Time Management Tip - Create Uninterrupted Time

When I attended my first time management training seminar in the late 80's, I was told there are four things you can do when you are given an activity: 1) You can do it, 2) You can delay it for a future time, 3) You can delegate it and 4) You can dump it. I've followed this process for almost 20 years successfully.

In the past 2-3 years, I've noticed that is is harder to find the time to plan and that it is often hard to stay focused when working on an activity. The culprits are email and cell phones. How often have you been working on a project, just getting into it, when that little window flashes across your screen letting you know that one of your clients has responded to your email? Try as you might, how successful are you at either not opening the email or not wondering what he/she had to say and remaining focused on your project?

If you have a Blackberry or PDA that alerts you when emails, phone calls and text messages come through, how often do you find yourself automatically looking at the message? And how many times is it unimportant?

Here are two tips that have helped me create uninterrupted time so I can stay focused. First, I set my Blackberry to only notify me when I receive a phone call, when I receive a text message and when I have a reminder for an appointment. My reasoning is that if something is important, a client will call my cell phone. If my teenage daughters need me immediately, they know to text me. And I always want to be reminded of appointments.

I've set the notifications so that phone calls vibrate until I pick up the phone, appointments vibrate twice and text messages vibrate three times. This way I know what type of message I am receiving before I look at my Blackberry.

Second, I turn off email when I'm working on a project and respond to emails twice daily. Here's my reasoning: if I have a full day of meetings, I am not able to check email every five seconds. And surprisingly, on days when I have meetings and can't get to email, the world does not collapse, I do not lose customers, and I am productive. So I do the same thing when I need time for myself and my team. And it works! I'm more focused and productive when working on projects and conversely, when I do get to my emails, I am able to get through them very quickly (usually less than a half hour).

Thanks for all of the great posts re: time management.

Peace be with you.