Time, always an issue

By Alina Popescu on July 24th, 2007 in Thoughts I Came Across

I have been having quite a few issues with time management these days. Not because I cannot manage my tasks and time, but because I sometimes seem to be over allocated. And tasks seem to change priority every second or, even worse, appear out of the blue.

A dear friend of mine recommended that I should use two wonder tools: delegate and drop. I have and it still seems I am piled up here. So I ask you dear readers, when planning your day carefully and sticking to the original plan does not work for more than a few hours, what is there to do? How much time should one waste on doing to do lists? Even if you create them in your mind only, you still waste time on analyzing the situation and re-prioritizing. I would really love to see your thoughts on this one.

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This post has 6 comments

  • Radu C
    July 25th, 2007

    Hmm… there’s not much you can do when things
    aren’t going according to plan and you can’t just drop everything and
    you’re running out of people who you can delegate your tasks to. You
    could take a day only for TODOs, but if the incoming buffer is filling
    faster than you can handle, even with the best of prioritizing, then
    you should do something about the person or persons filling that
    buffer, letting them know that you are only human (and, by any means,
    not chinese), possibly hitting them with a cluebat. A big wooden
    cluebat to the back of their head(s) should do it :) PS. You should make this textbox wider.

  • Alina Popescu
    July 25th, 2007

    Yes, Radu, those giving the tasks may sometimes be
    the real issue. However, I won’t use the bat solution for now. Who
    knows, maybe later? :)

  • Mihaela Lica
    July 26th, 2007

    Well, there are some time management software you
    could use, but when I worked for the MApN I had a pocket time-planner.
    I spent two good weeks in reading how-tos and monitoring my
    performance. Then everything run smoothly. Now I work from 9 to 5 and I
    don’t have too much to manage, except my daily routine… OK, that can
    be tricky sometimes, when there’s too much to do.

  • Alina Popescu
    July 26th, 2007

    Hi Mig!
    I use a calendar, task lists and every other tool I can think of. Also,
    I learned to add some extra time to a task for unplanned events. Now
    that I am also learning to say no to people (especially those who are
    my direct managers) I think it will get back to bearable soon :)

  • Radu C
    July 26th, 2007

    Mihaela… daily routine you say? Alina, are you
    having any “daily routine”? I mean, is it something that you can plan
    for two weeks and after that the computer does the thinking for you
    when it comes to doing tasks and you only have to blindly follow what
    the computer says? :)

  • Alina Popescu
    July 26th, 2007

    Radu, it depends on how you define a routine…You
    are right, I cannot say I can plan more than 2-3 days ahead and that is
    a miracle when it happens. But the things I actually do may be
    considered a routine: write press releases, write articles, update
    documentation, reply emails, attend meetings, research and research
    some more etc…

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