As an immature manager who hadn’t realized how important the people working for him were, I would come home every night saying that I should be paid extra for babysitting. I even moved my computer from the front of my desk to the back corner in an attempt to reduce the volume of questions. It didn’t help, but I did quickly gain a reputation for being unapproachable (I will remind you that I wasn’t ready to manage people). I was moved out of the role, but
that’s a story for another day—it does end well (see The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas for details).

Why was I so frustrated with people asking me questions to solve customer problems or wanting my attention in order to build a stronger employee-manager relationship? It took some soul searching, but I did figure it out. What I found was that I allowed one-hundred percent of my time to be swallowed up by others who were dependent on me, and I found myself not knowing when or how I would get everything else done. If you’re a parent or even have pets, you may know the feeling that we sometimes just need a little time alone to do what we need for ourselves.

What I learned was that I simply had to create that time. It didn’t have to be long periods. Whether it was a quick five-minute breather or going to a quiet office to write a performance appraisal, that time made me concentrate on the task at hand. As a result, I became more productive and could then give one-hundred percent concentration when I returned. The built-up frustration of wanting to do something only to encounter obstacles because of the pull from those depending on us hurts our relationship building, and our time management.

When it makes sense, put up your own “Do Not Disturb” sign when you absolutely have to get work done. This can be literal or figurative, done with an online indicator for instant messaging, for example, or by walking away from your desk. Either way, proactively let people know that you’re temporarily not available. If you’re on vacation, turn on your out-of-office message. You can also practice just letting your phone go to voicemail and allowing emails to come in without an immediate response. Next, turn off the distractions that can take away from your actual work. Don’t sneak a peek at Facebook—your friends will still be there later.

You can be more productive and reduce frustration and interruptions by simply being obvious about your availability—people will respect it. Let people know that you’re temporarily not available, but that when you return they will have your undivided attention.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Down the Chute: A Toboggan Tale (children’s book)
• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

I received a panicked phone call from a colleague one day who said she had taken on additional responsibilities and that she felt she was drowning, her nose barely above water. She was crumbling under the weight of her responsibilities. After she’d calmed down, she asked the simplest question of all: “Can you help me?” Whether she called me or someone else, she had become self-aware enough to know her work performance was suffering. Self-awareness is a powerful tool.

Too many people wait until it’s too late to ask for assistance. You don’t need to complain, you need to look for solutions. If you find that these solutions or other time management tools you’ve tried aren’t working for you—keep searching. Telling someone it will get done still doesn’t get it done, until you find the time to do it. If you’re falling behind, be strong enough to get assistance. You don’t want to wait for a time study to figure out what you do all day! If you don’t know, ask a peer, ask a boss, ask a mentor, even ask a stranger, but make sure that you ask. I realize we’re in a do-more-with-less business world. We
hesitate to talk with people about the time crunches we’re under. We don’t want to be considered weak, inefficient, unproductive, or other negative connotations that can hurt our professional growth. Work not getting done, however, will be a much bigger problem over time.

It’s time to do some soul searching. Is today the day to ask for help with your own organization and time management skills? Even if you want more time to implement these strategies, set an actual deadline to do another assessment. If you reach that date and are not at the level you expected, make that the day to ask for help. As stated in an earlier blogs, the concept of building a strong enough relationship with someone to have this type of conversation is critical. Invest the time now to build strong relationships with those people around you who can help. Discuss challenges with your manager and other co-workers, and even people you mentor with to get sound advice. Silence will only hurt you. Communicate with your manager and the appropriate
people within your organization relating to what’s on your plate. It may take time to reach a solution, but it always begins with self-awareness.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Down the Chute: A Toboggan Tale (children’s book)
• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

I used to work in a credit acquisition department where we were making lending decisions for customers every day. The customer would send in an application, and we had to make a credit decision based on multiple factors like previous credit and financial history. Every effort was made to build consistency, but there were always situations when we would be on the fence due to the subjective nature of the job. Do we approve it, decline it, or ask for more information from the customer? The easy decision was to ask for more information, but even then, some information that came back still left us in the fog. Our job was to make sound decisions that didn’t put the bank at risk, but we still had regulations and certain internal deadlines that forced us to make some kind of determination. We called these final decisions endlines. We had to endline and stop waffling. Right or wrong, we had to make an educated and informed decision before the application was considered past due.

