Feature entry

Articles collected by: Janet Schlarbaum
By James Hunt
Scheduling software and personal information management (or PIM) tools can help anyone become more organized and lead a much more productive business and personal life.
Scheduling software and personal information management tools allow us to store personal records for the purposes of calendaring, contact management, email management, instant messaging, and […]

Scheduling Software Can Help You Become More Organized

Scheduling Overcoming Resistance To Change

by Schlarbaum Capital Management | posted in Janet Schlarbaum, Mark Schlarbaum, Schlarbaum Capital Management | tagged as

Posted by: Janet Schlarbaum

By Constance Knieper

Its incredible how many people are interested in a better scheduling method yet few are willing to do actually do it. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If you want different results, you must take different actions. Yes, this does involve change which is overcome by completing adequate due diligence and creating a phased plan of implementation.

If you have taken the time to investigate other scheduling methods you have admitted there is a problem. Investigate other methods thoroughly. This includes testing them out by recreating past days or weeks using the recommendations outlined in the system you are considering relieving any anxiety about its success. You can also use upcoming days or weeks. Once you choose the solution, implement it.

Moving forward with scheduling changes is often waylaid by “what if’s”. These are anticipated objections created by opposition to change within the business or comments received from clients. The fact is that any change can be objected to by employees, clients, or maybe even both. It might even be objected by you.

Prepare responses to the objections you know will arise and address them before they are voiced. A good way to handle them is to create a positive mental picture detailing the benefits to the employees. You might organize them in this way:

1. List each complaint received from employees and/or clients.

2. Record the number of times it was received.

3. Identify the desired solution - this is the solution you determine appropriate based upon the complaints and/or suggestions received.

4. Using the anticipated results of the scheduling method you are considering, identify how it resolves the problem/complaint.

5. Identify the benefits to employees applying the new method.

Using the above information create a picture of the end result in a “what if” scenario but withhold the actual solution for now. The intent is to get employees enthused about the new scheduling method thereby increasing compliance when the implementation process begins. As far as client support goes, by resolving their complaints you gain their support.

Share the chosen solution after gaining majority support. Understand that you may not gain 100% support however you can usually get it over time by phasing the new method into the business. Prepare an action plan outlining the implementation process and finish dates for each phase. This enables a smooth transition and relieves anxiety of those not yet on board.

The biggest stumbling block to implementing a new scheduling method is overcoming resistance to change. These suggestions help to make the appropriate selection of a scheduling method that yields the desired results and increases staff support.

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Schedule Everything, Time Management Tips

by Schlarbaum Capital Management | posted in Janet Schlarbaum, Mark Schlarbaum, Schlarbaum Capital Management | tagged as

Suggested by: Janet Schlarbaum

By Luke Blaise

One approach to improving your time management skills is to schedule everything you need to do in a day like an appointment. Schedule everything from eating breakfast, driving to work, to grocery shopping.

The power of scheduling everything, is that you actually see how long certain tasks can take. This rigid scheduling also helps keep you moving from task to task quicker.

When you sit down to actually make your schedule be sure to plan for emergencies. Don’t schedule all your tasks back to back. Additional tasks and emergencies show up no matter what. If it is your boss giving you an additional report to do or your child getting sick, you need to allow some slack in your schedule.

Another thing to do is to buffer your appointments. Buffering means scheduling them longer than you expect them to take. This is commonly done in professional offices because rarely does something end on schedule.

Once you make your schedule, make every effort to stay on close a schedule as possible. When you find yourself running out of time on a task, or a task finishing quicker than expected. Make a note of it.

At the end of everyday, review your schedule and notes you took during the day. Identify areas that could be scheduled better. Then make your schedule for tomorrow today. This is the best time to do it, so tomorrow when you wake up you are ready to go. This is one of the more involved time management tips out there, but it is one that can quickly get your schedule and life under control.

