Pepé Le Pew didn’t shy away from commitment, and neither should you. Your fear may stem from not knowing the five questions to ask yourself when preparing to commit to an appointment. In this video, I am reviewing these five questions and I will show you how this fits in the fingerprint of my time management system. Following these strategies will get you closer to developing the organizational skills that will help you manage your time. Developing an effective time management system, prioritizing and managing your time will make sure you come out smelling like a rose.
(Click here to watch on YouTube if you can’t see the embedded player. Or watch the video at http://bit.ly/TCDTime2.)
Transcript:
Hi. I’m Lorie Marrero and today’s Clutter Video Tip is Part 2 in our five-part series on time management. Last time we talked about capturing and I challenged you to make a list of your favorite capturing tools – whether it’s your calendar, or your camera, or your phone – and today we’re going to talk about committing. We’re going to talk about having a time to review all of that information that you captured and decide whether you’re going to commit to take further action and move forward with that information. So if capturing is what, then committing is the who, when, how, where, and why.
So let’s look at a very common capturing tool, an in-box. This is a great way to capture paper and other physical information. And you want to have a set time to review whatever is in this in-box on a regular basis. Now, I like doing it at least once a week, and for you, you might do this more or less often, depending on how fast this would fill up or how urgent the items might be inside. But for most people, one week is a good guideline.
So let’s take an example of a piece of information that’s ended up in my in-box here. This is a postcard asking to register for the SAT for my son. And I’m going to be looking at this item, what it is, and now I’m going to be asking the other questions: Why should we do this? Well, it aligns with our goals in some way, doesn’t it? So we say yes to that, we’re going to do it. When should it get done? Is there some kind of natural deadline here? Yeah, there’s a testing date and there’s a registration deadline. Who is going to do this and where is it going to happen? Well, my son is going to do it, so I need to check his schedule along with mine, and where it’s going to happen is going to be given to me when I register. And then finally, how is it going to get done? What are the next steps? That’s a very important question. Well, the next step is to just register at this web site. So I have decided to commit to this action, and that action is going to go on my task list.
So your primary committing tools are your calendar and your task list. And this is where you have a lot of freedom of choice and expression. You can choose what calendar and what task list work best for you and your lifestyle and the way you think. So if you’re a kinesthetic person, that’s someone who enjoys touching the paper and writing things out by hand, then you might really enjoy having a paper planner. And if you are like me and you’re a little more abstract, and you’re more comfortable with a digital, you might use something like Outlook, like I do, that synchronizes with my Smart phone. And that way I have my information everywhere I go.
So you have another assignment this week, and that is to decide what your two commitment tools are – your calendar and your task list – pick the right one for you, and stick to it and be consistent. And I also want you to decide what is a regular time for you to review everything that you’ve captured. It could be once a week, it could be once a day, whatever is right for you.
If you need some help making these decisions, you can get consulting on-line from our team of organizers for free. You can find out more about this at clutterdiet.com/learnmore.
See you next time, and may you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.
For the rest of this series on Time Management, please follow these links:
Part 1- Capture
Part 3- Cue
Part 4- Complete
Part 5- Correct
You may have been searching for effective time management or how to store and organized captured information and important dates.
Leave a Reply