Writing things down on a "To Do" list is a good first step, but it's not enough.
Instead of allowing our mind to perform optimally, many of us fill our brains with life's mundane details and rules. Worse, we spend endless hours thinking about the tasks and projects we're trying to juggle.
To cope, we put them on "the list" which often grows faster than we can tick off the items. We need a functional system to hold these details until the appropriate time to take action.
Some will choose to computerize their lists and if that is your choice there are a number of resource tools online. Others will simply want to write their "To Do" list the old fashioned way. The key is that once you make your list, it is important to prioritize each item....and then follow the ranking.
Don't let your "To Do" list grow faster than you can tick off the items by eliminating nice-to-do things, noncritical or small things. Also, don't just glance at the list once a day but refer to and revise your list throughout the day.
Simply divide your list into three sections: urgent & important, important but not urgent, and urgent and not important (those that can be delegated to others or taken care of after you have begun to handle the "important" items).
Since it is unlikely that you will achieve all your priorities in one day, simply include those left undone and re-prioritize for the next day. Be careful not to add too many things to do without priority and time considerations (to guard against feeling less than competent).
Ensure your "To Do" list is to be made up of single-step actions not assignments. Major projects need to be broken down into specific action plans with detailed tasks.
Don't try to keep multiple "To Do" lists. When you write down the task yet again, you are blocking your mind from thinking clearly and creatively. The left-brain, that supplies logic and linear thinking, keeps its own list and tends to be untrusting of your multiple "To Do" lists.
Above all, be in alignment with your list. That includes high priority personal items that give you work/life balance: going to the gym, calling a friend, going to your child's event, or spending quality time with your life partner.
Every now and then a person runs across a great book that really helps improve the quality of life. This is such a book! Written by top coaches of executive women, Barb McEwen and John Agno, the goal of When Doing It All Won’t Dois to develop solutions and strategies to help women’s lives be easier, richer, happier, and saner.
It’s based on the premise that doing it all won’t do. If you are a woman who is weary and stressed and taking on too much and struggling to juggle it all, this book is dedicated to helping you find the enjoyment and satisfaction you expected with your success.
Well-organized with real solutions and a helpful workbook section, this book focuses on developing your signature talents to do what you do best, developing a formula for success, and prioritizing your values and goals. A great read!
Believe it or not, organizations seldom reward and promote the hardest workers.
Research shows that the hardest workers spend all their time working hard instead of working smart. The person who gets promoted is the one that understands the corporate direction, aligns their duties to the overarching goals, develops advantageous relationships and has a polished reputation.
Whether it is because of a woman's collaborate nature, her distaste of conflict, or wanting to be popular and well-liked, she often avoids asking for what she needs or wants.
Be strategic. Be observant. Listen carefully and ask questions to uncover what it is that the company is looking for in its leaders. Follow the lead of star players.
Work for the sake of work doesn't work. The organization needs growth and bottom line results. Look for what is actually rewarded, promoted and recognized. Don't be afraid to ask someone to mentor you, either inside or outside the organization. Look in areas where you may be weak--finance, marketing, sales or operations.
Start spending time on the things that matter. Stop doing the things you are doing that really don't matter. Think in terms of your boss's boss. View your job and position through his or her eyes and start doing what really counts. Time management is about focusing on what is important by preserving and enhancing relationships that achieve results.
Developing negotiation skills will be one of the most valuable skills a woman can possess. It is common knowledge that many women don't receive what they deserve simply because they don't ask.
Every now and then a person runs across a great book that really helps improve the quality of life. This is such a book! Written by top coaches of executive women, Barb McEwen and John Agno, the goal of When Doing It All Won’t Dois to develop solutions and strategies to help women’s lives be easier, richer, happier, and saner.
It’s based on the premise that doing it all won’t do. If you are a woman who is weary and stressed and taking on too much and struggling to juggle it all, this book is dedicated to helping you find the enjoyment and satisfaction you expected with your success.
Well-organized with real solutions and a helpful workbook section, this book focuses on developing your signature talents to do whatyou do best, developing a formula for success, and prioritizing your values and goals. A great read!
In 1957, when she was 31 years old, when Sputnik 1 went up and I was 16, Harper Lee submitted her first attempt at a novel to the publisher J.B. Lippincott.
