BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Organization Time Management - Inventory your Life

OK everyone, the core of time management is to know what you're currently doing so you can then improve the situation!

For one week - heck just start with ONE DAY - write down how you spend your time. Don't judge, just write. Is it four hours watching TV? An hour stuck in a traffic jam? Write it all down. The only way you can make things better is to know what you are currently doing!

Post here and we can help!

I've been doing this for three days now and it really does help! It's not a "typical week" because I'm just back from vacation and am doing a lot of catching up, but even so it's eye opening how much time certain tasks take me.

I had nose surgery so there was a big pause in my time management inventories but I am back at it again. I really do find it a valuable task. Seeing what I'm doing - and prioritizing the activities - has allowed me to plow through a number of tasks fairly quickly.

How do you guys feel your days are spent? With things you find of value? Or do you get distracted by random things?

I have to do something similiar to this already at work. We have a task list that is broken down into 15 minute time slots. Not only does this see what client work we do all day, it shows where could have been more productive or where we should take a breather for a few minutes. I find it to be a helpful tool.

It definitely does help to take short breaks, stretch, walk around and reset your brain. It means you go back to work much more efficiently!

My days depend on whether or not they are traveling days, as i live in an RV. On non-travel days, this is what I do:

-Sleep until I wake naturally, usually 9 or 10 am
-Care for the dogs and myself, make my decaf coffee
-Get on the laptop and check emails
-Start working on RunPee.com (blogging, marketing, social media management, and much more). This usually takes me all day, every day, and usually long into the night.
-Sometimes I get up to eat, walk the dogs, clean "house" and other life tasks
-When I am too tired to do any more work, I work out on my TwistBoard while watching the Aussie Biggest Loser episodes (or whatever i am watching serially at that time)
-then i read and go to sleep, often at 2am

I have been pouring all my energies into RunPee as I am banking on making some income from that eventually. Right now hubby and I are getting huge fees from the bank with all the Insufficient Funds notices...over and over and over. It's a huge stressor and we have no money to live on. My mom is helping me with cash to buy food and dan's previous client work has run out. We know that Apple will be giving us some okay money from the RunPee application on iTunes but we probably won't see it until some point in September.

It is hard to stay positive, but I have to. I know this will work out for us and that I need to just throw everything I have into managing RunPee and the RunPee blog right now, so that it can start to bring us the best income possible.

It feels very good to be this focused on one project for once. I normally have a gazillion projects going on at once and none ever get the proper time given to them to be a real success.

I need help deciding what projects besides RunPee to return to and keep. I really am in a quandary about some of them.

Right now a good portion of my day is ruled by work. I have a three hour round trip back and forth from work from Springfield, Mass to Troy, N.Y.. I work the third shift from 10pm to 8am. I get home about 10am, am up for a couple of hours, go to bed, get up aound 5, have dinner, shower and out the door by 8pm. At least I have weekends off and that is spent with family.

Lisa,

I enjoyed the mail about NO! Along those similar lines, how about someone like me who isn't comfortable being in a management position because I would rather do something myself
than tell someone else to do something.

Have you ever heard of anything like this?

Vance,

Are you in a management position now or in the "doer" position now, being offered a management position? I think if you are already in management, it is difficult to get back to being a "doer".

But, you can and should delegate if you are a manager. That could be a very positive alternative to saying no.

If you are handed a task from a peer, direct or indirect boss, delegate to your staff. They learn new functions/capabilities, grow into the next level up, and can take pride in their accomplishments. I always try to work myself out of a job by finding one or two high potential employees on my team and then teaching and coaching them. Eventually, I can move on to different challenges because they are now capable of filling my shoes.

In addition, when you are a manager, employees like to throw their unresolved issues onto your back. Don't take them! Give them some advice/guidance/direction/contacts and tell them to come back with alternative solutions. Then either choose the best solution or coach the employee into choosing the best solution.

And if you are a "doer" and want to stay that way, you don't always have a choice about saying no, especially if it is to your boss. But there are ways to handle that too. Like letting your boss choose which tasks are your priority.

That is my 1.49�.

Tracie

Now for my comment about the "no" article...

