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Writing the Next Book

I’m in the process of writing  my next book and once again, I’m enjoying the process.

Whereas my last book was a novel, forcing me to learn how to write an interesting story, this book is a traditional how-to: something you’d expect in the genre of time-based productivity.

In some ways it will encapsulate almost all the information I present in my NewHabits and MyTimeDesign training programs. However, I’m learning that writing a book is quite a different way of getting across training content. In the live training I’m there to emphasize and repeat, but in a book I can say things only once or twice for emphasis, in different ways.

Also, there are certain soft spots in my ideas that I can gloss over in my training that I must address in the book. Some of them require a return to the research I used to develop ideas and corroborate hunches. This has been exciting as several insights come together to generate new distinctions altogether.

Coming out on June 1st – Perfect Time-Based Productivity. (The name might change, and the cover is just a mockup.)

perfect 3d short

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CEO’s and College Students – Do They Manage Their Time in Similar Ways?

It’s an intriguing thought. Are there similarities in the ways that CEO’s and college students manage their time?

It’s a topic that I’m giving some attention to due to some research that I uncovered while reading an article about the ways that law students manage their time.

My first effort to delve into this topic came in the form of a recent article I wrote for the Jamaica Gleaner – How to Manage Your Time Like a CEO.

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Solving Scheduling Problems – Summary of Our Findings

There are a handful of working professionals who have chosen to use their calendars as their hub for all their planning activity.

The challenges they run into are only rarely mentioned in time management and productivity books, programs and websites: the overwhelming conventional wisdom states that it’s impossible to use a schedule in this way, and that one should only use lists. Unfortunately, these statements (so far) remain empty assertions, without the backing of either academic research or recent, direct experience by the author.

This leaves the working professional who has decided to use this technique without help… until now. Here are some of the articles we have written and research we have found to back up our central hypothesis: it’s possible to execute either a list-based or a schedule-based strategy successfully. Our additional hypothesis is that, in general, schedule based strategies are more suitable for handling large numbers of time demands.

The Benefit of Developing Advanced Scheduling Skills – this article compares Listing and Scheduling directly.

Videos based on the work of Dezhi Wu – her research shows the superior results gained by those who maintain electronic schedules.

Student Time Management Video – watch as a student as she develops her weekly schedule and you will notice some of the challenges she has that you might share.

We have trained hundreds of people in the use of these techniques and often provide the following specific advice, which will become the topic of future posts on this blog:

  • Make sure to leave sufficient time between scheduled activities. Leave buffers in each day of unscheduled time so that you account for surprises.
  • Be willing to juggle your schedule at a moment’s notice. This activity has everything to do with real life demands, which change on a dime.
  • Don’t turn your calendar into a source of guilt. It’s meant to be a powerful guide, not a rigid, Nazi-like ruler of your life.
  • Use your schedule to help get into the Flow State.
  • Use a smartphone and/or tablet to ensure that you have a schedule with you at all times.
  • Audible reminders are a great to alert yourself that a new time demand is about to start.
  • Balance supporting lists with your schedule.
  • The point of using this technique is to achieve peace of mind, which means that you must b aware of the times when you are trying to schedule too much.
  • For an in interesting story of how to navigate a few scheduling problems, read my book – Bill’s Im-Perfect Time Management Adventure.
  • Another point of using this technique – to move your schedule from your mind and into a calendar that’s in front of you (we used to say, “on paper,”  but that’s clearly not the case
  • Speaking of paper- forget about trying to manage lots of time demands via a paper calendar, for multiple reasons.
  • You can actually use the way you language a time demand as a source of motivation e.g. instead of “goto gym” you might write “dropped 10 more pounds by the wedding”

Update: Much of the discussion on schedule usage has been moved to ScheduleU.org.

 

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Solving the Problem of Getting to Work on Time

Tourists love Jamaican culture for its laid back attitude and easy vibe. That is, until the guy who is supposed to check you out of the villa shows up to work late, causing you to miss your flight… in that moment, there’s not much to love.

In this article, I address a problem that shows up in the Caribbean workplace – lateness. There’s a lesson here for all managers – never assume that your employees know how to undertake a practice that you have mastered, such as getting to work on time. You have probably forgotten what it took to learn the micro-habits needed to achieve mastery and if no-one spells them out, it’s likely that they’ll never be learned.

Here’s the article from the Sunday newspaper in Jamaica – How Hard Is It to Come to Work on Time?

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The Final Post in the New Lifehacking Series

The seventh and final post in the series: The New Lifehacking came out yesterday. It addresses the reasons why we should be wary of new technology and new ideas – before rushing to incorporate them into our individual time management systems.

The entire series lays out a pathway for continuous improvement that replaces the random search for tips and tricks that most of us rely on. Instead, it calls for a systematic effort that builds on an understanding of the time management system that we self-created and now use every day.

The New Lifehacking #7 – Why You Should Be Open to New Stuff, But Wary About Using It.

 

 

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Help For Time Advisers

8 fata assumptions that time advisers make

A Time Adviser is a coach, consultant, trainer or professional organizer who is in the profession of helping other people improve their time management and productivity skills. Over at the MyTimeDesign.com website I have been focusing on helping them use the latest research to have a bigger impact with their clients.

To that end, I recently partnered with Janice Russell to produce a new Special Report entitled: The 8 Fatal Assumptions that Time Advisers Make. It’s available for immediate download at the website, and also on Scribd.

If you are a Time Adviser, when you download the Report from our website you’ll be placed on our mailing list which will immediately start sending updates on the work we’re doing. plus you’ll be introduced to our other resources developed to date, and provide some information on the progress we’re making towards creating a formal certification process for Time Advisers.

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How Do You Deal With a Project Whose Members Are Weak at Time Management?

Francis_Wade at PMIIt’s a tough question – how do you cope when you are assigned a team with time management skills that appear to be suspect?

They represent a risk to the success of the project and before you delegate a single task, you want to have an idea of the amount of work that each individual can handle.

In this paper and speech, presented at the Project Management Institute of the Southern Caribbean Chapter, I addressed this question using recent research from Brigitt Claessens. On this page with the materials from the conference, I share the audio, slides and research paper I presented.

It was a great experience presenting to an audience that takes the topic of time management so very seriously.

If you are interested in discussing the topic further, simply visit the forums at my book’s website: simply visit the newly created forums focused on Project Managment at my book’s website.