I am having trouble remembering to constantly apply the the Pareto and Parkinson principle to everything. I think that as I do the daily chapter reading and applications, I should also review my posts from the previous chapters, and come up with new applications for the things I've learned. This will allow me to stay motivated and ingrain everything I learn as a habit. One problem with doing this is that as I continue to go through all my self help books, I'll have a list of ever growing concepts, principles, and habits which I'll have to review every day. However, I'm confident that patterns will quickly emerge among all the self help material, and I'll be able to group the concepts together thus making things less complicated.
Chapter 7
This chapter is about eliminating interrruptions, which are a key contributor to loss of productivity. Tim breaks up interruptions into three types:
1.Time Wasters
2.Time Consumers
3.Empowerment Failures
1.Time Wasters
The first thing that Tim mentions, which I mentioned in my discussion in the last chapter, is email. He recommends setting up an autoresponder, then checking only twice daily. I love this idea, but I'm not ready to do it just yet... once this semester is over, I should be able to set this up.
He then talks about phone calls... screen incoming phonecalls, limit outgoing phonecalls, and check voicemail twice a day.
He then talks about meetings, and how you should really avoid them at all costs. His preferred method of contacting is 1.email 2.phonecall 3. meeting. I've been trying to do this, but people seem resistant... he recommends the better way to do things is to just say you can't make it... people in my group have been using this excuse to great success :).
If someone does manage to get a hold of you, he recommends saying that you're busy, and urging them to get to the point.
I like all the suggestions here, and I'm going to start implementing them.
2. Time Consumers
These are things which take up a lot of time, and distract you from the truly important things.
Tim has a simple method of dealing with them: Batching.
Batching is taking a task such as laundry, and letting it accumulate, then doing it all at a specific time. This eliminates the extra start up and ending times that you would have to deal with if you had done smaller versions of the task.
The amount you let to accumlate is determined by a cost benifit analysis... the benifit is time, the cost is any number of things, depending on the task.
This is a great tool... but I don't know how I'll go about measuring the cost and benifits.
Tim measures them in dollars, but that's because this is focused specifically towards business. I'll have to guesstimate: What problems does this create? How much time does it save?
The idea is to maximize the value of Benifits - Costs.
Empowerment Failures: Rules and Readjustments
Simple stuff here, as far as I'm concerned. Give people the power to make decisions, and have the power to make decisions. Then review results to see what changes need to be made. If any of these things are not the case, fix them.
1.Time Wasters
2.Time Consumers
3.Empowerment Failures
1.Time Wasters
The first thing that Tim mentions, which I mentioned in my discussion in the last chapter, is email. He recommends setting up an autoresponder, then checking only twice daily. I love this idea, but I'm not ready to do it just yet... once this semester is over, I should be able to set this up.
He then talks about phone calls... screen incoming phonecalls, limit outgoing phonecalls, and check voicemail twice a day.
He then talks about meetings, and how you should really avoid them at all costs. His preferred method of contacting is 1.email 2.phonecall 3. meeting. I've been trying to do this, but people seem resistant... he recommends the better way to do things is to just say you can't make it... people in my group have been using this excuse to great success :).
If someone does manage to get a hold of you, he recommends saying that you're busy, and urging them to get to the point.
I like all the suggestions here, and I'm going to start implementing them.
2. Time Consumers
These are things which take up a lot of time, and distract you from the truly important things.
Tim has a simple method of dealing with them: Batching.
Batching is taking a task such as laundry, and letting it accumulate, then doing it all at a specific time. This eliminates the extra start up and ending times that you would have to deal with if you had done smaller versions of the task.
The amount you let to accumlate is determined by a cost benifit analysis... the benifit is time, the cost is any number of things, depending on the task.
This is a great tool... but I don't know how I'll go about measuring the cost and benifits.
Tim measures them in dollars, but that's because this is focused specifically towards business. I'll have to guesstimate: What problems does this create? How much time does it save?
The idea is to maximize the value of Benifits - Costs.
Empowerment Failures: Rules and Readjustments
Simple stuff here, as far as I'm concerned. Give people the power to make decisions, and have the power to make decisions. Then review results to see what changes need to be made. If any of these things are not the case, fix them.
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