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Effective Time Management

by Schlarbaum Capital Management | posted in Janet Schlarbaum, Mark Schlarbaum, Schlarbaum Capital Management, Uncategorized | tagged as

By: Laurus Nobilis
Why do we need to manage a Time? Although term Time might sound like something that is unlimited and free, since everybody can have it, whether someone is rich or poor, young or old, and having different occupation. But in reality, time is resource as anything else. We have some time granted to do a specific task in our life. We have a specific time watch a movie, to finish the school, complete a task in our jobs, we have a biological time to have offspring and finally we have a time to live our life.

Now, it is more obvious that the time is not that free and unlimited. Furthermore, you cannot turn time back or buy more, even if you are rich. Once the time has passed, there is no more. So, it is obvious that we need to manage our time given to perform a specific task, in a most time-efficient way.

Why we need the effective Time management? The answers are obvious. To achieve better results. To achieve quality of work To reduce stress To reduce errors To improve satisfaction with job To improve quality of private life.

In order to manage our time in a best possible way, we need to learn and utilize Time Management tools:

Prioritization

In every segment of our life activity, in our profession or in the recreation club, there are certain lists of activities that need to be accomplished. Since there are always more activities than we can handle at same time, we need to prioritize. In order to prioritize we use our judgment, common sense, experience or other people’s advices. However, there are more structured tools that can help us in prioritization.

Urgent/Important matrix

This tool helps us to filter tasks as per their urgency and importance. Urgent is something that needs attention - Now. Important is something that is related to results, goals and value. When we pair these two scales of importance and urgency, we get a matrix with four quadrants.

Pareto

Pareto principle is prioritization tool which states that 20% of our results comes from 20% of our effort. 80% of our revenue comes from 20% of our customers. 80% of our success comes from 20% of our effort.

This principle does not have to be in exactly 80:20 ratio, but essentially shows that there are certain activities that create most of our success, therefore we should give priority to them.

Fight Procrastination

Many people procrastinate (delay) accomplishment of tasks. In fact, everybody is procrastinating to some degree. To the most extreme situation, procrastination can totally block some process or destroy someone’s career.

In order to fight procrastination first we need to understand the degree of our habit of procrastinating. Second is to understand why is this happening. Third step is to take action to suppress habit of delaying or procrastinating task accomplishment.

Time Planning

While Prioritization is vertical dimension of Time Management, Time Planning is it’s horizontal dimension. Simply, by time planning, we position our activity in time. I order to track implementation of task planning through time, we conduct tracking in several time scales:

- Milestones are related to annual planning, project planning and seasonal events.

- Scheduling of Tasks is related to Monthly, Weekly and Daily scale, by recording incoming tasks and events in desired time format ( notebook, scheduler software, etc. )

- To Do List is a simple form of daily planning. It enables us to work better, serves as a reminder and helps us with task tracking. It also motivates us to do what we need to do and helps us to focus on priorities.

To Do List Tips:

1. At the end of a day spend 5 minutes to plan a next day.

2. Unfinished tasks from today schedule for tomorrow.

3. Include both, daily tasks and long term tasks in daily To Do list.

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Scheduling Templates The Benefits of Planning Your Schedule In Advance

by Schlarbaum Capital Management | posted in Janet Schlarbaum, Mark Schlarbaum, Schlarbaum Capital Management, Uncategorized | tagged as

Posted by: Janet Schlarbaum

By Constance Knieper

How many times have you looked at your schedule and wondered how you were going to fit everything in? How many times have you made the comment “this should have been scheduled here”? Do you have days where you’re empty at noon but the schedule dictates that you keep going until 5:00 pm? Do you dream of days that consistently flow smoothly AND you have accomplished everything intended – on time? Creating a scheduling template can solve these problems and change your life.

A scheduling template is a blueprint of your ideal day prepared in advance. It coincides with a prepared appointment guideline based upon individual desires and appointment history. The concept is similar to “painting by number”. Every possible or desired appointment is reserved in advance for up to one year at a time. Appointments are scheduled by referencing the guideline then locating the next available appointment of that kind.

Regain control of your time. The greatest benefit realized is the return of control over how your day is scheduled. Everybody seems to want everything yesterday or last week. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to respond that quickly, yet we are often forced to try. This is especially true if others are scheduling your appointments without a clear and specific set of instructions. A natural byproduct of the scheduling template is the development of a very clear set of scheduling instructions.

