Time structuring tactics will maximize your productive time. Time structuring tricks will help keep work confined to its schedule. Time structuring traps are to be avoided.
Tactics
• Place your most important and most urgent tasks first on your time structure. Everything else must either fit around those tasks or be dropped.
• Limit the times that you check email and voicemail. Set specific times for them in the time structure, but do not let constant “dings” of new message arrivals distract you from actual work.
• Record how many interruptions occur during specific tasks or time frame. If there are many interruptions during a specific task, inform coworkers or supervisors that you are not to be interrupted during this time frame. They simply may not realize that this is an important task or that their check ins are disruptions. If the interruptions are higher priority than the task at hand, reschedule the task for a time less prone to interruption.
• If you have budgeted one hour for a meeting, get an egg timer to enforce the schedule. Leave when the one hour is up.
• Have a task list in your day planner or calendar software of quick tasks that need to be done but are flexible in when they are done. When free time reveals itself, use the free time to perform these short tasks. These tasks can range from following up with a customer a few months after a sale to sending out thank you messages to team members who completed a project.
Tricks
• Your time structure is how much time you plan on spending on a task. Create a second log and document how much time is actually spent on the task. If the time is less than expected, reduce its allotted time on the time structure and then fill in the gap.
• If you consistently spend less time than planned on the task, you plan to use that time to perform a short but necessary task during your day or move other tasks earlier into the day so that you have a larger block of free time at the end of the day.
• Do not feel obligated to remain for a full hour if you have a conference room for an hour if you’re done in 30 minutes. Go ahead and thank everyone for coming and then leave.
• Politely interrupt those with social visits after they’ve shown that they intend to chat socially. Ask them if they want to discuss their latest activities over lunch or at the next coffee break instead.
