Chapter Eleven and Twelve:
A few key sentences that got my attention:
“That’s why evaluating how we mange time wasters, and how we make the most of our day, is uniquely personal. And comparing ourselves to each other is deadly“
“You can manage time wisely and accomplish what you are supposed to do in the time you have been given.”
“To gain control over your time, start making little changes”
“If you are tired of saying “I don’t know,” or spending more time than necessary trying to accomplish a task, perhaps you need to evaluate your workspace and raise the professionalism of your approach”
The big one for me:
“Here are some examples of common time management problems:
- Saying yes to things you shouldn’t
- Not differentiating between urgent and important
- Allowing too many unnecessary interruptions
- Using time inefficiently”
I need to keep these on a sticky note and place it everywhere! I think I have trouble with interruptions, which I often create myself! Just in the process of writing this post, I’ve answered emails, Facebook messages, scrolled Facebook, looked at two topics on the internet (not related to this post) and distracted myself with snacks! LOL
Identifying Time Wasters
Productive women maintain focus
We’ve mentioned time wasters before….but it is worth keeping on your radar all the time. If you have time to spare, great! Go for it – but most of us complain at the end of the day that we still had things to do, yet we realize we’ve surfed Facebook for 2 hours or been glued to Pinterest.
What are your trouble areas for wasting time?
I love that Glynnis points out the ‘not-so-obvious’- time wasters – tasks you could have delegated! Also procrastination is another – these are where I truly need to focus my thoughts.
I will bookmark her Common Time Stealers and Solutions too – this will be a helpful reminder!
Morning and Evening routines are critical to the success of a smooth running home. Don’t get caught up on coming up with some hugely daunting routine, but rather start with a few tasks that you do both morning and evening and add on from there. The saying that “small changes really do add up” is so true!!
The Home Office
Even if you do not have a “business” from your home, providing a place where you conduct the business of your home is just as important. So if you skipped the Home Office section because you do not work from home in the traditional sense, I urge you to go back and review it.
You do work from home and having a space to corral information and access it, will do everyone good.
If you do not have a filing system, find one that you can implement. If this is a trouble area for you, just start with a small accordion type file and then you can expand from there. One thing that my husband did and I adopted when we got married was to save every receipt. Yep, everyone! He isn’t as technical in his method, but I can tell you, I love the idea and it has been great and saved us money many times. He takes a box, one that perhaps an amazon order would come in and we toss every single receipt in it. Yes, all of them….. gas, grocery, clothing, restaurant – all of it. At the end of the year when he does our taxes, we go through and determine if we still need that receipt or not and then will file it.
This makes it easy to retrieve receipts for items if we are returning, or need to know exactly how much something was. Now, if you already have a system that works – awesome. But if you are looking to start somewhere – try this one!
Consider these questions, answer them in your journal, comment here or you can leave your comment on the private Facebook page.
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What was your favorite tip for the home?
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Do you have one main shopping list and errand list?
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Can you put into action one of the “catch-up” tips Glynnis shared?
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Do you have a home office, if not can you designate a spot to create that for yourself?
