10 tips for time management in a multitasking world

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Time management is one of those skills no one teaches you in school but you have to learn. It doesn’t matter how smart you are if you can’t organize information well enough to take it in. And it doesn’t matter how skilled you are if procrastination keeps you from getting your work done.

How we use our limited focus and energy has always been a huge workplace issue. But we get better and better at knowing how to optimize as we get better technology to help monitor time allocation.

Younger workers understand this, and time management is becoming a topic of hipsters. One of the most popular blogs in the world is Lifehacker, edited by productivity guru Gina Trapani, and her forthcoming book by the same name is a bestseller on Amazon based so far on pre-orders.

In today’s workplace, you can differentiate yourself by your ability to handle information and manage your time. “Careers are made or broken by the soft skills that make you able to hand a very large workload,” says Merlin Mann, editor of the productivity blog 43 Folders.

So here are 10 tips to make you better at managing your work:

1. Don’t leave email sitting in your in box.
“The ability to quickly process and synthesize information and turn it into actions is one of the most emergent skills of the professional world today,” says Mann. Organize email in file folders. If the message needs more thought, move it to your to-do list. If it’s for reference, print it out. If it’s a meeting, move it to your calendar.

“One thing young people are really good at is only touching things once. You don’t see young people scrolling up and down their email pretending to work,” says Mann. Take action on an email as soon as you read it.

2. Admit multitasking is bad.
For people who didn’t grow up watching TV, typing out instant messages and doing homework all at the same time, multitasking is deadly. But it decreases everyone’s productivity, no matter who they are. “A 20-year-old is less likely to feel overwhelmed by demands to multitask, but young people still have a loss of productivity from multitasking,” says Trapani.

So try to limit it. Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users suggests practicing mindfulness as a way to break the multitasking habit.

3. Do the most important thing first.
Trapani calls this “running a morning dash”. When she sits down to work in the morning, before she checks any email, she spends an hour on the most important thing on her to-do list. This is a great idea because even if you can’t get the whole thing done in an hour, you’ll be much more likely to go back to it once you’ve gotten it started. She points out that this dash works best if you organize the night before so when you sit down to work you already know what your most important task of the day is.

4. Check your email on a schedule.
“It’s not effective to read and answer every email as it arrives. Just because someone can contact you immediately does not mean that you have to respond to them immediately,” says Dan Markovitz, president of the productivity consulting firm TimeBack Management, “People want a predictable response, not an immediate response.” So as long as people know how long to expect an answer to take, and they know how to reach you in an emergency, you can answer most types of email just a few times a day.

5. Keep web site addresses organized.
Use book marking services like del.icio.us to keep track of web sites. Instead of having random notes about places you want to check out, places you want to keep as a reference, etc., you can save them all in one place, and you can search and share your list easily.

6. Know when you work best.
Industrial designer Jeff Beene does consulting work, so he can do it any time of day. But, he says, “I try to schedule things so that I work in the morning, when I am the most productive.” Each person has a best time. You can discover yours by monitoring your productivity over a period of time. Then you need to manage your schedule to keep your best time free for your most important work.

7. Think about keystrokes.
If you’re on a computer all day, keystrokes matter because efficiency matters. “On any given day, an information worker will do a dozen Google searchers,” says Trapani. “How many keystrokes does it take? Can you reduce it to three? You might save 10 seconds, but over time, that builds up.”

8. Make it easy to get started.
We don’t have problems finishing projects, we have problems starting them,” says Mann. He recommends you “make a shallow on-ramp.” Beene knows the key creating this on ramp: “I try to break own my projects into chunks, so I am not overwhelmed by them.”

9. Organize your to-do list every day.
If you don’t know what you should be doing, how can you manage your time to do it? Some people like writing this list out by hand because it shows commitment to each item if you are willing to rewrite it each day until it gets done. Other people like software that can slice and dice their to-do list into manageable, relevant chunks. For example, Beene uses tasktoy because when he goes to a client site tasktoy shows him only his to do items for that client, and not all his other projects. (Get tasktoy here.)

10. Dare to be slow.
Remember that a good time manager actually responds to some things more slowly than a bad time manager would. For example, someone who is doing the highest priority task is probably not answering incoming email while they’re doing it. As Markovitz writes: “Obviously there are more important tasks than processing email. Intuitively, we all know this. What we need to do now is recognize that processing one’s work (evaluating what’s come in and how to handle it) and planning one’s work are also mission-critical tasks.”

