Re-Posted TAxi Email... Good Read... Tis Better to Give than Get

While this isn't directly associated with time management, it is all about time and what you do with it.  That being said, I have received this email a couple of times over (thanks Dad). I always read it and appreciate it's message. In today's social media format with exponential reach, I thought this was better suited to be placed as a post to be shared, instead of an email to be deleted, forwarded, or forgotten... Enjoy and Share, maybe it will make someone's day better...:

Subject: Taxi
I arrived at the address and honked the horn. 
After waiting a few minutes I honked again.

Since this was going to be my last ride of my shift I thought about just driving away, but instead I put the car in park and walked up to the door and knocked.. 'Just a minute', answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90's stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940's movie. By her side was a small nylon 
suitcase. 

The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets.

There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard 
box filled with photos and glassware. 'Would you carry my bag out to the car?' she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

She kept thanking me for my kindness. 'It's nothing', I told her.. 'I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother to be treated.'

'Oh, you're such a good boy, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, 'Could you drive through downtown?' 'It's not the shortest way,' I answered quickly..'Oh, I don't mind,' she said. 'I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice.

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. 'I don't have any family left,' she continued in a soft voice..'The doctor says I don't have very long.' I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. 'What route would you like me to take?' I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the 
neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing. As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, 'I'm tired. Let’s go now'.

We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair. 'How much do I owe you?' She asked, reaching into her purse.
'Nothing,' I said. 'You have to make a living,' she answered. 'There are other passengers,' I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly. 'You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,' she said.'Thank you.' I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.. 

Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life.. I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?
On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life.
We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great 
moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

PEOPLE MAY NOT REMEMBER EXACTLY 
WHAT YOU DID, OR WHAT YOU SAID ~BUT~THEY WILL 
ALWAYS REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL.

Using Colors to make your Calendar more efficient

I have worked with multiple calendars over the years and the one thing that gets very difficult to manage is over crowding in my calendar view.  Those of us with "normal" lives will be overwhelmed by all of the things that make their ways to our calendar.  When  you add Kids to the mix it's almost impossible to not get overwhelmed.  So,  When I'm managing projects and my life, I find it extremely helpful to use colors in my calendar and I think it will help you too.  

It has been proven that the human brain works much faster when dealing with images and colors versus the written word.  So let's do two things in your calendar to take advantage of our brain's natural ability to process vistual stimulas.

Define your colors by Categories:

When you're ready to assign colors to items in a calendar start thinking about how you organize your life.  Then start thinking from the perspective of how you want to view things.  How should things pop out to you visually based on similar colors.  Just like you do in creating metrics for projects or reports for applications.  Think about what you want your end result to look like when assiging details to the items that go into that result.

So as an example if I have a weekly status meeting that is in regards to a particular project I would think about using the same color for all of the meetings or items that are associated to that project

In the same sense I will look at recurring items vs. One off items with different shades as well.

So if I select a darker color for particular project, then within that I might use a lighter shade of that same color to represent one off (non recurring item)  Depending upon your preferences, which is easier to read and stands out better.  Thsi will help you  in a weekly view to see which schedule is not usually in your calendar and where your focus is being applied.

In the below example you can see that I've chosen darker colors for my one of meetings and lighter colors for my recurring meetings.  *note that this is Outlook view, you can do the same thing in Google Calendar as well as most calendar applications.  You can rename any color category to your liking...

Now the reason I chose a darker color for one off vs. stand alone items is they stand out more.  So the lighter shade represents something that is on a recurring basis the darker colors something to pop to make me remember that I need to do that is not something that's on my regular schedule.  This has nothing to do with reminder pop ups and such, just a visual way to view my calendar.

Assign your Categories to your appt's:

Now that you have decided on your color scheme you can assign colors to your individual and recurring calendar items...

Once that is done, your calendar will start to look like this:

On a personal note, I do the same thing with my kids. Each get's their own color and shade according to child and activity (or sport) ... :)

vs:

I hope this helps you with your productivity and the organization of your Calendar.  Until Next time...

This Blog is also posted on the PlanNet site: www.plannet.net 

The art of task management. How to categorize tasks:

One of the things I'm always looking at is the number of things I have to get done in a day. If I were to look at all the things I need to get done, I would absolutely pull my hair out and become very frustrated. So to be the most efficient with my time I find it much better to group things together that I can accomplish. Where I am during the day and the things that I can get done based upon where I am or even what I'm doing. As an example, if I think of something that I need to get done, I am going to add it to my list of things to do. When added, I categorized into four particular groups (Area, Category, Owner and Context):

Area - Area represents the "Why" of this task. What is the area of focus? Why am I doing this? What is the impact? as an example I look at things such as career, personal growth, family, finance. These are the areas of my life that this task could impact.

