How to Ruthlessly Reclaim Work Day Time
When you’re starting a small business or working from home as a freelancer, you need to make every minute of time count; it’s a race against the clock to break even before your new endeavor uses up your savings and breaks you.
But there are always a million and one things that interfere with and take over your day. Your to-do list of twenty items that you intended to tackle by the end of the business day has reduced in number by only one or two tasks, and you’ve got more to add for tomorrow.
You realize you’ve got to get ruthless and cut away every minute you can manage to shred. Thursday recently wrote about 8 great ways to be ruthless with your time. Here are some more ways to be ruthless with your time, but this time we’re focused specifically on when things don’t go quite as planned. Here’s how you can get started.
Life-Story Phone Calls
There are many busy people in the world who, like you, know they need to get off the phone and get back to work, but you’re bound to get someone on the line who wants to share their life story or form a deep and meaningful relationship over the phone. It could be some lonely hack from your PR firm or the janitor you’ve hired for the new office, but for some reason you can’t seem to shake them.
1. Ask for an email
One simple way to get someone off the phone is to ask them to send you ‘the details’ in an email. This tip works when you’re dealing with someone who needs to send you some kind of information. After they’ve agreed, thank them, give them your email address, and say goodbye before quickly putting down the phone. Don’t hesitate, or you’ve blown your chance.
It’s firm, but still polite enough to use on business calls.
2. Provide Contextual Cues
Taking a hint from The Time Trap by Alec Mackenzie, start your call with something like “Hello, what can I do for you?” There’s a reason you hear this every time you’re dialing into a call center or a big business – it’s to avoid any bush-beating and get right down to business. They know time is money, and so do you – don’t feel like you’re getting too “corporate” by using this technique. It focuses the other person on the issue at hand, which is especially effective if you know someone who tends to waffle before they get to their problem – not after.
On the other end of the call, you can use a cue to signal that the end is near. You can usually tell when you’re a few minutes from the end of a speech because the speaker starts dropping hints (if you’ve done this and heard a sigh of relief, it may be time for a new career path!) – the same can be done on the phone. Phrases like, “before we hang up,” or “one last thing before I go” tell the individual on the other end that you’re out of time and can’t chit-chat. Fortunately, most of the time they get the message using this tactic.
3. Last Resorts
When worst comes to worst, there’s always a solution.
Unnecessary Demands
It’s amazing how often people you work with or, if you’re not self-employed, people you work for are so willing to put extra demands on your time knowing that you’ve got a full plate. If they know you’re good with computers – but you aren’t the company tech support guy – and constantly ask you to fix their self-inflicted tech problems, or if your boss keeps asking you to take on advertising projects even though your role is public relations, what do you do?
A combination of firmness, honesty and tact is required. If you try to find excuses that aren’t based on the honest truth of the situation, you’re only going to make more problems for yourself here. Next time you’re getting nagged to take on somebody else’s job or clean up after your co-workers, gently remind them that while you’d love to help, you’re swamped with the work you’ve got and it’s really outside of your field.
The key is to be politely firm, and though some people find this incredibly difficult at first, it will really be one of the biggest time savers you implement.
Email and Feeds
I talk about dealing with your email and feeds effectively frequently because I find that of all the connected people I know, this is the one thing that kills time more than anything else – even though it can be one of the least time-consuming parts of your day. Since I’ve done this topic in-depth so much already, I won’t repeat it again – check out this article for a primer on how to deal with the overload of information in your day more effectively.
Work-at-home, not housework!
If you work from home, according to some recent statistics I’ve read there’s a pretty good chance you have a spouse (and/or kids) there too.
One of difficulties I had when I started working from home was being asked to put towels on the line or do dishes while I was in the middle of writing an article. Thus, I lost my train of thought and had to spend way more time than I should have catching it again, and if you succumb as I did, you will lose far too many business hours.
Now, you don’t want to put the wife in a bad mood – we’re all smart enough to know that! – and avoiding the housework is a surefire way to do just that. But you must have a conversation where you set the limits of your working hours and under what conditions you may be interrupted.
In my house, we’ve agreed that if the door to my office is closed and I am on the other side of that door, it means I’m working and can’t be interrupted unless it’s an emergency. If the door is open but I’m clearly working, it means I’m not working on something that requires total concentration but shouldn’t be interrupted unless it’s ‘important’ – a step down from ‘emergency’. What constitutes ‘important’ and ‘emergency’ needs to be defined, because you and your partner will certainly have ideas that differ.
If I keep up my end of the deal and don’t spend twelve hour days working in my office and help out around the house afterwards, it leads to you being way more productive, and less tension in the air around the house. Often the hidden bonus is that she’ll get sick of waiting and do it all herself. Yes, that was a joke. Especially if she’s reading this.