The formation of a plan for scheduling is a huge benefit. As stated, this is a natural byproduct of the template. Once created, it is easily learned and followed allowing anybody to schedule an appointment simply by referencing the guideline. People can be taught quickly, it is easily understood so they can begin scheduling immediately.

Incorporating personal desires with professional desires is often challenging. In fact, it is common for personal desires to be overlooked or skipped due to lack of time. A scheduling blueprint is a reflection of personal and professional desires. When creating the template, both are coordinated so that the ideal day includes time allocated to accomplish both.

Eliminate stress and fatigue. The scheduling guideline identifies all possible appointments including a list of all activities that can be completed within each one. Reviewing each appointment to ensure the time allocated is adequate for the activity aids in removing problems experienced routinely in the past. The ideal day is constructed using the guideline to reserve each predetermined appointment eliminating conflicts through the day. Since they conflicts are resolved in advance, stress and anxiety are reduced or eliminated.

Once the initial template and guideline are created they are easily updated. This is important since technology is improving at an astounding rate giving the ability to complete more in less time. Modifications to the template are easily incorporated and can be applied immediately or to subsequent years.

Generally, creating the ideal day carries forward to the ideal week, month, and year. Since the template is arranged to plan up to one year (can be longer if desired) it practically eliminates haphazardly scheduled days. The advance planning and development of a scheduling template has simplified the process of scheduling and resulted in more productive days.

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3 Must Do Time Management Activities to Save Time

by Schlarbaum Capital Management | posted in Janet Schlarbaum, Mark Schlarbaum, Uncategorized | tagged as ,

By: Maya Mah
Whether you are a lawyer, an employee, President of a huge company, in the military, a housewife, student or a business owner, you’re probably wondering how to create time to do all the things that you need to do!

Time is hard to find these days, and many people don’t realize it’s the root of most stresses.

Poor time management increases job stress, decreases your level of job satisfaction strains your relationships and even takes away your sleep!

Now, if you are suffering from poor time management, here are some tips to help you improve your time management skills right now.

1. Make a to-do list.

A to-do list will organize your jumbled thoughts by allowing you to write it all out and decide on what requires more priority due to a close deadline, for example.

So start by listing yours, breaking down the bigger ones. Then, label each according to their priority, paying close attention to deadlines and making sure to think over which are really the most urgent and important.

Now you can get started on your things to do!

2. Take notes

You can do this in addition to your to-do list if you prefer. But by taking notes, you are pretty much reminding yourself of all sorts of ideas you might have throughout the day.

How many times do you come up with a great idea for your next project only to forget it?

Jot ideas down right away and don’t rely on yourself to remember it tomorrow. This will save you tons of time spent in trying to rethink something you’ve already thought about!

So get started with this habit by carrying around a small notepad or tape recorder, nothing big. Start noting down your valuable thoughts.

3. Learn to focus.

Figure out what needs to be done now and focus! Don’t stress over your boyfriend’s upcoming birthday, dinner with your mom or your child’s baseball game - just focus on the task at hand!

Avoid being open to interruptions. Once you focus completely on what you need to do NOW, you’ll be able to get it done quicker than if you were distracted by things that are less important.

Doing this alone will increase your productivity and save you tons of time spent in switching tasks or in asking “Uh, where was I…”

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Top 3 Personal Time Management Techniques You Can Use Today

by Schlarbaum Capital Management | posted in Janet Schlarbaum, Mark Schlarbaum, Schlarbaum Capital Management, Uncategorized | tagged as ,

By: Rigdha Acharya
I’ve always been impressed with people who have tons of things to do and yet at the end of the day still have time to spend with their families.

I have definitely been overwhelmed with responsibilities one too many times, thinking I’d one day explode from all the stress! Not to mention the hot head I’d experience throughout the day.

Until I found out what these people who manage to get things done during the day and enjoy time with their family were doing.

You see, these people who manage to get things done and enjoy quality time with their family are experts at personal time management.

And here are the 3 techniques I have learned from them for effectively managing my time. They changed my life around and I’m confident they’ll do the same for you.

