro con’t

It's deceptively simple.• But it’s important to have -- or use it --

to create predictable chunk of time in a day.

• You could adapt it for interstitial tasks, if you wanted, though that is not the designed use.

• This could be the choice for those who prefer to work in spurts, particularly those of you who answered “yes” to the question of whether you stayed on one task for as long as possible.– It effectively organizes your time into

manageable bites, with structure and clear expectations.

To learn more:Check out the Pomodoro Technique's official site. The site has tons of information and tips to implement and sustain, as well as a bunch of stuff you can buy.My advice is to use your kitchen or microwave timer, or the timer that comes on your phone before you invest in a “fancy” one (if ever)

Getting Things Done

Getting Things Done, or "GTD" to its devotees, has a massive following.There are books, seminars, websites, blogs, and an entire economy of products designed for and around GTD. However, GTD, in a pure or bastardized state, doesn't require many tools to use, and can be adopted to use paper or digital tools. It works best for those who are natural list-makers. Rather than trying to carry along -- and remember -- the tasks you need to do now, as well as anything you need to do regularly or want to do in the future, GTD urges users to “empty” their mind into an “inbox” of everything.

This is a wicked oversimplication.

There are entire books written on GTD. In fact, there’s an industry built around it, and accessories to help you implement.There are user and fan sites that go deep into the minutiae on how you process and arrange tasks, and can approach unreal levels of precision. There is an official website, but there's also a tremendous amount of information, blogs, articles, and examples out there, online. If you get lost in geeking out on topics, proceed with caution. For example, there are many, may sites that discuss how to “hack”, specifically, a Moleskine type notebook for GTD lists.

GTD go go!

In a nutshell• Step one: use a notebook, voice

recorder, text file, etc., to capture every idea, to do, or distraction; in other words, anything on your mind.

• Step two: process all of these ideas and items. Decide if they are necessary, important, or interesting, and trash the rest. Turn the rest into actionable tasks.

• Step three: organize these tasks into lists (‘bucket” them into categories. There are lots of ways to do this)

• Step four: review these lists daily and weekly.

• Step five: do the tasks.

Pros and difficulties• There are tons of books, articles,

apps, websites, notebooks, and the like, designed to help you do the GTD system. Many of them are free, and it is a robust system that you can implement quickly and at little/no cost.

• It is very easy to get lost in the minutiae of the system, and have most of your task time wrapped up in maintaining and improving your lists...and never get anything done. Feeling organized is not the same as being organized.

Seinfeld's Productivity Secret/Don't Break the Chain

This system was made popular by comic Jerry Seinfeld, though based on classic ideas about how you form a habit:Schedule time to do a task and do the task every day, and you will get better and faster at the task. Doing it every day creates a “chain,” and the goal is to “not break the chain.”You pretty much only need a calendar and a task. Pick something you want to start doing, do it, and then spend the same time every subsequent day doing that thing.Every day you do the thing you want to do, mark it down on a calendar. Over time, that series of marks on the calendar will serve as their own motivation, encouraging you to keep going, and keep doing that thing every day as long as you can.

Better for skills over “tasks”: big rocks over granular

Having a predictable schedule, day-to-day is a key component to getting a chain going. As you work and mark the days, you'll be able to easily see how well you're doing (or where you are falling down) with one look at the calendar. The assumption is that you will also be able to look forward and really only break rhythm for the unplannable (such as sick days).

This system is better suited to get you going on things you want to do -- but don’t -- or want to learn, over the one-off and occasional tasks that keep life humming. But if you think in large “buckets” (as in exercise, house cleaning, writing as an all-inclusive, practicing an instrument, and so forth), this may be an easy, fast, and effective way to get you, and keep you, going.

KanBan

• A kanban is a visual time management tool, organized by Japanese Toyota executive Taiichi Ohno.

• It's a great collaborative system, because it created a way to communicate what needs to be done, what tasks are in progress, and how the tasks can be completed: the workflow.

• It can be adapted for individual work, and doesn't require anything aside from a "board," which can be an actual white/blackboard, a piece of blank wall with post-it notes, a refrigerator with colored magnets, or a digital document. There are also lots of specialized apps and equipment you can buy especially for the process, if you want to get fancy.

• You can also use KanBan for one-off projects: because it was designed for collaboration, it is useful for family or co-authoring projects.

Doing KanBan

• Tasks are mapped on the board depending on where they are in the workflow, and then moved from left to right, bucket to bucket, as they are completed.

• Buckets can be very simple (as in To Be Done, Doing, and Done). You list all the tasks you want and need to do, and, bam, you are off.

• KanBan is great if you are a visual person, as it can give you, in a glance, an overall snapshot of your work.

• Like the ABC method, though, if you are not ruthless about controlling your to-do list, you can get an overwhelmingly long list, or a bunch of tasks languishing in various states of partial-doneness.

The board

Music is “The Wholesale Brain,” by Zhang Li (off Persuasion)For a bibliography of all information used in this presentation, send an email request to info@eastlakeandroanoke.com.This presentation is released under a Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) license. If you use it in one of your classes, we’d love to hear about it! Let us know at the same email, above.Please note: the names of these systems made be trademarked by their respective owners.