{"id":904,"date":"2010-07-05T21:46:01","date_gmt":"2010-07-05T20:46:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/?p=904"},"modified":"2010-07-05T21:46:01","modified_gmt":"2010-07-05T20:46:01","slug":"time-management-for-the-21st-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/07\/time-management-for-the-21st-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Time Management for the 21st Century"},"content":{"rendered":"

My friend and friendly Brighton competitor Graham Allcott of Think Productive offers this article on time management training <\/a>for the 21st Century.<\/strong><\/p>\n

……………<\/p>\n

Time Management Training used to be so easy:\u00a0 First, work out what the boss has given you to do.\u00a0 Second, work out which are the biggest priorities and start with those. Thirdly, look at the next set of priorities, do these and then work your way down your list until you\u2019ve got everything finished.\u00a0 I remember going on a workshop like this many years ago and thinking it was all common sense stuff: I was doing most of it already and there were a few extra bits that the course allowed me to add.\u00a0 But then things began to change\u2026<\/p>\n

Fast forward a few years later, when I was a Chief Executive of a small national charity.\u00a0 I can picture vividly my desk, and my memory zooms in on my computer screen to see hundreds upon hundreds of emails. Emails I\u2019d read, emails left unread, but all piling up.\u00a0 On the desk itself, reports, post, expense claims and financial reports to sign off and a hundred things piled up needing my precious attention.\u00a0 It characterizes how I used to work: controlled by my email inbox, struggling to lift my head above the parapet and consumed by the stress of information overload.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t have to be this way.\u00a0 I\u2019ve changed all that now, but in order to do so needed me to think about time management in a whole new way.<\/p>\n

We live in the information age.\u00a0 What you can\u2019t do is ignore the problem and hope it goes away: our consumption of information is rising.\u00a0 Every study about email points to the number of emails we receive on average per year rising by between 10 and 20%.\u00a0 That\u2019s not to mention the relatively recent additions of social media consumption, easier internet browsing and the free availability of tools that turn information consumers into content providers too.\u00a0 Expect these to rise exponentially, like it or not.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start by defining the problem.\u00a0 Peter Drucker, many years ago coined the term \u2018knowledge work\u2019.\u00a0 Put simply, our jobs in the \u2018knowledge work economy\u2019 involve adding value and creating value from information.\u00a0 At the heart of the Drucker definition is the idea that in order to add value or create value out of information, we need to define as well as do.\u00a0 Put simply, we are simultaneously taking on the role of boss and worker all at the same time, rather than in conventional, old-fashioned functional work roles where there is a clear task for us to do, where the speed at which we must work is determined not by our energy or motivation, but by the speed of the conveyor belt or the course words of an evil supervisor.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The phrase we most often hear is \u2018information overload\u2019.\u00a0 Information itself is actually not the problem at all.\u00a0 The problem, as defined so brilliantly by David Allen, author of the best-seller, \u2018Getting Things Done\u2019 is \u2018potential meaning overload\u2019.\u00a0It\u2019s the \u2018potential meaning\u2019 of each piece of information as it gets our attention that is so overwhelming.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Two reasons.\u00a0Firstly, the meaning could potentially be a gold-mine (extra funding, helping the charity achieve its\u2019 mission, new opportunities for exciting partnerships) or a land-mine (\u2018if I miss this deadline we\u2019ll look bad\u2019, \u2018we need to comply with this\u2019, \u2018we can\u2019t afford to not be involved\u2019 and so on).\u00a0 As civil society organisations, adding the right value to the right information is arguably more critical than anywhere else: rarely in the private or public sectors is it a matter of life or death to organizations or even our users.<\/p>\n

Secondly, our brains are limited in their ability to retain information.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t believe me, think back to that childhood party game, \u201cI went to the shops and I bought\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Very few people can retain more than about ten things in their mind without starting to drop things, yet most people decide their brains are the best place to try to retain all their projects and commitments rather than externalizing this properly into lists, project plans and so on.\u00a0 It\u2019s so much easier to see the wood from the trees – and make intuitive decisions about comparative value – when you can actually SEE all the trees!<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re feeling overwhelmed by it all, you\u2019re not alone.\u00a0 Realise that there are actually 4 distinct disciplines in knowledge work.\u00a0 At Think Productive, we have adapted some of the key principles from David Allen\u2019s \u2018Getting Things Done\u2019 (which is a popular self-management system taught by a ridiculously small number of training companies, including both Integration Training and Think Productive) into what we call the CORD workflow model:<\/p>\n