Titled ‘Go Set a Watchman,’ it was set in the ’50s and opened with a woman named Jean Louise Finch returning home to Alabama. Ms. Lee’s editor found the story lacking but, seizing on flashback scenes, suggested that she write instead about her protagonist as a young girl. The result was a Pulitzer Prize-winning classic: ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’
It has undergone very little editing. “It was made clear to us that Harper Lee wanted it published as it was,” Jonathan Burnham, publisher of HarperCollins’s Harper imprint, said in a statement. “We gave the book a very light copy edit.”
We all have the same 24 hours in each day. We can either use our time wisely or squander it away. Once the day is gone, it will never return.
As the old saying goes, “The days can feel long, but the years are all too short.” Effective managers discipline themselves to use their time well. Those who don’t will likely be replaced by those who can.
The first step in eliminating time wasters is to identify them:
1. Unproductive Meetings are unnecessary or held in such a way or at such a time that they fail to deal with their desired objectives—or, sometimes, no objectives at all. Consider how things could be done differently.
2. Firefighting or Crisis ManagementWork disruptions speak loudly of management ineffectiveness. They often happen when we allow ourselves to be distracted. Too often we deal with the urgent, but not necessarily the important.
3. Lack of Delegation Ineffective delegation happens because someone believes that direct reports are incapable of doing a satisfactory job. This methodology is flawed. Good supervisors create a learning environment and develop, mentor, and train those on their team.
4. Inability to FocusThis happens when we allow our minds to wander. This can occur when our minds are most productive and creative. One idea evolves into two or three more ideas. The process is exciting, but let’s face it, the process is also unproductive if we have things we have to accomplish.
5. Shifting Priorities Planning and goal setting will prevent us from shifting our priorities from one project to the next at short notice.
6. Interruptions When you have an "Open Communication Policy" but fail to manage your time, interruptions can happen constantly: drop in visitors, unscheduled meetings, excessive coffee breaks, long lunches, personal commitments, or socializing. Block out times when you intend to work on highly focused initiatives and do not allow interruptions during these times unless there is an extreme emergency.
7. Technological Interruptions Modern technology is actually designed to interrupt our day, our plans, and our thought processes. Non-important phone calls, emailing, Internet searches, and social networking can happen all too frequently when we work without a schedule. There is a time and a place for these, but not when they prevent you from making the best use of your time and energy.
8. A Simple Word with Great Power: “No” When we avoid a direct and conclusive answer—usually that answer being “No”—we signal that we are a people pleaser and that we will allow the agenda of others to take over our own precious time, energy, and resources. Often the failure to say no means that we have just accepted a task that will make us do more than others in a similar position.
9. Exhaustion It doesn’t get any better if we repeatedly take on more than we can reasonably be expected to accomplish. When we are exhausted, we shortchange ourselves and our personal lives, which means that we have less renewable energy. And when we’re exhausted, we don’t do our best work; we expend more effort to accomplish what needs to be done and we shortchange the project.
10. Commuting Think about ways to use to your advantage minutes or hours that seem wasted. If you have an hour’s drive time, for example, use it for think time, for planning your daily activities, for listening to motivational or book audios. Air travel time can be used for reading, reviewing reports, sending emails. During airport waits, return calls. If you are in a carpool line waiting for children to emerge from schools or lessons, bring a book to fill your minutes constructively or create a “To Do” list.
Sources: Women and Time (ebook for $.99 or paperback for $7.99)
Every now and then a person runs across a great book that really helps improve the quality of life. This is such a book! Written by top coaches of executive women, Barb McEwen and John Agno, the goal of When Doing It All Won’t Dois to develop solutions and strategies to help women’s lives be easier, richer, happier, and saner.
It’s based on the premise that doing it all won’t do. If you are a woman who is weary and stressed and taking on too much and struggling to juggle it all, this book is dedicated to helping you find the enjoyment and satisfaction you expected with your success.
Well-organized with real solutions and a helpful workbook section, this book focuses on developing your signature talents to do what you do best, developing a formula for success, and prioritizing your values and goals. A great read!
What does it take to keep employees satisfied on the job?
According to findings in Catalyst’s new Mind Your Culture Gap, both women and men MBA graduates surveyed want inclusive workplace cultures that not only emphasize integrity and collaboration, but also encourage them to achieve their potential and support others.
These “constructive behaviors” are much preferred over more “aggressive” ones like perfectionism, power, competition and opposition—and they predict employee satisfaction with their current organizations as well as their intentions to stay.