When Technology Ruins the Day
First off, two tips I cannot stress enough:
- Always have a bootable back-up, somewhere.
- Always have a non-bootable data back-up, somewhere else.
If you follow both of those rules you will be back up and running in minutes for 90% of the cases where your day would normally be lost to ‘computer troubles’.
I have also previously talked about my system of synchronization which keeps essential data – though not big files (for example it doesn’t sync my master recordings, which are more valuable than my contacts and email archives) – that is required for day-to-day operations on each device. For me, this includes a Mac mini desktop, a laptop and a PDA phone.
If you’ve got a spare machine around, get it loaded up, and get it to sync off your bootable back-up frequently. This is a bit of a luxury, but if you can do it, knowing that all you have to do is plug in a new machine and power it on before getting back to work is a great feeling. You may only have to catch up on a couple of days (or, with diligence, hours) of work, which is much better than weeks, months or years.
As a last resort, keep a pen and pad handy, and ensure that you at least have a back-up of your contacts somewhere that isn’t prone to electronic or mechanical failure! You’d be surprised how much you can get done if you have to, with just these tools.
What about you?
Do you have work day time-wasters you can’t seem to make go away? Let us know in the comments and we’ll see if we can come up with a solution.
Or, if you’ve managed to deal with some problems we haven’t listed here, let us know how you solved them!
WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY
Joel Falconer
Offering a unique perspective and insight on productivity based on his experience as a writer, musician, family man and manager, Joel Falconer has been published online and off, and brings to Lifehack's readers practical advice you can use to be more efficient and effective.
ARTICLES BY THIS WRITER »
Tags: 
Get your own Avatars at 
Loading ...
Comments
Liz says on April 28th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Hey, Joel, some of these are valuable tips, but:
“If you work from home, according to some recent statistics I’ve read there’s a pretty good chance you have a wife (and/or kids) there too.
One of difficulties I had when I started working from home was being asked to put towels on the line or do dishes while I was in the middle of writing an article. Thus, I lost my train of thought and had to spend way more time than I should have catching it again, and if you succumb as I did, you will lose far too many business hours.
Now, you don’t want to put the wife in a bad mood – we’re all smart enough to know that! – and avoiding the housework is a surefire way to do just that.”
1. Some people with husbands work from home, too.
2. “Now you don’t want to put the wife in a bad mood” makes this piece sound like it was written in the 1950’s.
Get with the times and drop the sexism.
Nora says on April 28th, 2008 at 11:51 am
“put the wife in a bad mood”
So you believe only men read your articles?
Interesting.
R. Kneschke says on April 28th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
I developed the habit of checking my emails only after lunch, so this way I have the full morning of work with the computer without getting distracted by my mails.
Michelle says on April 28th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I’m glad someone beat me to commenting on ‘the wife’ references. I am a wife that sometimes works from home, too.
Peg. says on April 28th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Sorry to dogpile, but I work in four places, and one of them is my home office. My husband was the one who asked me to do things as if I were not “at work.”
And that’s what put the wife in a bad mood, sir. The tip is good, but the sexism in phrasing damages the credibility of the author.
Suzanne says on April 28th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
I hate it when my husband asks me to do dishes or help hang up towels when I’m in the middle of something.
Marelisa says on April 28th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Keep a white board outside of your home-office door (the kind you write on with a marker and can erase and reuse afterwards). That way your spouse can write any tasks he or she thinks of for you to do on the board and you can do them when you’re not in the middle of writing an article (that’s what I would do if I had a spouse).
Also,if I get unsolicited phone calls (like my phone company offering a new service) I simply say “I’m not interested, thank you, have a nice day” and I hang up.
Lastly, keep a notebook next to you where you can write down any random thoughts, ideas, or tasks to be done, as well as web sites or blogs to visit, so that you can do these things later and you’re not constantly getting sidetracked from the task at hand.
Lena says on April 28th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
“Sexist” remarks can be found in the most innocent texts, if they’re everything you’re looking for.
I myself absolutely can’t work without getting my make-up and hair done, a quick morning coffee, a traffic jam scandal and shouting people moving around my desk. So after trying both, I’m an office rat and I’m quite happy with that.
Pat says on April 29th, 2008 at 12:08 am
To the people that are complaining about his being sexist,
We are all one or the other and we all view the world from one viewpoint or the other.
The fact that you seem to be irritated or insulted by a man having a male viewpoint, perhaps you need to think about why you feel the need for the world to accommodate you AND why you feel entitled to expect it.
