The system of scheduling your use of time started with Napoleon Hill in his seminal book “Think and Grow Rich” And was the idea of creating To Do Lists and then prioritising the top 6, working on number 1 until done… 1937 which at the time of writing was 80 years ago. I recall reading Think and Grow Rich on November 11th, 1975 and giving notice to my employer less than a month later. The book introduced me to goal setting an idea that had escaped me in my first 23 years!
Using Time Management techniques attracted the second major work of advice - title The Time Trap by McKenzie and McKenzie. This book target the corporate market and became a best and longterm seller almost immediately. It was published in 1972… it stayed an important source of guidance for many years.
My research shows that the next major shift in this personal development area came about with the publishing of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, in 1989.
Stephen Covey broke effectiveness down into areas and he ordered them as faith, family then business and many say, because of his upbring in the Mormon Church [ Church of Jesus for Latter Day Saints ], it really was a business version of the Ten Commandments.
Many people in our modern secular world weren’t comfortable with this order of priorities and while the material was very very good it was discounted because of this perceived bias.
The next major breakthrough followed the publishing by David Allen of Getting things Done in in 2001. Allen suggested that you should group things together so that you could achieve more by concentrating on the tasks that were similar. There has been much written about multi tasking where is has been assumed that this was an effective way to work. Many a young woman says “I can multi task because I am a woman!”
Many people in our modern secular world weren’t comfortable with this order of priorities and while the material was very very good it was discounted because of this perceived bias.
The next major breakthrough followed the publishing by David Allen of Getting things Done in in 2001. Allen suggested that you should group things together so that you could achieve more by concentrating on the tasks that were similar. There has been much written about multi tasking where is has been assumed that this was an effective way to work. Many a young woman says “I can multi task because I am a woman!”
Allen and many other productivity sages say we many ulti task but we really need to take account of something called switch task costs. Each time we go from one task to another there is a cost of switching.
A distinction is made between multitasking when the task is a background task - say listening to music while you write but where you are required to pay attention, switching costs in loss of effectiveness and lost time, can greatly hamper your productivity.
Allen says if you can do something in 2 minutes - touch it once but if it will take longer batch it… all writing tasks with writing tasks, all people tasks with people tasks, etc.
A distinction is made between multitasking when the task is a background task - say listening to music while you write but where you are required to pay attention, switching costs in loss of effectiveness and lost time, can greatly hamper your productivity.
Allen says if you can do something in 2 minutes - touch it once but if it will take longer batch it… all writing tasks with writing tasks, all people tasks with people tasks, etc.
A revised edition of Getting Things Done has been published [ in 2016 ] where Allen has revised the use of modern technologies and has just concentrated on the basic concepts and techniques of his productivity system, allowing the reader to use whatever is the current best use aid.
He says when he first wrote Getting Things Done, the tool of choice was a Blackberry which has since faded into history as a casualty of the iPhone/smart phone revolution and the accompanying Apps explosion.
I am renewing my association with all these movements as I prepare to present our next seminar series of Time management and Super Productivity, and I am comfortable that the refinements of Kevin Kruse will enable another seismic shift in productivity gains to occur.
Kruse introduces the concept of MIT each day [M] ost [I] important [T] ask and that up to 2 hours should be allowed for that. This allows the doing of the things that will get the best return for the task doer.
Kruse further adds to his system by asking you to theme days - this is a new area for me but I have already designated Thursday as my Warrior Day - the day I tackle things that require me to take on the persona of the Warrior - tackling problems like the telecoms company that keep billing incorrectly, the insurance company that gives better deals to new customers over loyal 17 year customers… handling the stuff required to complete an insurance claim, dealing with the Government and many more where an hour spent doing on a money day kills the day, but where you get a momentum up, you can tackle the next task with determination and skill.
He says when he first wrote Getting Things Done, the tool of choice was a Blackberry which has since faded into history as a casualty of the iPhone/smart phone revolution and the accompanying Apps explosion.
I am renewing my association with all these movements as I prepare to present our next seminar series of Time management and Super Productivity, and I am comfortable that the refinements of Kevin Kruse will enable another seismic shift in productivity gains to occur.
Kruse introduces the concept of MIT each day [M] ost [I] important [T] ask and that up to 2 hours should be allowed for that. This allows the doing of the things that will get the best return for the task doer.
Kruse further adds to his system by asking you to theme days - this is a new area for me but I have already designated Thursday as my Warrior Day - the day I tackle things that require me to take on the persona of the Warrior - tackling problems like the telecoms company that keep billing incorrectly, the insurance company that gives better deals to new customers over loyal 17 year customers… handling the stuff required to complete an insurance claim, dealing with the Government and many more where an hour spent doing on a money day kills the day, but where you get a momentum up, you can tackle the next task with determination and skill.
As you can imaging Time Management and productivity gains is an ever evolving field.
I can assure you that if this is an area that interests you our seminar series around australia in June will be well worth your attendance…
Booking details are here:
Http://www.stumpjump.net
No comments:
Post a Comment