In your professional life, it’s important to realize that procrastination is not an option. There are decisions that have to be made. Effective today, you will learn to make endline decisions. You obviously want to gather important facts to make important decisions. However, there are some decisions that aren’t important. Certain emails may be sitting in your inbox that you’ve read twenty-five times in the hope that something can be done to deal with it. Have you engaged the right people, have you escalated the situation, have you gathered the right facts? In the touch-it-once mentality, leaving it in your inbox doesn’t solve the problem. A decision still needs to be made. Being decisive
and attacking problems head-on will always save you time and effort. If you’re in the habit of leaving items unattended because you find it difficult deciding what to do, now is the time to commit to changing that habit. An unofficial rule of thumb for me is to consider a maximum of five business days before simply making an endline decision—give or take, based on the circumstances. Even if you choose to delete it with no actions, you still have to make a decision. It’s been a week already! As long as you understand the ramifications of your decisions, you will
start to build the right habits and reduce the volume of these endline decisions significantly.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Down the Chute: A Toboggan Tale (children’s book)
• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

I used to have a person work for me who managed a small group of employees. She was great with people, but lacked effective organization skills. We had been working on these skills, and I had seen some improvement. I then sat down at her desk one day and looked behind her. Her credenza had been left open, and obviously was not intended for me to see.

She was a file hoarder. She had mountains of unfiled paperwork, personnel files, and who knows what else, hidden in the pile. She said she would get around to it. So, we set a deadline. I came back the day after the deadline had passed; her credenza looked very much the same. She said she’d tried, but it was too much and she didn’t have time. As stated throughout this book, we do have time; it’s just a matter of what we do with it. The simplicity of putting the files behind her to get to them later turned into a pressure-filled ticking time bomb that still had to be addressed versus a series of quick actions. The mess was a big concern. Think about the fact that personal information in the files was accessible, potential follow-up items were left unattended, and
that there were possible audit issues depending on what was in the pile.

She saw a stack of work that became psychologically difficult to attack. Her strategy was avoidance. I’ve rarely seen this strategy work. I saw a series of immediate and small tasks that could be completed quickly, enabling her to gain efficiency in the future. We tackled it together—in less than thirty minutes. In daily life, we often put off things that appear to be burdensome tasks, which can take away from our attention to detail and may even cause our stress to increase. Try shifting your mindset, so that you approach tasks as they come up with the same urgency you associate with tasks after you’ve let them build. If you have always filed and saved immediately, you’re on the right path. If you don’t, then today is the day to start.

When something needs to be filed, do it immediately—or, depending on your position, delegate it immediately—whether it is a paper, email content, or anything online that needs to be saved, recorded, and/or filed. In order to maximize your efficiency, it’s important that you know where things are at all times. Knowing that it’s under the third pile to the left may work sometimes, but this is about consistency. How you file and where you choose to put things is up to you. The goal is to have an organized methodology.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Down the Chute: A Toboggan Tale (children’s book)
• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

I had only been in the real world working for about six months. I was doing decently on the phones, and was promoted to a job with more responsibilities. I was still on the phones, but we had more meetings to discuss strategies. I showed up to my first meeting without a notebook, paper, or any other way to retain the information. My boss called me out on it; I have never gone to a meeting again without something to keep notes.

According to culturalorientation.net, retention rates for adult learning varies based on the teaching method, but dips as low as five percent for lectures. Individuals learn best when they are actively engaged and taking notes. Culturalorientation.net noted in their article that, “As Confucius said nearly twenty-five hundred years ago, ‘I hear and I forget. I see and I remember.’”

Since that day, I’ve been a consummate note taker. What does this have to do with organization and time management? It has to do with follow-up, prioritization, and execution; adding everything to your calendar and ensuring that you’re actually doing what was discussed right the first time!

