Tag: calendars

  • Get 10 More Hours Out of your Week

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    If you are a busy professional, then chances are you have more money than time. If you constantly feel like you need 30 hours in a day to get everything done then it is time to take a closer look at where you spend your time. What if I told you that you can get 10 more hours out of your week?  Get organized and be real about what can be done in a given day or week and you will stop the dread and get more done.

    The Law of Delegation. If someone can do the job 75% as well as you can, delegate it. This could apply to the office or your home. At the office, we often take the stance of it takes too long to train someone to do a task, so I will just do it myself. That is very short sighted. If you take the time to train a person, then that task will be off your plate forever. You can’t be penny wise and pound foolish with your time.

    At home it could be dry cleaning, mowing the lawn, making dinner, doing laundry, house cleaning, etc. House keepers, dry cleaning companies that pick up and deliver, yard service companies, personal chefs. They are available in all metropolitan areas to help you get these activities off your list. If you don’t need help year round, consider hiring help for just a few weeks or months to get you through busy times at work, during an illness/surgery or after the birth of a child.

    Time Blocking. If you want to get something done, it needs to be on your calendar. Most people have hopes for their week instead of a schedule. Everything that you do in a week should be on your calendar (except for maybe meals and bathroom breaks). You may even need to put sleep and exercise on your calendar to ensure that you are hitting your target amount.

    Daily To Do vs. Master To Do. Constantly looking at a long master to do list is daunting. If you have a day in the office (or at home) that you are dedicating to getting lots of smaller tasks done, I recommend creating a list just for that day. We always feel more accomplished when we get to cross things off a list and it will help keep you focused. Don’t put more on the list than you can reasonable get done in a day and don’t be aggressive. It feels much better to completely finish the list and pull more off the master list than to not finish.

    Keeping a master to do list of EVERYTHING that you need to get done will help take the pressure off having to keep all of that information in your brain. My master list has everything from fixing a dripping sink, buying lacrosse supplies for my daughter and sending a birthday card to making business calls and registering for a networking event.

    What’s for Dinner? That is the dreaded question of the day. Whether you have a family or not, this one seems to cause everyone stress. The biggest roadblock to healthy eating is poor planning. Take a few minutes to plan each week and do one grocery shop. If you are too busy, consider ordering groceries from peapod.com or hometownharvest.com. If even that is too much time, hire a personal chef like Shirlé at www.fourcornerscuisine.com

    Night before prep. Mornings set the tone for the day, so make them as stress-free as possible. Prepare your work bag, clothes, lunches and kid’s stuff the night before.

    Done, but not perfect. I love this mantra and I think everyone needs to adopt it (except for accountants doing tax returns). Don’t set yourself up for failure or waste precious minutes by trying to make everything perfect. Send the birthday card even if it is late, the recipient will still appreciate it. Bring store bought items to the picnic because you had a crazy week. Stop stressing about things that only matter to you!

    Say “No”. The main reason that we have too much on our plates is that we PUT too much on our plate. It seems simple, but it is the hardest thing to learn. Next time you are ready to say “yes” to something, consider what else in your life you are saying “no” to. I guarantee that you will feel better saying “no”, than you will only putting in 50% effort to the thing you said “yes” to.

    If you liked today’s post, you’re welcome to use it in your own newsletter or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Tara Rudo, Life Strategist, helps working moms and families focus on what’s important. Get our FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com.

    Image courtesy of arztsamui at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

  • Microsoft Outlook Saved My Marriage

    Any of you out there in a relationship or married have probably had the following conversation.

    Person 1 – “I have a long work day today and I won’t be home until late because I have a meeting with the bossman at 5:30 p.m.”
    Person 2 – “What do you mean you won’t be home until late? Johnny has his school play (or insert other event) tonight and we were going to that and then out for pizza with the Johnsons.”

    Person 1 – “Johnny’s play is tonight? You never told me that! It’s not on my calendar. I can’t cancel my meeting with my boss!

    Person 2 – “Don’t you remember we talked about it last week?”

    Fight continues and yelling begins…if it hasn’t already.

    After spending several months having these ‘discussions’ with my husband, I was sick of it! I began searching for solutions. I was already using Microsoft Outlook for my email and contact management and discovered that for each calendar event I could ‘invite attendees’. This meant that the calendar event was emailed to hubby and he could either accept, tentative or decline the event and I would receive a response back. Easy, peasy.

    If he accepted, it was automatically put on his Outlook calendar. If declined, he could put a response in the email back to me so we could discuss the scheduling problem. The other great feature here is that if one of us changes the times on an event or deletes it off our calendar, it requires that you send an update to the other ‘attendees’. This has been a MARRIAGE-SAVER!! No more fights about scheduling. No excuses for not know what is going on and when. I LOVE IT!

    If you don’t use Outlook, but want to have similar features, check out Google Calendar. You can set up multiple calendars, so you can have one for your personal stuff and set up one for ‘Family’ events or set up one for each of the kids schedules and they can be shared with others. You can also set up the notifications so it would have similar features to what I mentioned above in Outlook.

    If you are not a computer person, you can use the pen and paper method. Just make sure that a family calendar is posted in a high-traffic area of the house like the kitchen where it will be easily seen. That it is big enough to easily see events.

    No matter which type of system you use there are a few things you will need to do for it to be successful.

    1. Always put events on your calendar! The system only works if you are diligent about entering events on it.
    2. Every week you need to have a quick family meeting to make sure that everyone has their events on the calendar and knows where they need to be when.
    3. Don’t overbook your calendar! This is the most important rule. If you jam pack every minute of your week, you will feel stressed, rushed and things will fall apart.

    Calendars are one system that EVERY family needs to run smoothly. They also give every family member accountability and help you avoid the stress of conversations like the one at the top of the page.

    If you liked today’s article, you’re welcome to use it in your own ezine or blog as long as you include the following blurb: Certified Professional Organizer, Tara Donohue Rudo, CPO, helps families, solopreneurs and mompreneurs focus on what is important. Get her FREE weekly tips and advice at www.NoMorePiles.com .