I’ve broken the rules
I have a confession. I couldn’t even make it through one full week of the new time management system before I felt the need to make changes to it. That’s not playing by the rules is it?
The thing is that I wasn’t feeling comfortable that I was tackling the most important jobs. Yes, I was getting through stuff that needed doing but I had this feeling that I was missing the things that I should be focusing on. The lack of prioritisation just wasn’t sitting right.
So, on Friday morning I split my one list into three – client work, prospects and management (i.e. stuff to do with running the business). Each list was following the system in that there was a backlog and an active list for each. I could then spend the day working through the client list to make sure that I was keeping on top of the paid work. After all making money is what running a business is about isn’t it?
With hindsight splitting it into three lists was overkill – Monday I’m going to combine the client and prospects lists so that I end up with just two lists. I’ll see how I go with that. The idea is that I split my day into blocks – I’ll be happy if I can spend five hours on the client/prospect jobs and three on management tasks. I wonder if I can manage it.
More on time management
Today was day three of my new time management system. I’m at the stage now where in some ways I’m feeling really good about it and others less so. Good because it’s making me deal with some tasks which have been waiting to be done for ages. On the other hand I’m sure my active list is just getting longer and longer.
There have been times where I’ve dipped into the active list to make sure that the more immediate jobs are getting sorted – last thing I want is a client waiting for days for a response to an email because I haven’t reached that point of the list yet. But my goal is to clear everything from my original backlog so that I can draw a line at the end of the active list and start the process again. If I put my head down tomorrow and bash through it I’m hopeful that I’ll reach that point.
Breakfast at Cape Cornwall
This morning I went to a business breakfast at Cape Cornwall Golf & Leisure Resort. I’ve been doing this regularly for the last few months. The idea is to have breakfast with other local business people and do a bit of networking. The Golf Club is a great venue – in a stunning location and the breakfasts are great.
Unfortunately I couldn’t enjoy the view this morning because of fog – now that’s definitely an interesting way to start the day, driving carefully along the narrow, windy country lane in thick fog. Oh well, it’s all part of the fun of living in West Cornwall isn’t it? And we’re having a beautiful sunny evening in St Just so definitely no complaints there.
If you’re based in our neck of the woods why don’t you join us for breakfast one Tuesday? Best way to find out about the breakfasts is to join the Facebook page: West Cornwall Business Club.
Day 1 of Autofocus V. 4
Would it be terrible of me to admit that I’ve been really enjoying trying out the Autofocus time management system? Maybe I should get out more… Last night I set it up at home and this morning I started putting it into practice at work.
I really like the methodical approach – I haven’t been wasting time trying to work out which of my many projects and tasks I should be working on next, instead I could just work through the list in order skipping anything that I didn’t have the resources at hand to tackle straight away.
So far I think this is the most valuable instruction: “Delete each task when you feel you have worked on it for long enough, and re-enter it at the end of the Active List if you need to do more work on it”. This meant that I could happily do some work on a project without feeling like I had to completely finish it – once I’d had enough I could cross it off and add it to the end of the list to come back to. Working on this basis I’ve made progress on some jobs today which have been sitting waiting for my attention for quite some time.
So, after the first 24 hours of using the system I’m feeling pretty good about it. I’ve been happily crossing things off all day and will be able to get straight back into it tomorrow. And of course I get to continue putting it into practice this evening with my home list.
Can’t resist a new time management system
It’s true, I just can’t help myself. Whilst looking through the resources section of the site to check that all the links are still current (a job I still have to finish) I got distracted by Mark Forster’s blog on time management and in particular his Autofocus V. 4 system.
Time management is one of my obsessions. I’m always trying to reinvent my approach to time management. I’ve got a couple of cracking books that I use – I see that I haven’t reviewed either of them yet, so will be adding reviews in the coming weeks. However, I’m always interested in trying something new. I find rejigging things occasionally can give me a new lease of life.
So, I’m going to have a go at the autofocus system. Actually, now that I’ve read about it I’m itching to start. Once I’m up and running I should have a list split into two sections – Backlog and Active List. I can then use the system laid out by Mark to work through the list in a focused way. That’s the theory at least – have a look at Mark’s instructions for a step-by-step explanation of how it works.
BT: worst automated phone system?
Yesterday I added a new article to the site describing some of our experiences of moving our business into an office. I described some of the problems we’ve encountered with setting up our business phone line with BT. What I find particularly interesting is that a phone company can do such a terrible job at providing phone-based customer service. Surely with their years of experience and expertise they should have an outstanding phone system?
