Tips For Better Scheduling
Author: Ninive Badilescu

Any tips on how I can manage my time better when scheduling?

There are many tips and tricks out there you can use to schedule better. Some of them you will discover in time by simply practicing the “art of scheduling”. Meanwhile whether you use Outlook or any other scheduling tool here are a few things you should keep in mind to ensure better use of time:

• Schedule like activities in blocks of time. This will result in better focus over a longer period of time as you deal with similar skills, issues and activities.

• Reading emails is a very time consuming activity and tends to side-track you for quite a while diminishing your focus. Decide on two or three times during the day to deal with emails and ignore them during the other times. To avoid missing out on important messages create rules that will display a message alert when certain messages you know you will have to respond to immediately are coming in.

• Schedule activities that requite mental alertness in the morning when you are fresh and find it easier to concentrate. Such activities can be research, writing, making important phone calls, etc.

• As with the emails schedule your phone calls in certain blocks of time during the day. Try and find out what is the best time call the people you are interested in contacting and schedule accordingly. If you make sales calls avoid contacting a new prospect on Friday when people get ready for the weekend and are concentrating on finishing up on all the tasks still left to deal with for the week. Same applies to early morning on Monday. This is the time when people are not quite ready to focus on one issue but rather think about the weekend and make plans for the week.

• If you have a task that will take a few hours to complete try and break it down in smaller chunks by scheduling on individual steps within the task. It is a proven way to maintain focus and to ensure you are not faced at the end of the day with issues you have not considered.






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Ninive Badilescu is a Certified Professional Coach specialised in Career and Executive Coaching. You can read more of her articles at http://www.uachievecoaching.com.

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