Time Management Tuesday: Decision-making

Last week's Time Management Tuesday post dealt with an article from the Coaching Positive Performance website. So I went back to take a look at what other time management bits I could find over there and, lo, I came upon this post on decision-making. I promised back in August, 2012 that decision-making would be a long-term study topic here. And, look! I'm carrying through with that!

Why Is Decision-making Part of Time Management?

Decision-making takes time. And it's time when you're not doing anything except thinking about what you're going to do. It's time that doesn't produce much.

You want to spend as little time deciding what you're going to do as possible, so you can spend more time on real work. How to do that?

How To Decide What To Do?

 

The CPP folks talk about knowing which of the tasks you have to do will give you the biggest payoff. That means knowing your goals and objectives. You have to have those in mind all the time. I like to make them at the beginning of the year and check in with them regularly. I've been doing it weekly this year.

The CPP people also talk about figuring out what you can do and how much time you have available. That's always going to change. And why? Because everything is situational. Our situations are always changing, so we always have to work out what we can do with the time we have available.

A case in point? Last week's Time Management Tuesday was about managing sick time. With that we're definitely dealing with a specific situation, different from the situation we were dealing with before we got sick, and different from the situation we'll be dealing with after we're back to what passes for normal. Getting anything done in that particular situation requires making some decisions.

If All Else Fails...

Do something. Anything. Again as the CPP writer says, the only way you can fail is to do nothing at all.

Remember, that's the reason decision-making is an important part of time management. You don't want to spend too much of your available time thinking about what you're going to do instead of doing something.

I decided what I was going to do this week yesterday morning. So now I'm off to do it.