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

I set an alarm to wake up in the morning, but it rarely goes off since my internal clock always wakes me up about fifteen minutes before the scheduled time. On the few days it does beep in my ear, my day usually doesn’t start out calmly because I’ve learned to rely on the extra fifteen minutes. I become rushed and stressed, and find that this mentality carries over into the rest of the day.

I’ve watched colleagues rush through the door late for work (every morning!) while carrying a bag of donuts or a cup of coffee. Although I understand that breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day, I personally wondered about the decision to make the extra stop if they knew they were close to their start time and would most likely be late. But let’s not harp on that. The important thing to focus on is that this rushed and harried feeling sets the tone for each of us, and influences how clearly we think, how productive we are, and yes, our organizational skills for the rest of the day.

As king of the obvious, I want you to get up earlier—base the new time on how it fits in your schedule, but buy at least fifteen minutes of fluff time. If it means going to bed earlier, then work that piece into your overall schedule as well. Give yourself some breathing room before your shift or day starts so that you aren’t rushed. Try to set a calming tone to your day. For those individuals who like to play games with themselves by setting a clock or watch earlier or later, I recommend
against it. Besides the fact that you’re no longer synchronized with the rest of the people in your time zone, you’re actually self-initiating stress as you are constantly converting to the real time.

It’s important to start our day right with an easy wake-up and plenty of time to get ready. Our starting attitudes and productivity as we calmly walk through the door with plenty of time to spare will send positive messages to your brain that you intend to handle the day in a fully capable manner!

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

According to bizcommunity.com, 306 billion emails are sent each day, with about seventy-five percent estimated to be spam according to the Radicati Group (2020). Getting through the seventy-five percent, plus the twenty-five percent you need for actual work, takes up valuable time. I read an article recently that stated about 30% of employees have over 1,000 emails in their inbox at any given time while another article mentioned that emails have increased 5% since the pandemic.

Now, imagine that every time you receive a new message, a bell sounds or a preview notice of incoming mail comes into view. When that happens,
it grabs your attention and starts to pull you toward multitasking. We live in a very reactive work environment now. Sending and receiving
emails has made us slaves to this form of communication, and keeps us leashed to whatever device gets us that information. Take back control
and be proactive in dealing with ancillary email impacts. Let’s start to implement concrete email strategies.

• Block off and dedicate time to manage your email. Whether you do it in the morning, before lunch, late afternoon, or all of the above, you should have dedicated time for it and not take
them on one at a time, throughout the day.
• Ignore new messages. Rather than behaving like Pavlov’s dog and responding to every bell that rings telling you that “You have mail,” become proactive and take control of when you
choose to spend time reading email.
• Deal with it one time. Remember to touch an email once. Take action on the emails such as moving it to another location or scheduling a meeting or a phone call, but don’t read it and keep
it there. This causes you to read it multiple times.
• Resist the immediate temptation to grab your smart phone. Don’t read emails immediately when you wake up. This will create an instant heavy workload and frustrated state of mind. Give yourself a chance to adjust to your day prior to checking your email.
• Turn off the feature that confirms you have a new email or provides a preview; you don’t want the distraction of knowing that an email came in. If you’re blocking off time and have set
expectations with those you work with, you don’t need these features.
• Avoid unnecessary ‘thank you’ emails. They often create an avalanche of somewhat meaningless emails that go back and forth. If it is truly worthy, call or write a heartfelt note. In
my first six months at a new job, I had over thirteen hundred emails saying some version of thank you. There were some that were heartfelt, but there were others that were less sincere and
simply read “thx.” The emails caught my attention and forced me to stop what I was doing to delete them.
• Simplify your organization. I recommend against setting up auto-filtering to organize emails by categories, senders, etc. It creates the need to look in multiple places when researching or
looking for something. You should do your organizing through file management, since you get information from many sources, not just email. Build strong online file management systems to
assist in searching for pertinent material.

Taking a proactive, methodical, and strategic approach to email management will allow you to take back your day and become a more productive professional.

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

There was a peer of mine whom I would often call and have to leave messages. She would never return my calls. As soon as I sent her an instant message, she was prompt with her communication and we were always able to get things done. By tailoring our communication styles to her preferences, we were both more efficient.

Who you’re communicating with, what you’re communicating, and how you’re communicating it will positively or negatively impact your time. Confidence, influencing others, persuasion skills, setting clear expectations, being clear and concise—all are tied to effective communication and time management. All are a must when it comes to being productive, not to mention building stronger relationships. If you sit in meetings that have consistently been a waste of time, are you confident enough to offer solutions to make them more effective, or strong enough to say they should be held less frequently, or even stopped altogether? Whether it is speaking up during the meeting or after it to let the host know, communication does drive
time management.

How effective are your listening skills? Are you truly paying attention and listening to people? Think back to the number of times when questions had to unnecessarily be addressed again because
one person wasn’t listening? Listening is another key component of communication and, again, time management.

I can’t state it enough: communication is an extremely important facet of effective time management. Assess your communication strategies, then go out and commit to and share best practices around communication and time management. Take time to:

• Understand communication preferences for those you work with the most. If you don’t know, then ask.
• Use the right channel based on priority. Is an email and instant message (IM) the right channel based on the urgency or expected actions? Don’t send an email to deal with fire drills
needing immediate attention—you can’t expect everyone to be on email at all times of the day. You might send an instant message to get someone’s attention, but you want to avoid
ping-ponging the message back and forth when details can be discussed quickly on the phone.
• Be conscientious of the audience when sending emails. Give summaries and highpoints, if necessary, and details to only those who really need them. It saves you time in writing and
other people’s time in reading. Also, be concise by not writing the email version of War and Peace to ask a simple question.
• Know who needs and wants to know. Don’t reply to everyone on the email distribution (reply all) unless it is truly needed and impacts all—it cuts down on potential unnecessary email
return responses.