Here’s the problem I had. I had an issue that I wanted to discuss with BT – that is with a real person who could listen to my problem, check our account and discuss it with me. So, I phoned the number provided on the paperwork they had sent and started the usual process of selecting options from the automated menu system. The first couple of times I chose the options which actually applied to me – yes, I was phoning from the number I wanted to enquire about; yes, I wanted to enquire about an existing order. And each time I’d end up at an automated message which told me that I had one order in progress. I already knew that, it was that order I wanted to ask about! There were then no further options so the call was ended.
Hmmm, not very helpful is it? I started experimenting with the options I selected and at one point got through to someone who reckoned they couldn’t access the kind of order number I had on their system, at which point they put me through to a number which just rang and rang and … rang. Why would a customer service department attached to the number given on the paperwork associated with my account not be able to access my account details?
In the end I resorted to randomly selecting the options which didn’t apply to me and eventually got through to someone who could actually help. This particular person was very helpful and sorted out my concerns very quickly. They were even very understanding when I explained how frustrated I’d got at trying to get through to someone who could help me. They reckon that the powers that be are aware of the difficulty customers are having with the phone system and are going to improve it. Do I believe that they will? Not sure. I certainly hope that I don’t have much cause to ring them up in the future.
Time for a comeback
It’s been a seriously long time since I’ve posted on here. A shamelessly long time. Well, it’s definitely time for a comeback.
My biggest piece of news from the last few months is that we’ve moved our business (Webfooted Designs) out of the home into an office. This is something that we’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Earlier this year we made a concerted effort to find somewhere but couldn’t find anything suitable.
We really wanted to keep our business in St Just, where we live. It’s a great place and we love being part of the community here. However, St Just is a very small Cornish town and doesn’t have a great deal of office space available at the moment. So, after a lot of asking around we decided to call a halt to the search and make more of our home office, making room for a meeting space so we would feel more comfortable asking clients here.
Of course, no sooner had we rearranged our house and got ourselves set up then the perfect office landed in our laps. It’s funny how that happens isn’t it? It has meant that we’ve had to move out of St Just but we’re only 5 miles down the road at Trereife (just outside of Newlyn). We’ve got a lovely spacious office, loads of easy parking and all in a beautiful setting. We feel very lucky.
Trying a Twitter tool
I’m trying out a WordPress plugin to automatically update my Twitter account whenever I post here. It will hopefully save me having to remember to do it manually each time.
The plugin is called Twitter Tools
Here goes…
Another event, another tourist attraction
I went to another conference-type-event on Wednesday. This time it was the annual promotional event for Cornwall College Business, held at Pendennis Castle in Falmouth. Another fantastic venue for an event, shame it was such horrible weather. The theme of this year’s event was basically courses that the college are running – we had a presentation from a business that had benefited from training and then a series of seminars on specific courses.
The three courses that I chose to hear about were:
- Growing your business
- Finance
- Management skills
Funnily enough they were all run by the same tutor, so by the end of the afternoon I felt like I was stalking him. However, I was really pleased that I had chosen those sessions as he was excellent – managed to make potentially dry subjects very entertaining, which bodes well for the courses themselves.
Now, it’s true what they say about people buying people. Our previous experience of Cornwall College Business has been a bit frustrating as last year we selected a few courses that we might be interested in, but could we get any actual information out of the college (like when they started etc.)? Could we ‘eck! But, having seen one of the tutors in action I suddenly feel a lot more confident in the college and am actually quite keen to sign up for something (though I am still in recovery from the last management course). I’m torn between ‘growing your business’ and ‘finance’. Would I be mad to sign up for something else so soon?
Coping with busy workloads
Part of my renewed motivation for learning new stuff is reading other blogs to see what others are up to and what I can learn from it. Here’s a blog post that I can certainly learn from: How do you handle busy workloads?. We’re busier than we’ve ever been at the moment and it can be a struggle (not to mention stressful) to keep on top of everything.
James is right that the temptation is to do a bit of this and a bit of that to try to keep everyone happy, but this can result in very little of anything getting done. James’s advice is to:
DO ONE THING AT A TIME, DO IT WELL, DO IT TO COMPLETION AND MOVE ON TO THE NEXT THING!
I couldn’t agree more. It’s something that I find it difficult to have the discipline to do but when I have managed it then I’ve had fantastic results. The trick is to turn everything else off (yes, Emily, even your email) and clear your desk so that you only have what you need for that one task/project in front of you – in other words no distractions. If it’s something that needs complete concentration then try putting the answer phone on as well, you can always catch up on any important messages when you’re done. You then work at that one thing solidly until it’s done. The magic is that once you are completely concentrating on that one thing you can get into your zone and achieve great results.
Tomorrow is the start of a new week and I know that there are going to be many things competing for my attention. I really must try to follow this advice. Great article James!