I have a friend here, who always says she can meet me for a break and a chat. Then when it gets closer to the time, she often makes me feel like I am imposing on her time. It really makes me feel like doo-doo (avoiding censors). I would much prefer that she tell me she would like to but doesn't have time. And she is so direct that her comments really cut (intercultural difference I think). At times I think it is just too hard to deal with ... Sad but true.

So I think that when we say no, we should be clear but sensitive.

Jilly - with everything you've gone through it's definitely good to just focus on one thing. It sounds like even though things are rough right now that you have a lot of good things coming your way!

It always helps to think outside the box. There must be *some* way to earn money from RunPee while waiting for Apple?

Vance - I know *many* people who are great "doers" who then get promoted into management and are miserable. I'm not saying you're miserable of course But I'm saying they are two completely different interests. Some people love working with people and directing them. Other people love doing things and are thrilled by it.

Many companies are now realizing this and providing two tracks - one for people who want to do, and another for people who want to manage. They don't force the doers into a management track because it's the "only way up".

Does your company not offer a path where you can keep doing things? Did they force you to manage?

Tracie -

That is a shame about your friend. It sounds like she wants to have fun time but that she feels guilty about it as well and takes it out on you. So you are the handy way to take out her feelings of "I am wasting time by doing this" - not the cause.

There are lots of great books that talk about how important it is to make time for yourself - that you can't work 24 hours a day and remain sane. What I would do is find one of those books, skim it, and then the next time you see her tell it what an amazing book it is. Offer to lend it to her. Maybe you can help her realize the trap she's in. You can talk about it the next time you're together and encourage her in its path.

Lisa, we are taking on paid advertising with RunPee.com, but for those we won't be seeing money until September either. It's frustrating to realize nothing is quick, everything has a lag. For example, NetFlicks is having pop-unders with us, but won't pay until 45 days after the first full month. I am not a fan of pop-ads, but I figure a popunder is less egregious and we need to survive. It's better than charging for the RunPee service. We don't want to have to go there.

We are also happy with Netflicks advertising with us, as it's at least a related topic, being about movies.

We also have an ad inquiry from a company that has products for bladder issues, and another company that is movie related that we are loading ads up for this week. It's been challenging to figure out pricing for such things. I never know what to charge so I am trying to follow what other sites with similar traffic do. We can adjust up or down later. This is NOT my forte. (writing is my forte! not selling! arg!)

Dan has also taken on some quick client work with coding videos but we can't even invoice him until Sept 1, and then he gets a month to pay.

Everything is a holding pattern.

The only thing I can think of that is quick is my Cookie Lee jewelry. I have a couple thousand dollars worth in inventory and I get money from that when people buy directly. Not sure what to do about that right now, with no car or way to peddle my wares, so to speak. Should I just walk around with a basket? I am not really that kind of person.

If you have a few thousand dollars of inventory sitting there then definitely selling it seems key! I would focus on one piece. Take photos of it and then offer it on your blogs, on CraigsList, on any online bulletin boards you find for your area. promote that piece. Then move on to another one. Keep your focus direct

That is good advice about focusing on one piece. I will do that, thank you. After I Craigslist everything from storage, lol.

And I DO have a car now, yay! I found a nice little beater on Craigslist.

PS - we still have not seen any money from Apple, but we are expecting a nice check next month, plus some Google Ads income from RunPee.com. :-)

this is great advice and thank you. Once I handle my storage things I will do exactly this. :-)

That's awesome news about the incoming checks! Hang in there!

I think it's a good thing to review your time occasionally to see what you spend time on. I have saved my email excel count chart to compare it each time so that's good to do to see progress. However I haven't done a straight time spent on x chart in a while. I will work on that tomorrow!

Definitely a key is to make sure you get up and stretch hourly!

Here's my printable Time Management Grid in PDF format, please let me know if you have any suggestions on how to improve it!

Time Management Grid

I used the grid for a few days and it was enormously helpful to see where time was going! It helped me to do some tweaks and improve my time management. My dad tried it too!

I think you wouldn't want to do this every day, but every few months you should give it a try to see where you can make improvements.