Communication plays an important role when establishing priorities and making all of us conscientious about being productive and not wasting time. Looking at how you’ve chosen to communicate in the past and establishing new reliable strategies will enhance your efficiency.

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

Have you ever been on a conference call and waited several minutes after the start time of the meeting to actually begin? What if each time a person joins late, the host stops and provides a catch-up summary? Is that fair to people who joined on time? How about meetings that extend beyond the scheduled end time with no regard for what anyone else may have scheduled next? I’ve been in all of the above, in each of these roles: on time, late, host, and guest.
As the host, I finally made a commitment to start the meeting on time and end on time. Commitment is a critical skill in time management. I
realized I needed to be more committed with several factors of my time management. By committing myself to building better habits, I found
that others started to practice similar techniques.

Understand your own commitment level. Be fully invested in improving your time management skills, and be respectful of others’ time, as well. Think of examples in which you must commit and start to create the right actions and habits. Here are some examples:

• Commit to start and end times you set for yourself. If you said you would spend an hour on a project, stick to that time. If you’re not done with a task, set up a new time to complete it.
• The same holds true as the host of a meeting. Start on time and end on time. In a meeting, you may want to say, “Out of respect for everyone’s time, we’re going to get started.” It’s not
always easy, but many times we enable the process. With every new late attendee who joins, we do a quick recap. As much as we want everyone on the same page, it makes the meeting
inefficient and is disrespectful to those who did join on time. You can offer to catch them up after the call or have them read the meeting minutes, but it’s important to try to limit the
constant recaps for the late arrivers.
• As the end of a meeting approaches, you may want to say, “I see we only have a few minutes remaining. We’ll end the meeting and cover the rest at the next meeting,” or set up a new time
to finish that works for everyone. Going beyond the end time has a downstream effect for many. Showing respect for other people’s calendars builds the right habits for everyone. Be
committed to making it happen.

Stay focused on doing what you set out to do, starting by sticking to what you allotted for time on your calendar. This will keep you on task, build a strong time management reputation for you, and ultimately save time for not only yourself, but others. Looking back at incidents when you let time drift or found yourself not committing to what you set out to do will provide you with a good snapshot of what needs to change and what new habits to establish.

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 have been involved in many meetings, especially conference calls, in which people were obviously not engaged. The disengaged population is often multitasking. Besides the people who readily admit that they are multitasking (you would be surprised at the number of people who come right out and tell me), there are the people who don’t say a word during the entire meeting, other than to say hello in the beginning and goodbye at the end. The multitaskers also are the obvious ones who say, “Huh?” or, “Can you please repeat the question?” when they hear their name directly. Some are bold enough to say, “Johnny and I were just instant messaging and I didn’t catch all that.”

In 2009, Ryan Buxton referenced a new study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that found multitasking may do more harm than good. Citing the study’s findings, the article states, “Multitaskers are more susceptible to memory interference by irrelevant details.” The effort to move from one topic to another and the exertion required to return where you were impacts the true retention of information for multitaskers. What does this have to do with time management? Everything. Anything that takes your concentration away from the present will create extra work for you. Stop kidding
yourself by thinking that multitasking saves time. It actually does the opposite.

I recently saw a presenter request the audience to write out their first name and last name. He asked them to write out the first letter of their first name followed by the first letter of their last name, and so on. It obviously took much longer than simply writing their names out normally. The point was powerful.

Start an exercise over the next three days at work. I want it to be based on true experiential facts, not by looking at the past and creating a time study—you want facts, not subjectivity. Start to monitor the number of times that you try to multitask in a day. By being conscientious of it, you will reduce the pull to do it. Mark down the number of attempts, even if you went back to concentrating on the first item. The goal is to improve this by ten percent each day.

I won’t be a hypocrite and say that I have never done it. However, since I’ve limited my multitasking, I have found myself asking What just happened? in a meeting much less frequently than I had in the past. Additionally, I will say that my concentration level and my engagement has grown substantially since I made a concerted effort to concentrate on one task, one meeting, and one conversation at a time. A conversation that only needs to happen once—thus saving everyone 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

In an ironic twist on the previous blog, I want to share the power of mindless checklists. As I was packing for a summer vacation, I was scrambling around and getting stressed over whether or not I was forgetting something. As I was digging through my junk drawer, in the back of a notebook I found last year’s list. There it was; everything I needed to bring—including a swimsuit, sunscreen, and sunglasses.

The burdensome task of packing turned from a budding stressful situation to a quick to-do. I have since made a winter vacation list, and a
business trip list. Each of the lists has matured and changed over time, but the basics remain the same. Routines—or doing the same thing
over again with predictability—can make you a better organizer and time manager if they enhance your productivity and reduce your stress
levels.

Determine what checklists and routines personally and professionally can work for you. Are there standard operating procedures that need to be made up? Are there morning opening or closing tasks that can be made holistic and easier for you to follow? What regular reference points or routines can you establish and create both personally and professionally? You might even want to establish a routine to have time each week, or even daily, for no electronic disruptions so that you can commit to doing nothing but what is in front of you. To put the last blogs to work, you can have an appointment for today to review the specific checklist that will be used (e.g., “Use packing list to pack for vacation”).

Checklists and routines reduce unpredictability and consistently let everyone know ahead of time what is expected. If it’s a standing meeting or a common task that makes you more productive and reduces unnecessary stress, then checklists and routines can and should be implemented.
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