So far I have written to you on how I set my goals and priorities.   Now onto scheduling for work.  I’m an Executive Officer for a very busy organisation and my days are quite manic!  I have always been in job roles where I work for entrepreneurs, small companies with no systems and just total chaos when it comes to job roles and assistance!

A few years ago I started work for an entrepreneur who had a creative mind set!  I never wrote down anything he asked me to do and it got me into all sorts of unnecessary panic!  He always insisted that I have a “to do list”, but I never found the time to actually sit down and do it!  Everything he had told me to do I would keep in my mind!  The stress was overwhelming not to mention the heartache!

I now use the below system to help me with my day to day activities in my new role, of course again I work for a new entrepreneur!  Now when you work with an entrepreneur your task scheduling list will always change, he or she may want to prioritise for you – but remember you are there to prioritise them!  Communication is the key to ensure that you meet your scheduling and all tasks are done efficiently! 

Scheduling is the process by which you look at the time available to you, and plan how you will use it. By using a schedule properly, you can:

• Understand what you can realistically achieve with your time
• Plan to make the best use of the time available
• Leave enough time for things you absolutely must do
• Preserve contingency time to handle 'the unexpected', and
• Minimise stress by avoiding over-commitment to yourself and others.

There are many good scheduling tools available, including diaries, calendars, paper-based organizers, PDAs and integrated software suites like MS Outlook.

The scheduling tool that is best for you depends on your situation, the current structure of your job, your taste and your budget: The key things are to be able to enter data easily, and to be able to view an appropriate span of time in the correct level of detail.

Scheduling is best done on a regular basis, for example at the start of every day, every week or month; again this depends on your situation. My task list is done and reviewed daily!  As I work for a very busy organisation, the flow of my task list always changes!

Go through the following steps in preparing your schedule:

Start by identifying the time you want to make available for your work. This will depend on the design of your job.

Next, block in the actions you absolutely must take to do a good job. These will often be the things you are assessed against.

For example, if you manage people, then you must make time available for dealing with issues that arise, coaching, and supervision. Similarly, you must allow time to communicate with your boss and key people around you. While people may let you get away with 'neglecting them' in the short-term, your best time management efforts will surely be derailed if you do not set aside time for those who are important in your life.

Review your To Do List, and schedule in the high-priority urgent activities, as well as the essential maintenance tasks that cannot be delegated and cannot be avoided.

Next, block in appropriate contingency time. You will learn how much of this you need by experience. Normally, the more unpredictable your job, the more contingency time you need. The reality of many people's work is of constant interruption: Studies show some managers get an average of as little as six minutes uninterrupted work done at a time.

Obviously, you cannot tell when interruptions will occur. However, by leaving space in your schedule, you give yourself the flexibility to rearrange your schedule to react effectively to issues as they arise.

What you now have left is your "discretionary time": the time available to deliver your priorities and achieve your goals. Review your Prioritised to Do List and personal goals, evaluate the time needed to achieve these actions, and schedule these in.

By the time you reach step 5, you may find that you have little or no discretionary time available. If this is the case, then revisit the assumptions you used in the first four steps. Question whether things are absolutely necessary, whether they can be delegated, or whether they can be done in an abbreviated way. Remember that one of the most important ways people learn to achieve success is by maximising the 'leverage' they can achieve with their time. They increase the amount of work they can manage by delegating work to other people, spend money outsourcing key tasks, or use technology to automate as much of their work as possible. This frees them up to achieve their goals.  Although if you are like I and still have challenges with delegating or there are no other members of team to assist you, then the tasks that you would other wise delegate BLOCK OUT TIME FOR! Don’t procrastinate, do it!  We are all not that fortunate to have many team members to assist us! Some of us take on job roles that are multi tasked i.e. booking accommodation to accounting, to event management etc and therefore you must be multi skilled, but you cannot be multi skilled unless you have the priorities and to do list!

Also, use this as an opportunity to review your To Do List and Personal Goals. Have your set goals that just aren't achievable with the time you have available? Are you taking on too many additional duties? Or are you treating things as being more important than they really are?

