Friday, September 20, 2013

Blog Post #3 - Time Management and managing priorities

My grandfather always used to say Napoleon's quote - "Ask me anything but not time"

It is not just Napoleon we all need pay attention to time as time is as rare a commodity as money .

It is always easy to spend than to get more of it!


I get excited about this topic .. Some of the books I have read and ideas I got from them..In short,nothing has worked for a long period of time.! I am sharing in hope that it might work for you.

I have tried from pomodoro timer to doing nothing all of them seem to work at some point of time.


1. GTD - David Allen quotes and writes clearly. Expects you to be disciplined to be organized.
Is it you ?

2. 18 minutes - Amazing book. Again force yourself to be disciplined to be organized ..checking yourself every hour and planning at the beginning of the day and double check at the end of the day

3, Purpose driven life - Read this book you will like it. I didn't get any practical advise for myself

4. Happiness at work - I loved this book and still do. Lot of sound ideas. When hand reaches computer not sure if this works(like rubber meets the road).

5. 4 Hour work week - 80% rule and Pareto rule combined . Focus on only 20% critical stuff and give yourself short deadline. Like the idea. Plan to implement (have been planning for quite sometime)

6. Pomodoro timer - work for 20min relax 5min work 20min. More like training for a marathon.

7.20% off.. Google is not the only work place which can implement it. You can too. Take half day to work on your own a week and don't attend any meeting at that time.

8. 1 year from now.. Will the work you do matter in a year? If so work on it. Ask your manager /spouse what you are not responsible for along with what you are responsible for. 3 things just 3 things.. it is a great advise my mentor gave me.

9.Never be late to meetings or meeting people. You will lose their trust and gain their disrespect.This includes professional and personal - parties that you attend.

10. If you don't want to go to use your time let them know you won't come and if required attend for half the time or ask them that you go first/your agenda first(in a commercial setting). Use the remaining time to do what you want to do.

11. 10-10-10 - Will your time spent impact be felt 10 minutes from now, 10 months from now or 10 years from now?

12. Redefine year - In another book the author asks us to divide 1 year into 4 years. Which means every 3 months becomes a year. Now have a new year resolution every 3 months and review your results every 3 months! If Pope Gregory can decide that English calendar can have 12 months you can define your calender with 12 weeks making up 1 year as opposed to 52.

Good luck managing time,priorities and YOURSELF!

Keep Learning
Sivakumar Manikanteswaran

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