If you have not consistently brought something to take notes with during meetings, start immediately. Always take a notebook (laptop or anything to take notes!- paper or digital- it doesn’t matter) to meetings, and actually use it. The value isn’t the notes staring blankly back at you. The significance comes into play when you invest the time to go back and read them—and take action. Just as you would when taking action on emails, it’s important to do the same with notes. Go back and refer to them to determine whether any actions need to be taken. Do you have questions that still need to be asked, or is clarification or confirmation still needed? Do you know if you were specifically asked to do something? If yes, mark it accordingly, and immediately add it to your calendar to get it done. I use markings for items that require immediate action to ensure that they stand out. Then, I immediately begin the transfer from paper or even tablet to a calendar. For those who prefer note-taking directly online, you’re even further ahead. I prefer actual written notes because I’ve found that the writing and transferring of information has helped my retention rates significantly, but use what works best for you. What is important is that you don’t simply take notes and then ignore them—that would be a waste of time.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Down the Chute: A Toboggan Tale (children’s book)
• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

I was juggling quite a few projects at one time. I was balancing important and not important, urgent and not urgent, I was putting in the hours and efforts, and still one of my projects went beyond the deadline. Yet, it passed without a word from my boss, or anyone else for that matter. As much as I try to do everything I can to communicate progress to the powers that be, in this case, it slipped through the cracks and I didn’t provide any heads-up. For the record, as previously stated, I will emphasize that communication is critical in these matters. Somehow, in this case, it wasn’t done. I had what I thought were the right priorities—a strong relationship with my boss and no intentions of hiding anything—so I let him know that the deadline had passed, and told him my plans for completion. His response? “Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Get it to me when you can. No hurry.”

Let’s go back to the comment that communication is critical to time management. When originally told about the initiative, I should have asked the following question: “What happens if the deadline is missed?” I should have ensured that our priorities were the same. We sometimes have our own internal pressures that are far greater than reality. Do you put more pressure on yourself than anyone else? Reign in some of the pressure and give yourself a break.

It’s time to add the appropriate questions to your arsenal when asked to complete a project. Start by asking when the deadline is, and follow it up with a version of the question, “What happens if the deadline isn’t met?” Getting an idea of the true urgency is important in order to match priorities with the requestor. If he or she says you’ll be fired if you don’t meet the deadline, then I think you understand the priorities. But in all seriousness, if you form the habit of asking questions about prioritization and urgency from the actual requester, you’ll build trust with your colleagues and supervisors and ensure that everyone is consistently attuned to the same goals.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Down the Chute: A Toboggan Tale (children’s book)
• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

I used to work with a friend who had the same schedule, so we always walked out together each day. But, I found that his end time of five o’clock p.m. and my end time of five p.m. weren’t the same. The clocks read the same, and we would often start packing up for the evening at the same time, but we were never ready at the same time. Sure, a customer might call, or colleagues needed our attention at the moment we’d planned on originally leaving. This is understood; it happens sometimes. However, what I found was that it happened to him consistently.

He was a social butterfly. He would go from person to person and spend what seemed like hours talking away about nothing important. As someone who teaches networking and the importance of relationships, I get it. However, there is a balancing act. He often complained that there just weren’t enough hours in the day to do everything he wanted, personally and professionally. There are enough hours—the question is, where do you want to spend them? Once I made him conscious of my observation of his nonproductive wanderings, he assessed himself and readjusted accordingly. His hallway conversations still met the needs of building relationships. His conversations didn’t have to be terse, but he found a nice balance and actually was recognized for his productivity a few months later.

Assess how much of your day is spent on a random personal conversation, and determine if it is negatively impacting your ability to get things done. This does not mean you can’t be personal. It simply means, don’t spend forty-five minutes talking about the weekend and then complain that you don’t have enough time in the day to do your tasks. It might mean a five-minute chat and a genuine, “Great to see you” before you move on. What’s more important at work: relationship building or time management? If you find the right balance, this
becomes an and statement, not an or, enabling you to navigate through the important social and professional aspects of your job.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Down the Chute: A Toboggan Tale (children’s book)
• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

Each morning a peer of mine would settle into her desk, log in to her system, then walk down to the café, chat with friends, and slowly make her way back to the office to start her day. She had the flexibility to do this after her eight a.m. start time, so I’m not making judgments on how she started her day. The judgment comes into play when she would complain—almost daily—that she didn’t have time to do anything, insisting that her “plate was full.” All
of our plates are full. The question is, what bite do we need to take first to clear it? If her top priority is to get coffee, she has made a decision that this is more important, and in some cases, more urgent than other matters. Each day is full of decisions and judgments. Each one has repercussions and downstream effects. When we better understand the differences between urgent versus non-urgent and important versus not important, we start to make better decisions.