If your discretionary time is still limited, then you may need to renegotiate your workload. With a well-thought through schedule as evidence, you may find this surprisingly easy.

Remember:-

1. Scheduling is the process by which you plan your use of time. By scheduling effectively, you can both reduce stress and maximise your effectiveness.
2. Before you can schedule efficiently, you need an effective scheduling system. This can be a diary, calendar, paper-based organiser, PDA or a software package like MS Outlook. The best solution depends entirely on your circumstances.

Remember the Five Step Process:-

1. Identify the time you have available.
2. Block in the essential tasks you must carry out to succeed in your job.
3. Schedule in high priority urgent tasks and vital "house-keeping" activities.
4. Block in appropriate contingency time to handle unpredictable interruptions.
5. In the time that remains, schedule the activities that address your priorities and personal goals.

If you have little or no discretionary time left by the time you reach step five, then revisit the assumptions you have made in steps one to four.

Now let’s visit To-Do Lists

Remember - To Do All Essential Tasks, In the Right Order

A “To-Do List” is a list of all the tasks that you need to carry out. It consolidates all the jobs that you have to do into one place. You can then prioritise these tasks into order of importance. This allows you to tackle the most important ones first.

To-Do Lists are essential when you need to carry out a number of different tasks or different sorts of task, or when you have made a number of commitments. If you find that you are often caught out because you have forgotten to do something, then you need to keep a To-Do List.

Whilst To-Do Lists are very simple, they are also extremely powerful, both as a method of organising yourself and as a way of reducing stress. Often problems may seem overwhelming or you may have a seemingly huge number of demands on your time. This may leave you feeling out of control, and overburdened with work.

When preparing your to do list, the solution is simple! Write down the tasks that face you, and if they are large, break them down into their component elements. If these still seem large, break them down again. Do this until you have listed everything that you have To-Do. Once you have done this, run through these jobs allocating priorities from A (very important) to F (unimportant). If too many tasks have a high priority, run through the list again and demote the less important ones. Once you have done this, rewrite the list in priority order.

You will then have a precise plan that you can use to eliminate the problems you face. You will be able to tackle these in order of importance. This allows you to separate important jobs from the many time-consuming trivial ones. Remember above, I said “entrepreneur”, you have to make it clear to him or her the importance of your to do list and the company’s priorities!  You are of course working for that entrepreneur and they do seem to forget what they have already asked you to do!  The key as I have said above is communication.  Let him or her know what you are doing and ask them in that moment, what they feel is more important!   Then run through the step as above “allocation of priorities from A to F”.

Different people use To-Do Lists in different ways in different situations: if you are in a sales-type role, a good way of motivating yourself is to keep your list relatively short and aim to complete it every day.

In an operational role, or if tasks are large or dependent on too many other people, then it may be better to keep one list and 'chip away' at it. It may be that you carry unimportant jobs from one To-Do List to the next. You may not be able to complete some very low priority jobs for several months. Only worry about this if you need to - if you are running up against a deadline for them, raise their priority.

If you have not used To-Do Lists before, try them now, as they are one of the keys to being really productive and efficient.

I use Microsoft Outlook to prepare my priorities and to do lists.  I allocate a category colour for every member of the organisation (including myself) – I also use the A to F system of priority!

Prioritised To-Do Lists are fundamentally important to efficient work.

If you use To-Do Lists, you will ensure that:

• You remember to carry out all necessary tasks
• You tackle the most important jobs first, and do not waste time on trivial tasks.
• You do not get stressed by a large number of unimportant jobs.
• To draw up a Prioritised To-Do List, list all the tasks you must carry out. Mark the importance of the task next to it, with a priority from A (very important) to F (unimportant). Redraft the list into this order of importance.

Now carry out the jobs at the top of the list first. These are the most important, most beneficial tasks to complete.  Also remember perform everything on your list as you set them for that day or week!  Don’t procrastinate or put off a job too small or too big, as they will then become urgent!  More importantly the lists help you for your well being, so you don’t wake up in the middle of the night with a panic because you forgot something.  There is another key word for you to learn and that is “NO”.  You have the right to say “NO”.  I was taught if you take it, you own it!!!

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