The most significant factor in time management is one people seldom focus on: The type of work you’re actually doing. If you are doing work that’s not right for you, the work is exhausting and you procrastinate. If you do work that’s in your sweet spot, you are naturally efficient. Across the Fortune 500 senior executives take the Myers Briggs personality test to ensure they are doing work that fits into their skill set. You can get the benefits of this test by taking a four-hour course that shows you what your personality is and what the best type of work for you will be. All the productivity tips in the world can’t overcome the fact that we have to understand our personality type to do our best work: Fast-Track Your Career with Myers Briggs.

350 replies
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  1. MLM Training
    MLM Training says:

    Awesome Article Penelope! Bad time management is a result of bad planning. If you take a few minutes to plan then time-management falls into place!

    Regards

  2. Jonha
    Jonha says:

    Hi Penelope,

    I love making lists, and I usually fail to do them, haha. I gotta agree on email priority. I badly need this, just as I always say in most of my comments because when procrastination gets in the way, the skill is simply defeated.

    Jonha

  3. jonh
    jonh says:

    Time management is one of those skills no one teaches you in school but you have to learn. It doesn't matter how smart you are if you can't organize information well enough to take it in. And it doesn't matter how skilled you are if procrastination keeps you from getting your work done.

    Younger workers understand this, and time management is becoming a topic of hipsters. One of the most popular blogs in the world is Lifehacker, edited by productivity guru Gina Trapani, and her forthcoming book by the same name is a bestseller on Amazon based so far on pre-orders.

    In today's workplace, you can differentiate yourself by your ability to handle information and manage your time. "Careers are made or broken by the soft skills that make you able to hand a very large workload," says Merlin Mann, editor of the productivity blog 43 Folders.

  4. Peggy Emch
    Peggy Emch says:

    Keeping track of time spent on projects can be really helpful too. At least it might confirm your belief that you’re spending too much time on a particular task, maybe at the expense of others!

  5. martin
    martin says:

    well who are not familiar with the value of Time Management.
    this is the difference between a Gainer and a looser too;

    Cubicles are a nod in this direction. But now that the internet can keep us entertained constantly (and is designed to distract us) those three walls aren’t really enough. We have to take care of our unique mental environment that we create for ourselves both on-screen and off. Remember, mental environment and physical environment are related (the brain is physical after all – €“ no matter what your religion.)
    circus management .

  6. Paul
    Paul says:

    I know this is an old article but the comments still seem fresh so I’ll add my 2 cents. I totally agree with the prioritized to-do list. Definately the best working habit I’ve ever gotten into! I also read Lifehacker regularly and find it’s a really great resource. Our time tracking software 1DayLater time tracking software was featured on there a while back – a happy day! I would also add to this list to take regular breaks and don’t work yourself to death. That’s a slow decline as far as all round productivity goes

  7. Ashely Madison
    Ashely Madison says:

    “One thing young people are really good at is only touching things once. You don’t see young people scrolling up and down their email pretending to work,” says Mann. Take action on an email as soon as you read it.

  8. stop snoring aids
    stop snoring aids says:

    I agree with all of the things you mentioned. In my opinion, the one thing that is very helpful is keeping everything organized as much as you can.
    combined with a clean environment help you improve you performing so much it’s not even funny.
    thanks again

  9. hustler's truth
    hustler's truth says:

    I agree that ABC is better than XYZ, especially when it comes to quality. I have been using ABC for the last 3 years it never dissapointed me. Does anybody know when the new version is coming out?”

  10. Speedy
    Speedy says:

    Great article, I agree with each point. I love dot points – so efficient :)

    I’m sure there is a stat somewhere that states Multi-tasking lowers your IQ and trains you to distract yourself. So I am so glad you do not recommend it.

    So sad that people want to learn how to multitask better :) When maybe batching work (doing the same type of stuff at the same time so you become more accurate and faster) is what they could do more of.

    thanks for the article, look forward to reading more

    Angie “Speedy” Spiteri
    x

  11. Fred Card
    Fred Card says:

    How about automation? That’s my new personal favorite for time management. It turns out that many of the things we do manually might be automatable, if that’s a word.

