Managing Work Load – Part 3 Eliminate Time Wasters

As an owner of a Computer Repair Business I soon discovered that time wasters can come in many forms. Time wasters are effectively people or things that give a very low amount of benefit or return, in comparison to your time spent. The problem is so pervasive that you’ll have already thought of something or someone that drains your precious time away. Usually we think of an individual. There’s always a friend, family member, supplier or customer we know we’re probably better off avoiding where possible. Few realize that a few or many of things we do throughout our day have the tendency to suck up those precious minutes and possibly hours for very little gain. Today we try to understand and identify some of the changes that you can make to reclaim that time and put it back into areas of your life deserving of your attention.

In the early days of Facebook I could easily obliterate hours of my life everyday digging around my friends and family profiles. Whilst I felt a lot more informed about my own social network it soon becomes clear that knowing what my auntie had cooked for dinner that evening really wasn’t one of things I absolutely needed to know. Thankfully Facebook have introduced updates to give a clearer view on what’s important to me and glancing it over every evening now takes a mere few seconds. To avoid more time wasting behavior I’ll forego the Facebook site completely where possible, choosing to check my wall via my phone or tablet app whilst on the move, most likely when I’m stuck in a queue, such as at the bank. This is one simple example of how I took a time wasting influence in my life and adjusted it slightly to avoid it having such high impact. All things in moderation is a good manta to follow.

Pointless Meetings

Having the joys of both a business and office day job I regularly come across poorly organised meetings which serve to simply waste hours of my life. It is beyond comprehension sometimes, how 2+ people can get together in a closed off room and achieve next to nothing for two hours. But sadly this is common place. So common place in fact that I’ll often avoid meetings wherever possible, the meeting needs to be organised and not overrun its intended time frame and the organizer needs to keep everyone on track, it’s rare. It really isn’t much different with clients, if they’ve scheduled a one hour meeting and I need to be somewhere shortly afterwards, then I will need to make sure they’re aware of this and try and put them back on track if the conversation goes astray

Office Socializing & Drop-In Visits

If you work in an office, you can be sure of two things. Office socializing is great in breaking the monotony of the day, and people like to visit your office … a lot. Whilst it shouldn’t be discouraged you just need to be aware of lengthy conversations, especially when they turn into strong debates about whether Data’s personality chip should be removed permanently. Or whether Starbuck looks better with long hair or short.

Then there are the Drop-Ins, those colleagues that like to visit excessively that need to be managed effectively. “Sorry Dan, I just need to get onto this support call. What can I help you with?” It’s a polite way of saying, I’m busy right now what do you want. If it’s important they’ll ask a quick question and be on their way. If it isn’t, they’ll probably just, go away.

Bad To-Do Lists

The good old To-Do is an important staple of the business world. Without them we’d be flinging our arms around in random fits of panic. Some of us are so devoted in fact that we’ll not part with a list until every item is crossed, a worthy achievement. But some of us have a nasty habit of filling our lists with the most unnecessary and over-reaching items that will often remain stuck to your list for weeks on end. “Implement firewall at office x” is an excellent thing to have crossed off but there’s potential hundreds of smaller tasks which make up this one end goal. Contact office, contact suppliers, view demo, research etc etc. If your To-Do list has items spanning past two days then its probably clogging your brain and slowing you down, streamline it.

Socializing with Friends and Family

Let’s start by saying that I’m not putting across the view that you shouldn’t spend time with your friends and family, absolutely not. If you’ve read my other articles you’ll know this to be true. Excessive time spent with overbearing friends however is probably one of worst drains on your capacity for patience as well as your valuable time. Loved ones that wish to spend day after day in your company will understand that you’re a busy person if you let them know you need to get on, you’re probably just being overly polite, who knows they might even offer to help :)

Problem Customers

You’ll inevitably meet your fair share of problem customers. They’re not necessarily bad customers either, in my experience, far from it. They start to become a problem when they accidentally over step boundaries, in past articles I talked about a customer who started to call excessively, there’s been ones who’ve liked to pop by for the odd chat. When they pay your salary it’s difficult to send them away, but then they might be keeping you away from another paying customer or completing something that could be equally cost effective. Be brave, be polite and ask if you can catch up another time, like on your next support visit ;)

Sales Calls

The bane of any phone owner is of course the dreaded sales call. I’ve one way to deal with it, I’m quite ruthless. “Thank you for your call but I’m not interested” *Hang Up*. There are plenty of sales people out there and when I need a new product or service then I’ll likely find my own sales people. I don’t have time to listen to 10+ sales pitches every day. 10 x 5minutes = 50minutes, in a week you’ve obliterated 4 hours just being at your desk. Ouch.

Cleaning

Cleaning is time wasting?? Well, yes. To be honest, I’m very keen on tidy desks and clean homes but with such a crammed schedule it’s often difficult to fit these things in appropriately. This is why my family try and schedule in a little each day, Monday – Hoover, Tuesday – Dust etc. It’s not only the house though, what about clothes, ironing, the garden and windows? These are all repetitive jobs and serve to suck away all that time. As a consideration why not hire someone to do these for you? For example, I don’t have time for the windows and the garden. We got someone in and I’m happy to say that I’ll never mow my lawn again, the cost was surprisingly affordable. Extending this to the house cleaning is something I’ll look into in the near future but in the mean time I’ve freed up my weekends just a little bit more.

Watching TV

As a pastime, TV is probably up there on top as one of those ways we’d like to spend some time after slogging all day. Beer/Wine/Coffee + Armchair + TV is a surefire way to kick back and relax. Sadly what with the amount of rubbish that can be found through the hundreds of channels available, even this simple time spending activity can easily become a completely wasted evening. The fix, get a DVR, signup with Netflix or Lovefilm and take some control of your precious viewing time. Record your favorite TV and then rent or stream some movies. Just, whatever you do, don’t, DON’T watch Iron Sky, I’m never getting that time back.

Reading

Reading is an unavoidable part of our lives which we shouldn’t be trying to get away from. Instead we should be ensuring that the time spent reading is on high quality content. Whether you’re reading fiction, studying an exam or flicking through that magazine, be absolutely sure it’s worth it. If can’t stand The Hobbit after the unexpected party then it might be worth forgetting it and start something else. If the study materials are boring you to tears and nothing is sticking, then try a different book and author. Put down those badly written books before you waste another several hours which you’ll probably wish you’d spent cleaning.

Instant Messaging

Probably one of the biggest things I needed to control was instant messaging, the back and fourth between work and quick messages is surprisingly detrimental to productivity if you’re just chatting to friends. But highly productive if your discussing something with a client or colleague, if you have the luxury of two screens this is the perfect middle ground. One eye on the messages whilst sticking to the task at hand. Having said that, if it’s a discussion that can be had on the phone, just pick up and speak to them. You’ll get to the point or solve the problem a lot quicker.

Got you thinking? What have you changed recently to claw back that precious time?