Catalyst researchers looked closely at the “Culture Gap”—the difference between employees’ current workplace culture and the culture they say they want—and found that the narrower the gap, the more likely employees were to:
Say they planned to stay at their current organizations in the coming year.
To create high-performing workplaces where employees feel included and empowered to contribute, companies must also involve employees throughout the organization. Here’s how:
Connect employees to the company’s core values. Demonstrate what your organization stands for, and how those values extend to everyone.
Impact: Nearly 50% of employees surveyed reported feeling a greater sense of inclusion when they felt personally connected to their company’s values.
Show how you’re socially responsible. Share news about your company’s philanthropic and volunteer efforts and how they benefit customers and the broader community.
Impact: More than 62% of employees who felt strongly that their company was making a meaningful impact also felt included at high levels. More than 70% of employees who felt strongly that their company was making a meaningful social impact also felt that great progress was being made toward workplace inclusion.
Cultivate champions at all levels. Employees need to see role models throughout the company—from peers to managers to senior leaders—demonstrating their support for inclusive work cultures.
Impact: Employees who saw change champions at all levels perceived that their organizations were making more progress toward creating an inclusive work culture.
Create pathways for dialogue. Give everyone opportunities to share feedback and experiences about company culture and engage in meaningful conversations about inclusive practices in scheduled work groups, town hall-style staff meetings, manager office hours, as part of team project work, and through focus groups across job levels.
Impact: When employees had opportunities to engage with senior leaders and share their views, they felt more included and perceived that their organization was making greater progress in creating an inclusive work environment for all.
Every now and then a person runs across a great book that really helps improve the quality of life. This is such a book! Written by top coaches of executive women, Barb McEwen and John Agno, the goal of When Doing It All Won’t Dois to develop solutions and strategies to help women’s lives be easier, richer, happier, and saner.
It’s based on the premise that doing it all won’t do. If you are a woman who is weary and stressed and taking on too much and struggling to juggle it all, this book is dedicated to helping you find the enjoyment and satisfaction you expected with your success.
Well-organized with real solutions and a helpful workbook section, this book focuses on developing your signature talents to do what you do best, developing a formula for success, and prioritizing your values and goals. A great read!
"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least." Goethe
We promise ourselves that next time we'll just work a little harder or do it a little better. We can't cut anything out because, "It's all important!" We'll just get up a little earlier or go to bed a little later.
When we inevitably fail, we blame ourselves because, like Superwoman, we can't run faster than a speeding bullet, aren't more powerful than a locomotive, and don't leap tall buildings in a single bound. And our stress levels rise. It impacts us and it impacts those around us.
The truth is we're trying to do too much. And any juggler can only juggle so many balls in the air before they all come crashing down. When we don't learn the lessons, our problems just change clothes and march back into our lives.
"Not everything is important." When we say that everything is important it becomes impossible to prioritize. This irrational belief scatters our attention and defuses our focus. Allow yourself to recognize that not everything is important.
Work Smarter, Not Harder. Only Superwoman can juggle it all. Say to yourself, "Working harder doesn't work for me. I need to do it smarter. I need to choose what is important and make good solid managerial choices."
Leadership is all about getting things done through others. People are anxious to follow those who have a vision. Use your leadership skills to get others to do the things that you need done. These will be things that can be easily delegated to others.
Every now and then a person runs across a great book that really helps improve the quality of life. This is such a book! Written by top coaches of executive women, Barb McEwen and John Agno, the goal of When Doing It All Won’t Dois to develop solutions and strategies to help women’s lives be easier, richer, happier, and saner.
It’s based on the premise that doing it all won’t do. If you are a woman who is weary and stressed and taking on too much and struggling to juggle it all, this book is dedicated to helping you find the enjoyment and satisfaction you expected with your success.
Well-organized with real solutions and a helpful workbook section, this book focuses on developing your signature talents to do what you do best, developing a formula for success, and prioritizing your values and goals. A great read!
Privacy Policy We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you.
For example, Google, as a third party vendor, uses a DART cookie to serve ads on this site based upon your visit to our sites and other sites on the Internet. You may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting Google ad and content network privacy policy at: www.google.com/privacy_ads.html.
If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please contact the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) at (207) 467-3500 or www.networkadvertising.org.