A boss may say, “I need you to do something right away.” Is it important and is it urgent? You may still have to assess and ask questions such as the due date, competing priorities, and similar requests made in the past.

You may have two very urgent and important items, yet one will always outweigh the other. Make assessments; ask questions. In our assessment, we need to ask real or rhetorical questions until we’re prepared to make a decision about which one comes first. Another aspect to consider and respect is that what might be urgent and/or important to you may not be important and/or urgent to others. Frequently, we make assumptions based on our own feelings and interpretations. Make no assumptions.

I want you to draw a square with four boxes inside. In each square, I want you to write urgent, not urgent, important, and not important in separate boxes. Then, take your schedule for the next week and start to plot out the expected work. Label them based on where they fall on this matrix. This will help you determine where to spend your time. The outcome doesn’t dictate that every urgent and important item takes precedent over non-urgent tasks all of the time. It simply lets you decide which items to tackle first and what items to reserve for later. We often take the opposite tack by gravitating toward the easiest tasks because they give us a sense of accomplishment. But in order to be successful at managing time, it’s critical to learn how to best combine
the important and the easier tasks.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Down the Chute: A Toboggan Tale (children’s book)
• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

When a colleague of mine initially started publishing a required report each day, he would get regular questions about it. As time passed, the number of questions subsided. He figured the report had run its course, but he was asked to keep producing it for no reason except that it had always been done
that way. He cleverly added a box on the report that read, “Space for Rent.” Over a year, not one person questioned it or even commented on it. He changed the frequency of sending the report to weekly before eventually stopping—and no one questioned it.

Don’t accept that “It’s always been that way.” Let’s take a trip back to our childhood. Why is the sky blue? Where do babies come from? Okay, let’s keep the last one out of it. The point is to get back to the natural childhood curiosity that many of us grew out of. As important as routines are for us to maintain stability in our day, when was the last time you brought your natural curiosity to work? Routines are only as good as our ability to understand their value.

Why is this report important to read each day? What am I gaining by attending this meeting if my peer is already there and can report back? Why am I working late? Is it because real work needs to be done, or is it because I’m trying to impress someone? The answers to these real questions can serve to help you find pockets of wasted time. There may be opportunities for collaboration, teamwork, or even just stopping a practice that is no longer effective. It’s time to be a curious child again. Starting today, question the whys to what you’re doing. Why do I need to travel to some meetings when I can be just as productive over the phone? Why have I allowed junk mail to clutter my inbox as opposed to unsubscribing? There are many questions that can and should be asked. You may find that the answers confirm that a particular task does indeed add value to the work you’re doing. That’s a good thing. Keep doing that task. What you’re looking for are the pockets of unproductive time that you can eliminate. You might surprise yourself and your co-workers with more time to concentrate on the more important tasks.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Down the Chute: A Toboggan Tale (children’s book)
• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

I used to work through lunch. By the end of the day, I’d be worn out, but I needed that hour to get through all the work that I had ahead of me… Or did I? Remaining committed to our goals—whether it means walking away from the desk or following through to handle a customer’s request—continues to build our reputation and credibility, and thus impacts our success relative to our organization and time management. I started to commit to reserving my lunch time for non-work activity. The actual time may vary each day, but I make sure that I get away.

I typically like to go for a run to clear my head, but the message here is to commit to doing what you want to do. I find that when I come back to the desk, I have a fresh perspective and new energy to drive through the rest of the day productively. Running is just one example of keeping a clear head by balancing my personal and professional needs. The key is to move your focus away from work, even for a short period of time, and to bring back a laser-focused approach upon your return. Today’s professional environment and all the technology therein mean that work and life are interlaced. As much as we want to separate the two, it’s almost impossible. So instead of fighting it, it’s time to embrace it.

You can start by blending your personal and professional schedules together. If it’s not permitted at work, then at least counterbalance them, and view them side by side to ensure that you are looking at both worlds together. Your commitment to balancing work and life will bring more control to both. Schedule your lunches, or they will never happen. Block off time for dentist appointments or they will be forgotten. Include time on your calendar needed to pick up your children from school or let the dog out so that you won’t schedule one event to inadvertently create a conflict with the other.

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Down the Chute: A Toboggan Tale (children’s book)
• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com