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You’ve heard it before…time is your most valuable commodity!Make the most of your available time.  The foundation for any daily action plan begins with a series of time estimates that will establish more accurately the time it will take you to complete the tasks that you have identified and assigned to your daily action plan.  Defining time estimates more accurately is a valuable life skill.  The Action Planning Tips that follow are actually quite easy to implement and will definitely boost your daily personal productivity:

• Recognize your own personality traits since they often influence the time that you allocate for completing tasks.  An “optimistic” person may “underestimate” the time it takes to complete a task.  Underestimation of time may lead to frustration, disappointment, and unmet deadlines.  A “pessimistic” person tends to “overestimate” the time it takes to complete a task; and then, unfortunately, the person may abandon important tasks altogether!  Estimating “realistic” time allocations obviously is a valuable life skill that is based on prior accurate estimating experiences and on actual time tracking.

• Breakdown larger tasks/activities into several manageable tasks/activities.  If the breakdown segments of the task are too large, you will tend to overlook too many important details that are necessary for the success of the initial task/activity.  If the breakdown segments are too small, you will tend to get buried in unnecessary, low-level details that will cost you time and money.

• Get real… Don’t “under” or “over” estimate your time allocations.  While under-estimating may “cut your day short,” it may also make it impossible to complete your pre-planned tasks.  Over-estimating time allocations make it difficult to fit all of your tasks/activities into your daily schedule.  However, the wise “rule of thumb” is to initially be generous with your time allotments that will include built-in tolerances.  It’s much easier to fit a small task into “extra” time, than it is to try to make up for “lost” time.

• Pause to re-charge “your batteries.”  Schedule several breaks throughout your day.  A small break at the end of a large task or series of small tasks refreshes you and helps you to wind down and focus on “what’s next?”  Remember to work in no more than 45 minute blocks of time!
• Reuse accurate, actual times for routine or recurring tasks and activities.After you complete a task or activity, record the actual time it took to complete that task or activity. When that task reappears on your Daily Pre-Planner list, refer to your recorded times.  Your future estimates will be fairly accurate because they were based on previous results, not previous estimates.

I’m sure that you will agree that these action-planning tips are simple, easy to follow, and beneficial.  Implement them into your daily action-planning activities and realize just how powerful they are in boosting your personal productivity.

No, I haven’t lost my marbles quite yet. Bear with me for a moment as I explain how you must be flexible as well as inflexible when dealing with your most precise commodity – time! In the context of personal productivity, we need to view time as if it were a two-sided coin. One side of our time coin is what we refer to as “Time Buffers.” While the other side of our time coin is what we call “Time Limits.”

Last week in Part #1 of Winning the War against Clutter, I talked about reducing clutter in our mental space. Today, in Part #2, I’m going to outline some best practices for reducing clutter in your physical space.  According to the National Association of Professional Organizations, paper clutter is the No. 1 problem for most businesses.  Studies show the average person wastes 4.3 hours per week searching for papers, which adds stress and frustration to the workplace while reducing concentration and creative thinking.  The average executive loses one hour of productivity per day searching for missing information.

Whether you are working in a one-person or a multi-person office, there are several benefits derived from reducing clutter and organizing your physical space:

Reducing Mental Clutter

The “War against Clutter” must constantly be waged on two separate, but interconnected battlefields: Our Mental Space and Our Physical Space.  The “Mental Space” battle directly impacts the “Physical Space” battle and vice versa. Both of these battlefields are filled with “landmines” which clutter the landscape.  As the clutter (landmines) increase, it becomes more and more difficult for us to mentally as well as physically maneuver our way through both of these battlefields.

Both mental and physical clutter is a by-product of disorganization. Research studies conducted on the effects of disorganization reveal that

The Pareto principle was named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. While gardening, he later observed that 20 percent of the peapods in his garden yielded 80 percent of the peas that were harvested.  Hence, it was known as the law of the vital few and the principle factor of sparsely.

In the business world, it’s widely accepted and commonly known as the 80-20 rule! The 80-20 rule states that