Time management for slobs
"Spend time?! Look what you wanted! You won’t spend time! ”/ L. Carroll. "Alice in Wonderland". Per. B. Zakhoder /
Recently attended a lecture by Gleb Arkhangelsky on time management and decided to share his thoughts on this topic. I do not in any way cast doubt on the classical theory of time management and its achievement. However, it seemed to me that it might not be suitable for many people. In particular, I definitely would not want to live on it - my life would become predictable, like the railway in Germany, and therefore boring and uninteresting. It seems to me that the muse for a person who uses time management will not come (or come, sit a bit and leave), because at any given time, such a person will pore over a pre-planned to-do list.
The muse is a muse, and things should be done even for those who do not like schedules. For such people, my principles of time management, which I have deduced empirically for myself, may be interesting. Partly, following these rules has contributed to the fact that over the past 2 years I have developed, and, it seems, not unsuccessfully, my own business.
So, these rules are simple: you need to make an SLA according to the time it takes to complete the tasks, depending on the time required to complete them. In my case, the SLA looks like this:
1. Everything that can be done in 3 minutes should be done immediately.
For example, instead of scheduling a call to Ivanov, you pick up and call this Ivanov right now. Thus, you not only speed up all work processes, but also avoid unnecessary overhead in time for planning small things.
2. Everything that can be done in 30 minutes must be done today.
For example, if you need to write a letter to Petrov, you open a new message window in the mail client, enter Petrov’s email there and continue to do current affairs. At the end of the day, closing unnecessary windows before turning off the computer, you will find this letter and will definitely have to write it before leaving home from work.
3. Anything that can be done in more than 30 minutes needs to be done this week.
In my deep conviction, if an individual problem cannot be solved in a week, then this is a wrong task, because it was not properly broken up and delegated. Therefore, if the clock is 9 pm Friday, and you haven’t started any of the tasks of this week yet, then it’s your fault that part of the task was not handed over to Sidorov on time, so you have to go to the embrasure and solve this problem without any help .
These 3 simple rules allow you to minimize the planning process and accelerate your interaction with the outside world, which means that all the projects and processes that you conduct (just like when loading a site, reducing ping by 50 ms leads to faster loading of the entire site on seconds). There is only one drawback of these rules - they periodically lead to rumors. But, as you know, a Russian person has only 2 states - a rush and stagnation, therefore rumors sometimes need to be artificially created in order to achieve tangible results. And in order not to be exhausted by the excessive number of emergency workers and not get a negative effect from them in your personal life, you can, for example, forbid yourself to work on weekends and / or take as a habit to communicate with family members in the mornings, and not in the evenings.
In addition to the above rules for planning time using SLA principles, I have 3 more principles for organizing things that I borrowed from Winnie the Pooh:
a. Visit in the mornings
Make important appointments in the morning to insure against a possible shift in your schedule
b. Walk in circles, not back and forth.
Try to combine several things at once. If you are going to meet in a certain area of the city, then remember if you have any other business in this or neighboring areas. If you are discussing something with someone, remember whether it is possible to discuss something else with this person.
in. Do not forget to eat on time
Without food (physical and spiritual), the brain quickly stops working. It is especially good when you manage to have a meal in the company of colleagues or partners, discussing the prospects for the development of technologies that you are engaged in or just the latest industry news - you do not have to find these news on the Internet yourself later, wasting precious time. And most importantly, during such exchanges of opinions, usually all the best ideas come, which then can only be realized.
Thank you for your attention to those who have read to the end, I will be glad to questions, comments and especially tips!
Update: an unnecessary overhead is also created by switching between tasks. Try to avoid this, and then following paragraph 1 will not lead to a transition from important matters to routine.
Recently attended a lecture by Gleb Arkhangelsky on time management and decided to share his thoughts on this topic. I do not in any way cast doubt on the classical theory of time management and its achievement. However, it seemed to me that it might not be suitable for many people. In particular, I definitely would not want to live on it - my life would become predictable, like the railway in Germany, and therefore boring and uninteresting. It seems to me that the muse for a person who uses time management will not come (or come, sit a bit and leave), because at any given time, such a person will pore over a pre-planned to-do list.
The muse is a muse, and things should be done even for those who do not like schedules. For such people, my principles of time management, which I have deduced empirically for myself, may be interesting. Partly, following these rules has contributed to the fact that over the past 2 years I have developed, and, it seems, not unsuccessfully, my own business.
So, these rules are simple: you need to make an SLA according to the time it takes to complete the tasks, depending on the time required to complete them. In my case, the SLA looks like this:
1. Everything that can be done in 3 minutes should be done immediately.
For example, instead of scheduling a call to Ivanov, you pick up and call this Ivanov right now. Thus, you not only speed up all work processes, but also avoid unnecessary overhead in time for planning small things.
2. Everything that can be done in 30 minutes must be done today.
For example, if you need to write a letter to Petrov, you open a new message window in the mail client, enter Petrov’s email there and continue to do current affairs. At the end of the day, closing unnecessary windows before turning off the computer, you will find this letter and will definitely have to write it before leaving home from work.
3. Anything that can be done in more than 30 minutes needs to be done this week.
In my deep conviction, if an individual problem cannot be solved in a week, then this is a wrong task, because it was not properly broken up and delegated. Therefore, if the clock is 9 pm Friday, and you haven’t started any of the tasks of this week yet, then it’s your fault that part of the task was not handed over to Sidorov on time, so you have to go to the embrasure and solve this problem without any help .
These 3 simple rules allow you to minimize the planning process and accelerate your interaction with the outside world, which means that all the projects and processes that you conduct (just like when loading a site, reducing ping by 50 ms leads to faster loading of the entire site on seconds). There is only one drawback of these rules - they periodically lead to rumors. But, as you know, a Russian person has only 2 states - a rush and stagnation, therefore rumors sometimes need to be artificially created in order to achieve tangible results. And in order not to be exhausted by the excessive number of emergency workers and not get a negative effect from them in your personal life, you can, for example, forbid yourself to work on weekends and / or take as a habit to communicate with family members in the mornings, and not in the evenings.
In addition to the above rules for planning time using SLA principles, I have 3 more principles for organizing things that I borrowed from Winnie the Pooh:
a. Visit in the mornings
Make important appointments in the morning to insure against a possible shift in your schedule
b. Walk in circles, not back and forth.
Try to combine several things at once. If you are going to meet in a certain area of the city, then remember if you have any other business in this or neighboring areas. If you are discussing something with someone, remember whether it is possible to discuss something else with this person.
in. Do not forget to eat on time
Without food (physical and spiritual), the brain quickly stops working. It is especially good when you manage to have a meal in the company of colleagues or partners, discussing the prospects for the development of technologies that you are engaged in or just the latest industry news - you do not have to find these news on the Internet yourself later, wasting precious time. And most importantly, during such exchanges of opinions, usually all the best ideas come, which then can only be realized.
Thank you for your attention to those who have read to the end, I will be glad to questions, comments and especially tips!
Update: an unnecessary overhead is also created by switching between tasks. Try to avoid this, and then following paragraph 1 will not lead to a transition from important matters to routine.