It feels good to check off a task on your list and mark it done. You’d like to be able to do that more often but you only have so much time and energy.

What if instead of waiting until you complete the task you mark it as done when you do ANY work on it?

Does that sound a little nutty? Hold on, Skippy. Let me ‘splain.

Marking a task as done doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to do. It simply means you’re done for now. If there’s more work to do, you can put it back on your list.

Huh? Why would you mark it as done and then put it back on the same list?

Because doing that will help you to get better at planning and actually finishing your work.

You stopped working on the task for a reason. You didn’t allow enough time, you needed more information, or something more important came up. Or maybe you ran out of gas and just didn’t feel like continuing. By understanding why you stopped, the next time you have a task like this you’ll be better prepared.

But that’s next time.

For now, if you’re not ready to continue working on something, check it off and move on to the next task on your list. When you’ve worked your way through everything on your list, look at the task you marked as done and if there’s more work to do, put it back on your list.

You might put it at the bottom of today’s list and do it later today. You might put it on tomorrow’s list. You might postpone it to another day. Or you might decide you don’t want to do it at all and spare yourself a lot of time and effort.

Is your website pulling in enough clients? Here’s what you need to do

The cat threw up last night. At 3 am. By the time I fell back to sleep it was an hour later and I got up late.

I started writing (my first time block) about an hour later than scheduled. I just got back from my walk. I’ll get this post done and out to you, so that’s good, but I am behind schedule. I can absorb this into my admittedly not very busy day but if this happened to you, would you be able to do the same?

There will always be interruptions, delays, emergencies, illnesses and other things that throw you off schedule. The question is, what to do about it?

A few thoughts.

First, you have to understand that this is a normal part of life and you have to be okay with that. Don’t panic. Roll with the punches and carry on.

If you miss doing something completely, do it later in the day, double up tomorrow, or stay late and get it done. The occasional weekend make-up session is okay, too. If none of this is possible, don’t fret about it. And don’t get rid of the cat.

Second, build dams between your blocks. Don’t schedule blocks of time immediately following other blocks (or other appointments), give yourself a buffer. Ten or fifteen minutes between appointments or scheduled tasks should be enough to cover you most of the time.

Third, do what you can to minimize or eliminate interruptions, distractions, and delays, before they occur. Tell your staff when you won’t be available and not to interrupt you. Turn off your phone. Close unnecessary tabs on your browser. And keep track of the interruptions and delays that do occur and make notes about how to handle those situations when they happen again.

Because all you can do is all you can do. And because barf happens.

When was the last time you conducted a referral blitz?

Many consumer advocates recommend setting up different savings accounts for different purposes. One for an emergency fund, one for travel, one for retirement, one for investment, that sort of thing.

The idea is that separate accounts will keep you from spending too much on one thing to the detriment of others. It’s a variation on the separate “envelope budget” idea where people cash their paycheck and put the cash in different envelopes, to make sure they had enough for rent, groceries, and so on

Anyway, it’s not a bad idea, especially for those on a tight budget.

Well, guess what? We’re all on a tight budget when it comes to time. There are only so many hours in a week and if we “spend” too much time on some things, we might not have enough for others.

Therefore, if you ever say you don’t have time for something you know you should be doing, (like marketing), you might want to set up a “time budget”.

Some experts call it “time blocking”. Basically, you decide in advance how much time you’re going to spend on certain activities and you schedule that time on your calendar.

I’ve been advocating this for years. At the beginning of the month (or week), you block out 15 minutes each weekday at 3 PM (or whatever) for marketing. You then keep that “appointment” with yourself.

But hold on. If you find yourself looking at your calendar and seeing you have scheduled 15 minutes for marketing and you don’t know what to do with that time, you might not do anything. Soon, you start canceling those appointments.

You might want to modify your schedule using the household budget analogy and decide in advance what you will do during your appointments.

On Mondays, you might schedule 15 minutes for writing an email newsletter. Tuesdays might be for making phone calls to introduce yourself to other professionals in your niche. Wednesdays might be dedicated to working on your next report, book, or presentation.

You get the idea.

By setting up your “time budget” in advance–what you will do and when–you won’t have to think about what to do at the appointed time, you’ll just do it.

Especially recommended for those who say they don’t have time for marketing.

Leverage is the key to earning more and working less

I just read an interesting article positing the benefits of working slowly. Those benefits include feeling less frenzied and less fatigued, creating higher quality work product, and being more productive.

Sounds good to me. But I’ve spent a lifetime doing just the opposite–looking for ways to work faster, finish sooner, and get more done in less time–and old habits are hard to break.

Even though I can see the benefits of slowing down, I’m wondering how I can do it.

Busy busy busy. . . no time to stop and chat, I’m late I’m late I’m late.

How about you?

How about if you and I try an experiment and see what happens.

Pick a task or project, or part thereof, grab your calendar, and schedule time to do it. But instead of blocking out the amount of time you think it might take to do the task, allocate more time.

If you think you can do it in 15 minutes, block out 45 minutes or an hour.

Does the thought of doing that make you nervous? Yeah, me too. And that’s why I think we may be onto something.

Now, when the scheduled time arrives, the important thing is to use all of the scheduled time on the task and nothing else. If you finish early, go through everything again. Check your work, revise and update. See if there’s something you missed or something you can improve. If other ideas come to you about other things you need to do, write them down and put them aside.

Don’t stop working on the scheduled task until the scheduled time is up. Force yourself to work slowly on this and other projects, as a way to train yourself to slow down.

In fact, you might schedule a regular block of time on your calendar for “slow time”. This is time you dedicate to more focused, reflective work. As you race through the rest of your week and find tasks that might benefit from greater focus, i.e., a slower pace, mark them to be done during slow time.

You might eventually block out an hour a day for the same purpose.

I don’t know how well this will work, but I’m going to try it. I’ve got a project on my plate I’d planned to do today and I’m going to spend more time on it than I originally planned. If all goes well, I’ll not only get it done, I’ll get it done right–better than I might have done if I sped through it.

And then I’ll skip down the cobblestones, feeling groovy.