Category - Category represents the "Type" of task that this is. As an example, a task could fall into these categories: Health and Fitness, Leisure, Sales, Project Management, Mentoring, Research, Marketing, Education, Administration, Review time. So this particular qualification of the task helps group it according to the functional area of my life that I might be looking at. The categories are important because they will match my time budget categories.

Owner - Having an owner represents "Who" will be doing this task, who owns this task. As an example usually I will be the owner of the task. However, sometimes a colleague or a subordinate will own this task. This helps me track and make sure that if things are owed, or I'm dependent on tasks that I do not own, I know who to go to for status.

Context - "Where" Having a context is the same thing as where will this task be accomplished. It is important to not have too many contexts. However, making sure you have enough to cover the different areas in your life.
As an example, I do my task at the following:
computer, phone, computer and a phone, The office, When I'm alert, When I'm tired, etc....

Adding a context to your task will allow you to further group your tasks based on these contexts that you define. So I can be more effective. I'm only working on tasks to further that apply to specific context or area that I'm in now, and I'm not wasting my time thinking about tasks that can't be done. One big time waster is reviewing tasks you can not do any ways.

The next challenge is to take all the tasks and make sure that you're able to sort them according to these different areas and categories. Depending on how you want to view them and this is why the review time is done. As an example, if you want to use Excel, every task would be listed on a separate row in the columns would match these groupings, Area, category, owner, context, task description and due date. I use a different product for this. However, it's easily done Using pen and paper for this solution. You might even have a notebook based on the different types of categories in tabs or sections according to your particular areas, categories and contexts.

Well, that's it for today, I hope you have a great productive day.

Until next time

How Review time affects your mood!

Do you feel like some days you're in a great mood and others you frustrated, or you feel like nothing is getting done?

Well, I have a suggestion for you, and ask that you make sure that you are doing reviews. In my time management work sessions, I always state that part of your time scheduling should include review time. It is very important. Having review times accomplishes a couple of things for you.

1. It shows you that you can accomplish tasks even though you may not enjoy doing them. However, they move you toward your goals and that in and of itself gives you a great amount of pleasure from the knowledge that you're moving toward your goals.  So in turn, you will be in a good mood.  Moving forward is always a positive thing. It certainly beats moving sideways, not at all, or worse yet, backwards.
2. The second thing that reviews do are they keep you on track. They make sure that the tasks that are still open match the direction that you're trying to move in.  You will also shed some light on tasks that might not apply to your current goals. Therefore, you should delete them and remove them from your vision and goal sets as it is just wasting your time.

So in closing, make sure that you review every day just five minutes of your time in its can help you be in a great mood.

Have a great day and until next time...

Review from the OCPMI NewsLetter

Here is a link to the review of the time management presentation given last month at OC PMI.

Click Here

Thanks

Time Budgeting Spreadsheet available

For those that have seen me speak at events, I have mentioned a way for you to get the budgeting spreadsheet that I use to demo the importance of time budgeting. Here's how you can get it:

Become a fan of the PlanNet Facebook page here:
PlanNet FaceBook Fan Page

And I will send you the link via the Facebook fan page.

Secondly, Become a follower of this time management blog.

That's it.

Thanks and I'll be in touch soon.

The art of managing distractions or Time Wasters...

It's amazing how much time we WASTE during the day. You would think that we are constantly moving towards our goals with sharp razor focus. The reality is that we waste time without even knowing we are doing so. The other thing is that we do some things that we might normally consider time wasters, but they have a place in our schedule.

In my earlier posts, I suggest that you budget your time and compare actuals to budget. I also suggest that you add a time grouping of Distractions .... So as you are tracking your actuals, you keep an eye out for times that you are not focused on your task at hand but are working on things that you should not be, atleast not at this time. In order to do this successfully you have to be very honest with yourself. Otherwise you will be doing the same thing as creating tasks and just moving the task to the next day. It never get's done but it is on your list. Be honest with what you are doing.

The second area is budget review. After you have entered your actuals, look at how much time you were distracted by other tasks and or activities that were not even on your budget. Re-assess if this time group or duration of your time groupiong is adequate, and adjust your budget accordingly.

As always, review , Review, review!

That's it for today... Happy time Management.