Build downtime into your schedule.

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The time is now

I am a schedule geek. During the week I have my schedule planned out so that I balance my most productive times. When I plan my week I am sure to add lunches, family and friend activities. These times are as important to me as client projects, scheduled calls and workshops to attend. I have my schedule and I do my best to stick to it. Adding your office hours to your schedule will also help you see where you are crossing the boundaries or why you are in the office when you should not be. So when doing your [...]

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Time Lost = 8 Minutes

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Image by wwarby via Flickr Recently I spoke at an event and had the pleasure of being preceded by Susan Lieber of Leave it to Lieber.  Susan is a guru organization specialist and all around interesting entrepreneur.  During her presentation Susan discussed organization for your business and that multi-tasking does not work in regards to productivity.  She also touched on how many minutes you spend refocusing after a distraction. Did you know that for every interruption you lose 8 minutes of focus time?  The brain is designed to focus on just one problem at a time and needs time to [...]

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January is National Get Organized Month

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Now appropriate that the first month of the year focuses on getting yourself organized?  And why am I writing about it at the end of the month?  I am writing about it now, because at the beginning of January we are all worried about setting goals, resolutions and regrouping after the holidays.  Now that each of us has had a chance to gather our thoughts and get it together here are a few things that can help you get organized and stay organized. Email – First, if you are checking your email more than 3 to 4 times a day, [...]

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Surviving the holiday with 3 things we tend to forget.

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I am writing this article, the week of Thanksgiving.  There is enough to do with the short work week and now I am doing what I tell my clients not to do – procrastinate.  I try to write regularly but as of late I have no ideas – blank, nada, nothing.  Hence the procrastination of posting blog articles.  This got me to thinking about how I will survive the holidays.  Now I am sure you are being inundated with tips for time management and getting through the next month, so I will take a different approach. Three things about the [...]

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Should you multi-task?

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This topic was brought up by one of my FaceBook friends.  How do you know when to multi task versus when to concentrate on one client?  Here are my processes for client work and multi-tasking. I am a stickler for organization so each client and their tasks get a chunk of scheduled time throughout the day.  I devote this time to their work only since I am billing them by the hour, and I don’t want to get sidetracked from their task at hand.  However, if it is a task such as printing out large documents or running a download, [...]

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