Comments on: How to Effectively Manage Your Time

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Change Agent Librarians | Information Tyrannosaur — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:47:20 +0000

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By: Top Ten Links 2.43: eBooks, Easy QR Codes, Time Management and Career Expectations | Librarian by Day

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 14:21:07 +0000

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By: Andy Burkhardt

Andy Burkhardt — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 20:33:58 +0000

Yeah, it seems very easy to get bogged down and caught up in the day to day stuff that simply needs to get done. I agree with you that it is helpful to take a step back to review priorities and look more at the larger picture.

I have definitely been talking and thinking a great deal about quadrant 2 and how I can do more of that. I just read about it last week, but this sort of thinking seems to be helpful so far in clarifying activities (and eventually prioritizing them).

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:22:21 +0000

I’m glad that it seems useful! I must confess to having never read GTD in full…even skimming it gave the impression of a fairly involved system. But it really does seem to work for some people…check any productivity site and you’ll find the GTD-enthusiasts.

I use a legal pad for the list, so it’s all on one page. Usually I have one list per week and I recopy the un-done or long-term and unfinished items from one week to the next. While it seemed like wasted time at first, now I find it helpful to have a designated time to review my priorities and tasks.

Even with a designated ‘long-term’/II category, I still get bogged down in the ‘incoming’ category. I make an effort to work on at least 1 thing in the long-term category each day, and to prioritize those tasks whenever the ‘incoming’ category isn’t overflowing.

Have you been trying the quadrant method? If so, has it helped?

By: Andy Burkhardt

Andy Burkhardt — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:11:28 +0000

Sarah, do you make that structured to-do list daily or weekly or some other way? Then do you try to do some from each category every day? It seems like that could be a really useful system. Thanks for the recommendation on GTD. I’ve heard about and seen it mentioned a lot over the years, but never looked further into it. I’ll have to take a look look at his book or at least some of the articles on his site. It really helps seeing how others organize their day and structure their time.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 14:59:24 +0000

Great post Andy, thanks! It’s so true that tasks from the II category produce the biggest impact yet are hardest to ‘justify’ doing at any given time.

My major time-management improvement this year is loosely inspired by another classic – Getting Things Done. The whole system is too complex for me, at least without taking up more time than it saves. But the structured to-do list piece has been a lifesaver.

My structured to-do list sorts tasks into categories: Routine (checking ILL, PC maintenance); Incoming (lit search requests, reference questions requiring follow-up); Scheduled (upcoming classes to teach/plan for); and Long-Term (basically the II category you have – planning, relationship-building).

The key benefit for me is that I can structure my day more effectively when everything is available at a glance, but sorted roughly by urgency and amount of time required to complete the task.