  12. Valerie4
    Valerie4 says:

    Votre post 10 tips for time management in a multitasking world | Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist ci-contre est correct, mais j’aimerais plus d’infos, pouvez-vous m’informer un peu plus s’il vous plait ? Aie, j’ai omi de vous dire salut, donc hello loool.

  13. Tom
    Tom says:

    These are good ideas, especially the email handling and starting with the easy thing. Thank you for the refresher; it’s a matter of not slipping back in to bad habits!

  14. Dave Crenshaw
    Dave Crenshaw says:

    Great tips. This is a thing that needs to shared to everyone. I would agree with a zero email inbox at the end of the week. Emails that are non-important should automatically go to a folder where you don’t need to open it and forget about multitasking it’s not helpful.

  15. Dave Crenshaw
    Dave Crenshaw says:

    If you're having a hard time coming up with what checking schedule would work, I would say three times a day. Beginning of the day, middle of the day, end of the day and give yourself only about fifteen minutes. That will force you to deal with only urgent issues, only the ones that need to be dealt with today and get you in the habit of putting off anything else until your regularly schedule processing time. To learn more about the effects of multitasking, take my free exercise at http://www.davecrenshaw.com/exercise

  16. to do list
    to do list says:

    I use ccToDo to manage my schedule; ccToDo is a free stress-busting and productivity-boosting app for Windows, iPhone, and any web browser.

  17. Seun Olomofe
    Seun Olomofe says:

    Great one Penny (hope I can call you that?). You are obviously a gifted writer.Please keep it up.I even pasted one of your statements about procrastination in all my work spaces. Thanks!

  18. MMAForumX
    MMAForumX says:

    “We don’t have problems finishing projects, we have problems starting
    them,” says Mann. 

    Getting started is a big step, however, it’s in fact the completion that’s difficult for most.  The start and finish lines are the bookends of what’s important: ACTION!

  19. MyCollegesandCareers
    MyCollegesandCareers says:

    Some feedback I received from a previous employer was that I always needed to be busy and going all the time. I’m learning it’s less important to be busy and more important to be doing something of value. -Sarah

  20. Jzaragoz
    Jzaragoz says:

    Great tips! I am actually going to use this information with my team in our meeting tomorrow.  We are in our busy season and they are having a hard time managing their time.  I think these tips will really help them!

    Jessica Zaragoza
    Staffing Manager

  21. TemptationOfdevil
    TemptationOfdevil says:

    Hi Im from from Iran 17 years Old . Well I should give a lecture about Time management …. So I need More Info. Anybody to support me ( ? )  contact Me Via My email address …

    TemptationOfdevil@yahoo:disqus .com  

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  22. Priacta
    Priacta says:

    I totally agree with you on the 4th point. Some time back I restricted my time to check emails only thrice during the working hours. Now unnecessary mails do not distract me or waste my time. I too highly recommend this practice. Another thing that I very well relate to is keeping the web addresses organized. Nothing can be more unproductive and irritating than not being able to locate a particular website or struggling with a wrong or incomplete web address. Your ideas are novel and practical…continue sharing them with us.

  23. kirk
    kirk says:

    Thanks, for sharing these tips with us it is very helpful. It is really hard to stay focus when you're doing multitasking. One way to stay focus on work when multitasking is you will need the right tools and resources that will help you manage tour time efficiently and effectively.I use these tools to keep me organize when multitasking at the same time it boost productivity. http://www.timedoctor.com/blog/2010/07/25/how-is-time-doctor-different-than-rescue-time

  24. kirk
    kirk says:

    Thanks, for sharing these tips with us it is very helpful. It is really hard to stay focus when you're doing multitasking. One way to stay focus on work when multitasking is you will need the right tools and resources that will help you manage tour time efficiently and effectively.I use these tools to keep me organize when multitasking at the same time it boost productivity. http://www.timedoctor.com/blog/2010/07/25/how-is-time-doctor-different-than-rescue-time

  25. Gretchen B.
    Gretchen B. says:

    This is a timely blog for my banking and education clients/peers.  I told everyone in my email contacts to take 15 minutes to read them and respond to your blog!  Multi-tasking has become the #11 of our 10 point Job Descriptions!

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  1. j6u says:

    989…

    Be of use, but don’t be used….

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