Peg. says on April 29th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Dear Pat,
All Mr. Falconer had to do was replace “wife” with “spouse” or “partner,” and he would have spoken to everyone. And yes, I do feel entitled, when an author who is supposedly speaking to everyone, not just men, to have my sex included. As it is, he chose to speak as if only men wrote articles from home.
It looks like both you and he may be That Guy, intentionally or no. Don’t be That Guy. http://synecdochic.livejournal.com/214607.html
Sarrah says on April 29th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Hello, I am a long time Lifehack subscriber, but I have never felt the urge to comment until now. This reads like something from the 1950’s, and I think you should put some thought into rewording the clearly sexist part of your article. Please remember that women work just as hard and want to increase productivity just as much as men do… and that husbands can be just as much of distractions as wives.
Pat says on April 29th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Peg,
Here, Let me correct that for you,
“he chose to speak as if he was writing an article from home.”
Which he was.
Would it really be so hard for you to think “Gee my husband has done the same thing to me, I think this might help”?
THINK. Viewpoint. Unique. Colored by gender? Yes, just as each of us are. So?
Why are you unable to understand someone having his or her own viewpoint and why do you feel you are entitled to make them edit their expression of it to fit your view of the world?
You aren’t that important. Neither is He or I.
If you are unable to mentally view that situation from your own viewpoint without the author having to use your chosen words instead of his own then you have bigger issues to be concerned about.
Pat says on April 29th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Oh, one more thing,
I am not male.
I do LOVE how you assume anyone that doesn’t share your opinion can be lumped together in your mind SO easily.
Let me ask you, what color is the sky in your little world?
Never mind, don’t bother to answer, I’m done with you.
Pat
Joel Falconer says on April 29th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
Pat and Lena, thanks for your rational viewpoints. The only sexism in this post is that which you read into it. The only place I exclusively used the word ‘wife’ instead of spouse was when describing a personal experience, which is a perfectly acceptable thing to do. My wife has read the article, and she proofs them all before going up, and can’t find any sexism in it – I would tend to agree with her assessment as I know her to be a rational, down-to-earth feminist.
It is worth noting that the system described in that small section of the article goes both ways – when she’s working, I don’t barge in asking for dishes to be done, either. We then both do housework after work together. There is nothing about that article that implies she must do all the housework – it just implies that the work day requires boundaries so work can get done.
NDK Creative Artist says on April 29th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Sometimes you run into a circuit
And it walks
And it talks
Just like a person
Sometimes that’s all the person,
You’ll ever see______!
~
Push play and walk away.
Nora says on April 30th, 2008 at 11:37 am
>If you work from home, according to some recent statistics I’ve read there’s a pretty good chance you have a spouse (and/or kids) there too.
This originally said “you have a wife (and/or kids) there too. So no, it wasn’t just your personal experience. Why change if it wasn’t sexist? Plus, you get points off for getting complaints, editing your article then claiming it wasn’t sexist.
Peg. says on April 30th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Thanks, Nora. Yes, he did change it from what was originally posted. Had it said “spouse” originally, I wouldn’t have noted the rest of it (writing from his perspective of having a wife) as anything worthy of comment.
The thing is, I *don’t* go looking for sexism. This stuck out to me like a sore thumb. I do hope both Pat and Joel followed my link, because they, like most of us, have some That Guy tendencies and might not be able to see them. I know I do, and I work on it.
Joel Falconer says on April 30th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
I changed the word well after I left that comment, not before, Nora. It’s not a concession; the actual statistic is that freelancers are more likely to have a wife—if the stat I had read used the word ’spouse’, I would have used that too, but it seems there are genuinely more married men than married women in the business. Doesn’t mean there aren’t married freelancing women, but it also doesn’t mean the stat was wrong or sexist. A stat is a stat.
I simply changed to the (now less accurate) phrase in the hopes that there wouldn’t be any more total misreading of the article. I do not believe it makes it “less sexist.”
Peg, as Pat has made quite clear, she can’t be “That Guy” because she’s a woman.
Martin says on May 11th, 2008 at 2:40 am
The author of this article used his personal experiences to illustrate his point, and therefore wrote parts of this article from his ‘point-of-view’. Why do some of you feel that everything he writes must be directed to both males and females? Is that logical? Take a step back, and the whole world is open to you.
Dave says on January 14th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Interesting how people hunt for things that they consider not Politically Correct, and in doing so, miss the whole point of the discussion.
Go with what the article was intending to get across and move on with life.
Sheeesh!
Bruce says on August 3rd, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Pahh, what a bunch of cauldron stirrers, enough already ! I’ll play the PC game …….. why do all the gif avatars clearly show a representation of a woman ?