Thursday, April 24, 1997

How to balance your most valuable asset

By SHERRI ENG

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

With work, family and community obligations tugging at you, it's no wonder you feel time-constrained these days.

The media and pop culture have played their part in screaming relentlessly that you can - and should - do more. The advent of such timesavers as e-mail, cellular phones and voicemail hasn't helped, either; they've just provided people with even more ways to get a piece of you.

In reality, since Americans now live longer, they should, technically speaking, have more time than their predecessors. Women born in 1950 are expected to live an average of 71.1 years; men born in the same year are expected to live 65.6 years, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Compare that to women and men born in 1900: They had a life expectancy of 48.3 and 46.3 years, respectively.

Psychologists and management consultants say that how you view time determines your relationship to it.

Many adults look at time as an enemy or an oppressor - something that must be conquered, says Lenora Yuen, a psychologist in Palo Alto, Calif. Their days are always a race against the clock.

Children, on the other hand, have a sense of timelessness. They live for the moment. That is how they can get lost in an activity that they enjoy and not even be aware of the passing of time.

Adults, however, are well aware of the passing of minutes, days and years. In Western culture, time is viewed as a conveyor belt moving from past to present to future at a steady, unchangeable speed, says Steve Randall, a management consultant in Alameda, Calif. This perception of time causes us to feel helpless, he says.

To regain control of your time, you first may need to adjust your attitude about time. Learn how to live in the present by savoring the moment, Yuen suggests.

Adds Randall: If you can stop fixating on time, "the cars on the train of thought won't be so tightly coupled," and stress and pressure will be reduced.

He encourages people to use what he calls a "presume." This technique allows you to imagine a future time and look back to the present. For example, imagine it's Jan. 1, 1998. Look back to March 1997. Write down in the past tense what happened in March 1997.

Many people procrastinate because they are paralyzed by a looming deadline. Using Randall's technique allows you to look at what was done rather than worry about trying to get ahead. If you are no longer stressing over the deadline, you will relax enough to move forward and actually tackle the task, Randall says.

Once you've developed a different frame of mind, you can try some of these other techniques to grab control of your time:

-- Set priorities

Randall suggests you jot down all of the roles you play in life: at your job, at home, in the church and in the community. Now, visualize yourself playing these roles.This exercise should give you a better sense of your least and most important roles.

"People often get stymied by priority-setting because they don't know what's right," Yuen says. "When it comes to preferences, there aren't any rights or wrongs.You just have to ask yourself, 'What do I want in life?' "

Once you've set your priorities, make sure that anything you spend time on supports those priorities.

Selwyn ascribes to this philosophy. After years of spreading her attention and energy too thinly, she decided it was time for some changes. She realized that coming home "spent and totally wasted" was unfair to her children and husband.

So, she pared down some of her activities. She quit the service club she belonged to because she didn't have time for its mandatory weekly meetings. She told another community group that she would donate her time during its fund-raising campaign,but that she didn't want to waste her time sitting in regular meetings.

"I was someone who never said 'no,' " Selwyn says. "Now, I say 'no' most of the time."

Now, Selwyn feels like "I have time for everything," she says.

She works six-hour days out of her home, spends more time with her family and even has time to exercise for an hour every day and take a midday nap.

-- Break down big tasks

Resist the "all or nothing" mentality. Yuen suggests you break a task into 15-minute increments. If doing your taxes seems too overwhelming, start by spending 15minutes to gather your tax documents. The following day, you might spend 15 minutes scanning through the tax booklet.

"I think if people are feeling overwhelmed, thinking in 15-minute intervals really cuts down the size of the project and helps them be more productive," Yuen says.

-- Concentrate your energy

Deadline pressure is actually a sign that we're resisting what we're doing rather than getting completely involved in the project, Randall says. Try to focus on the task at hand by dropping any concern about not having enough time and plunge into the work.

You can achieve peak performance, Randall says, by becoming completely focused and engrossed by your task. Avoid getting distracted by relatively insignificant tasks, such as answering the phone or opening junk mail.

Contrary to Yuen's advice, Jeff Davidson, author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Your Time," believes you should tackle the most important project first and see it to completion before starting on the next task.

Unfortunately, many of today's managers blindly reward "motion and activity," he says. So, while you might get kudos for dabbling in multiple projects, it isn't the most effective use of your time.

"The reality is, you can't keep pace with a co-worker who completes one important project at a time," Davidson says.

-- Narrow the field

"In every arena of life, there's a way to limit your intake of information and still be competent and satisfied in your life," Davidson says.

Rather than trying to keep up with the latest movies, spend your time watching only specific types of movies, say for example, Oscar nominees, or only those starring Harrison Ford. Likewise, instead of dabbling at a lot of different hobbies or volunteer activities, pick one or two that mean the most to you and concentrate your time on those.

-- Plan your day

It's important to get a clear picture of what we need to do and accomplish each day to avoid getting distracted.

Stanley E. Smith, author of "The Sacred Rules of Management: How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Work" suggests taking time in the morning or the previous evening to plot the upcoming day's schedule, complete with a "to-do" list ranked by priority. Use your "prime working time" - the hours when you work most effectively - to tackle the most important tasks. Spend quiet time - perhaps during lunch - to relax; don't allow yourself to be interrupted by clients, bosses or co-workers.

Check off each appointment or task as you complete it. Smith says you will gain a sense of momentum and achievement as you do that and move down your list.

-- Organize your work area

To remain focused on the task at hand, you should eliminate all distractions from your work area. "People stack up paper around them as a crutch," Davidson says."They use the stacks of paper to say, 'Look how important I am.' "

Take a shovel or backhoe to your desk - whatever it takes to clear it off, he says.

As a general rule, you should keep on your desk only those things that you need on a daily basis, such as pens, a stapler or your Rolodex. Inside your desk, retain items that you use at least weekly, if not daily.

For information you use less frequently, invest in some file folders and a filing cabinet to organize your materials. Photocopy only the important pages of lengthy manuals and publications and then chuck the rest.

-- Get help around the house

If you have the spare cash, pay people to take care of simple domestic services, such as grocery shopping and house cleaning, Davidson advises.

You may wonder, "Who has extra money to spend on such luxuries?" But you may warm to the idea once you consider that the things you accomplish can perhaps make you much more money than the $15 you pay somebody to cut the grass.

By not running yourself ragged with household chores and extraneous errands, you'll be able to have more energy at work, perform better on the job and, as a result, ultimately advance in your career, Davidson reasons.

"If you're going to work exhausted, you've lost before you've even begun," Davidson says.

Ways to win back your time:

-- Leave the office or your workplace on time at least several workdays per week, having accomplished what you sought to accomplish within a normal workday.

-- Watch less television; cruise the Internet less.

-- Pay others to do tasks you don't want to do so you're free to address more important stuff; break the cycle of spending for items that don't free up your time and then having to work harder to pay bills.

-- Recognize that while nobody loves filing, hereafter it's essential to staying in control.

-- Buy any device you can easily master that you believe will make you more efficient.

-- Get into the habit of doing one thing at a time. Stop doubling up on activities such as reading the paper on a treadmill.

-- Get a solid night's sleep (eight hours for most adults) at least five to seven times a week.

-- Enter the "wholesale throw-out" business - throw out accumulating piles of newspapers, magazines and reports that offer little to your career and life.

-- Earmark several hours each week during which you'll take in no new information and have nothing to read or do (especially Saturdays and Sundays.)

Source: "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Your Time."