CAPTURE & COLLECT<\/strong> \u2013 the gathering of all information, as it arises.\u00a0 This goes a long way to eliminating the stress created by fearing we\u2019ll miss or forget things, as long as you know you will come back and process this information later.<\/p>\n

ORGANISE<\/strong> \u2013 systematically analyzing what you\u2019ve collected and making up-front decisions on what the final conclusion and next action will be for each piece of information, or of course, deciding things aren\u2019t worth doing at all.\u00a0 The discipline of keeping action-orientated lists, where you have already defined the next action, the location and what the finish line looks like is one of the most underrated skills in knowledge work.<\/p>\n

REGULAR REVIEW<\/strong> \u2013 regularly practicing two distinct forms of review: the \u2018in the moment\u2019 review of your \u2018next action lists\u2019, designed to make the decision about \u2018what next?\u2019 and \u2018what adds the most value?\u2019, and the \u2018weekly review\u2019, where you revisit your list of projects and make sure that you know the next action for each and every project you\u2019re committed to and get a wider perspective on things.<\/p>\n

DO<\/strong> \u2013 As Seth Godin calls it, \u2018Shipping\u2019.\u00a0 There\u2019s nothing more satisfying in your quest to avoid information overload than clearing the decks with some good old fashioned action.\u00a0 But recognizing that there are three other phases we need to complete before a lot of the magic happens can make the \u2018doing\u2019 part so much more enjoyable.<\/p>\n

Recognizing these four distinct phases on knowledge work can be a great help when we\u2019re faced with information overload \u2013 where\u2019s the \u2018blockage\u2019?\u00a0 Is it too much information coming in? Is it too much information remaining undefined, with no sense of the potential meaning? Is it because you need to take a step back and revisit priorities?\u00a0 Or is it that the time for thinking is over and you need to clear the decks by simply getting on with delivering on your commitments?<\/p>\n

From a personal management point of view, what this means is that the question \u201cwhat can we fit into the time?\u201d is no longer the most critical question to ask.\u00a0 Given that our potential success as well as our sanity is largely based on our ability to define meaning and create value out of ever-increasing volumes of uncertainty-laden information, our new critical question should be \u201cwhere should I put and how should I use my attention and energy?\u201d.\u00a0 This might seem like a subtle change.\u00a0 It\u2019s anything but.<\/p>\n

There is, of course, a cultural dimension to this too.\u00a0 Work\/life balance policies, excellent line-management, good communication and a healthy attitude to innovation and the possibility of human failure all play a part in making an organization a healthier place to work where the \u2018too much information\u2019 syndrome can be addressed quite explicitly.\u00a0 I work with organizations across all sectors to confront this very openly, helping to get email inboxes to zero, improve email and information etiquette, implementing the CORD model mentioned here with teams and helping to apply clarity and focus to meetings.\u00a0 Doing this openly creates a culture where we can reclaim our time and attention, control our information flow rather than letting it control us and ultimately create more value and meaning on our quest to make the world that little bit better.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Graham Allcott is a Brighton-based social entrepreneur and the founder of Think Productive, a specialist <\/em>time management training<\/em><\/a> company offering workshops with \u2018at desk coaching\u2019.\u00a0 They run <\/em>email training<\/em><\/a>, such as \u2018Getting your Inbox to Zero\u2019 and \u2018<\/em>Email Etiquette<\/em><\/a>\u2019 as well as a practical <\/em>facilitation training<\/em><\/a> course called \u2018Making Meetings Magic\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

……………….<\/p>\n

If you liked this you may also like:<\/p>\n

time management tips<\/a><\/p>\n

tips to overcome procrastination<\/a><\/p>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friend and friendly Brighton competitor Graham Allcott of Think Productive offers this article on time management training for the 21st Century. …………… Time Management Training used to be so easy:\u00a0 First, work out what the boss has given you to do.\u00a0 Second, work out which are the biggest priorities and start with those. Thirdly, look at the next set of priorities, do these and then work your way down your list until you\u2019ve got everything finished.\u00a0 I remember going on a workshop like this many years ago and thinking it was all common sense stuff: I was doing most <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[886],"tags":[1187,1317,1325,1333,1816,1819,1835],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/time_management.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9xvDN-eA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}