Making more time now - Pinoy Success Secrets

FINDING THE 6^TH DAY by making more time now!

After nearly two decades of working, coaching, training, and managing engineers and other Filipino professionals, there’s one challenge that comes up over and over again. It is ridiculously hard to get things done.

It doesn’t matter how smart, talented, and dedicated you are. Staying on top of your work is one of the most pressing issues for Pinoy professionals in every discipline and in every industry.

Today’s workloads are over the top. Distractions are endless. Tasks are ambiguous. We end our days with to-do lists longer than when we started.

The result? Stress, overwhelm and burnout.

Here’s the thing – you can solve this problem. You already have all the skills you need. All you need is a little help. That’s what this article is all about.

This article will help you find 8 more productive work hours within the next week.

Let us lay out five simple but powerful actions you can take to quickly carve out a full day’s worth of productive time. These are some the very same tactics I use in my professional career.

I’ve kept things intentionally short and to the point. Where I normally like to dig in to the details and explain the rationale behind strategies, I’ve focused more on speed and simplicity for this guide.Simply follow the five steps and you can create an incredible amount of time to focus on your most important work.

“TIME IS THE SCARCEST RESOURCE AND UNLESS IT IS MANAGED NOTHING ELSE CAN BE MANAGED”
– PETER DRUCKER

STEP 1 – CALENDAR CLEANSE

Review your calendar for meetings (especially recurring meetings) that you don’t actually need to go to. Here are some clues a meeting might not need you to be there:

You rarely participate in conversation
You rarely get action items
You don’t need the information presented to do your job
The information presented is available elsewhere
You could delegate someone else to go instead

Once the meetings are identified, either decline those invitations or send a delegate.

Notify the relevant people of your decision and explain why it won’t have a negative impact. Commit to returning to those meetings as needed (don’t worry – the need is unlikely to arise).

Time saved: 1 – 4 hours per week.

STEP 2 – MASTER YOUR INBOX

If you can avoid it, don’t open your inbox until after you’ve completed something important from your to-do list.

Schedule specific blocks of time each day to check your email. For example:

Before lunch – 30 minutes
End of day – 30 minutes

During each block, be sure to deal with important email first (from managers, clients, and your own team or staff). If you don’t get through all email during your block, you’ll have at least reviewed the important ones.

This will constrain your email time in order to make more time for important work.

Time saved: 2 – 4 hours per week.

STEP 3 – RANK YOUR TASKS

Not all tasks are created equal. This step is to separate the important work from the low value busy work.

For every task on your to do list, determine if it is urgent, important, both, or neither.

Assign the following priorities:

IMPORTANT AND URGENT
IMPORTANT ONLY
URGENT ONLY
NEITHER

Focus on completing tasks that are highest priority before looking at tasks in the next priority level.

Time Saved: 2 – 4 hours per week.

STEP 4 – FOCUS

For each task you chose to work on, focus on that one item. Task switching eats up productive time.

Tips for better focus:

Set a short timer and commit to focusing during that time. You can take a quick break afterwards.
Get all the materials you need ready up front.
Control your environment – temperature, light, sound, chair and desk adjustments can all make a difference.

Time saved: 2 – 4 hours per week.

STEP 5 – GET EARLY FEEDBACK

Rework is inherently wasteful. It’s always better to do something right the first time.

To make sure you get it right the first time:

Start the task as early as possible
Get feedback at milestones throughout the task.

Starting early gives you time to adjust course if you need to. Getting early feedback on interim steps helps your manager/ customer confirm what they really need, which isn’t always what they asked for.

Time saved: 1 – 3 hours per week.

CONCLUSION – Make more time now

Being productive is all about doing the right work, doing that work efficiently, and having systems built up to be able to do it consistently. This guide presented a very quick process to do just that.

If you can implement the steps presented here, I’m confident you can create at least an extra 8 hours of productive time each week – maybe even more.

I hope you enjoyed this guide. I would love to hear from you if you’ve implemented the steps. If you have, or if there’s anything I can do to help, just write to me at pinoy@EngineerPH.com

Author: The Pinoy Engineer

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Did you find this article helpful na maaaring maapply mo sa professional o personal na buhay mo?
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