1. Perfectionist? Don’t be.

It is really hard to finish something when you can’t seem to get it right, isn’t it?

Not only that but it takes A LOT of time to be perfect. So learn to take that saying literally: “Nobody’s perfect” and tell yourself to do the best that you can with the little time that you have.

It may not be perfect, but it’ll still be great!

2. Reward yourself.

After a difficult day’s work or task, especially a very tiring one, relax!

Let all the stress just flow out of your body with a nice, warm bath, or treat yourself to a massage.

It’s no fun having to do all work and no play. Balance is the key to enjoying life as you should.

Rewarding yourself for even the littlest achievements are not only satisfying, they motivate you to WANT to have responsibilities.

3. Make plans and give yourself flexibility.

Get organized with your daily tasks. Write them down, prioritize each, and then fit them into your schedule for say, a month.

But don’t fill up each day with these tasks. We sometimes make the mistake of taking on more than we can handle.

To make yourself organized and flexible at the same time, make your day half planned, and half ready for anything. It’s easier to adjust to emergency situations or events that always “just seem to come up”.

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Ten Commandments For Time Management

by Schlarbaum Capital Management | posted in Janet Schlarbaum, Mark Schlarbaum, Schlarbaum Capital Management, Uncategorized | tagged as , ,

By: Akhil Shahani
“Time is the scarcest resource of the manager; if it is not managed, nothing else can be managed.” - Peter F. Drucker

One of the major causes of stress is work overload and not having enough time to accomplish your tasks. The easy way to get out of this predicament is to get organized and managing your time effectively. The goal of time management should not be to find more time. The goal is to prioritize what is important and use the time available wisely.

We’ve put together 10 tips to help you take charge of your life and enjoy what you do:

1. Make a list and prioritize: Time management starts here. Write down a list of tasks to be done, rank them on a scale of importance and plan when you will complete them. Writing down objectives, duties and activities helps to make them more manageable and do-able. Prioritizing tasks will help you minimize stressful situations.

2. Get into a routine: Select a time of the day or week to get certain routine tasks accomplished such as answering email, replying to calls, completing paper work; then stick to it.

3. Learn to say “No”: There are times when you have to learn to draw the line. Poor time management is often the result of our tendency to say “yes” to too many things. Every time you agree to do something out of schedule, another task that was scheduled will not get done. Learn how to say no. Sometimes the “no” has to be said to yourself - do not take on more than you are capable of.

4. Do not commit to activities in the future: Even if a commitment is a year ahead, it is still a commitment. You have no idea what your situation will be then and no matter how far ahead it is, it will still take the same amount of your time.

5. Break up large tasks: If possible, large tasks should be broken up into a series of small, manageable tasks. This will make it easier for you to deal with them. Also, by using a piecemeal approach, you will be able to fit a lot more into your hectic schedule.

6. Conserve your efforts: Look at the way you do things. Are you a perfectionist? If so, try to decide which tasks truly require meticulous attention to detail and which can be done casually. There is a place for perfectionism, but for most activities, there comes a stage when there is not much to be gained from putting extra effort.

7. Choose your course of action: Often, we start a task, think about it, and then lay it aside. This gets repeated over and over again. This way, you have not completed the task and you have also lost valuable time. When you are confronted with a task, decide what you are going to do - deal with it right away or attend to it at a later time.

8. Set time limits: We’re talking time management, so naturally, along with setting up start times for activities we also need to set up stop times. This will call for some estimating, but your guesswork will improve with practice. This will allow you and others to better schedule activities.

9. Pad your schedule: Allot yourself enough time to accomplish a task and cut back on anxiety. If you have trouble meeting deadlines, always give yourself 20 percent more time than you think you need to do the job.

10. Plan your activities - To get all this done, you have to set aside time to plan and schedule your activities. Ironically, if time management is important to you, you need to allow yourself enough time to plan the way you will use it.

By taking the time and effort to plan and prioritize your activities, you will be able to achieve much more than you ever thought was possible in a 24-hour day. So go ahead and incorporate the above tips into your work habits and see where it takes you.

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