Time Management and Productivity When (It) Happens | Organization Direct
Have you ever had your plans all laid out and ready to be massively productive and then….BAMM your Time Management and Productivity goes right out the window? Somebody, some thing or some event comes and destroys everything. Of course, we all have. And, let me tell you, I used to freak out. That is not the case now.
YOUR LONG LIST
No matter what our daily role, there is typically a list that is way too long for us to “think” that we can accomplish on a daily basis. After all, there are only 24 hours in a day. We all know that and have heard it and read it over and over again.
It is called…Life! Things get in our way and interfere with our strategically placed time management skills. Our productivity will typically decrease…why, because our mind is still thinking about the last crappy thing that got us distracted in the first place!
FOCUSING ON TIME MANAGEMENT AND PRODUCTIVITY
When (you know what) happens, our thought continue to shift back to “that” event that has us distracted. Being able to “deal” with an issue is one thing. Most of the time, however, the situation isn’t resolved immediately. This leaves us with lots of thoughts, in the back of our mind, about:
- Did we handle it properly
- Will you receive the outcome that you want?
- What if????
- The never-ending follow-up….
GETTING BACK ON TRACK WITH PRODUCTIVITY
This is a huge issue. Stopping the ever-playing CD that is in your head can be difficult. How do you stop it? It has to stop before going to bed, right? Now your productivity is decreasing because you just can’t stop the CD from playing the same (or maybe slightly different version) over and over in your head. What to do?
MY MARCH MADNESS STORY
This month Organization Direct is rolling along, this has been a fabulous year! Then, just 10 days ago, my computer crashed…and it crashed hard! Of course, it was a Friday morning, and I had a client scheduled for the day. I had exactly 1 hour to figure out what I was going to do because I knew that if I hit the weekend, I would be sitting in my office looking at a really expensive paperweight for the entire weekend. And, I couldn’t be distracted by the computer issue while working with a client.
No panic or worries! I called my computer repair specialist (who I knew from the tons of networking that I do), and dropped off the laptop at his office. The weekend comes and goes, thank goodness my time management wasn’t thrown out the window totally (I had my tablet to work from).
Monday was spent figuring out an action plan so that my productivity wasn’t totally thrown out of the window. Tuesday, we were ordering a new laptop. Wednesday, we were hit with the only snow storm this year….in March! Are you kidding me? Seriously! Would my overnight delivery actually come overnight? Well, it came and on Thursday evening at 6:00, I was back up and running so that we could leave for a trip out of town on Friday morning! Productivity…and we were back in business.
POSITIVE ATTITUDE AND TIME MANAGEMENT
Whew! It all worked out. I have to say that even through it all, the one thing that I didn’t do was panic. I didn’t panic over the possibility of losing any of my information, over whether the snow storm would affect my delivery, how much this would all cost or whether we would be able to get it before leaving town.
How you handle your emotions when “stuff” happens can determine your entire outcome. Staying positive about the situation is your best form of productivity. Don’t try to change what is out of your control and don’t let the thoughts about what “could” happen get in the way.
WHY IT DIDN’T MATTER
Even if my laptop had nott went into laptop heaven the week before, I would have still lost a day of productivity…we were without electricity for 12 hours on Wednesday because of the snow….it didn’t even matter that I didn’t have a laptop. What I did work on was the filing of paperwork that was backed up and other household things that needed to be done. (And, of course, we played lots of games!) Weren’t we fortunate that the electric went out just one hour before daylight and came back on about 30 minutes before the sun went down? We didn’t even have to use flashlights or candles! Coincidence…I think not!
Don’t let stuff stop your productivity….stay focused, organized and rock your Time Management.
Linda Clevenger, Organization Direct
www.organizationdirect.com
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