Life Of E's » time thieves

Avoiding Telephone Time Thieves – 2

Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D. — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:36:10 +0000

Here are five more ways to be proactive about keeping chaos at bay. Implement the following ideas to avoid letting the telephone “steal” your time:

Use caller ID. If calls are coming through that are “unknown”, then you can feel better about not picking up the phone.
Put your number on “Do Not Call” registries. This works for home phones, but not for business phones.
Recognize that the way many companies are getting around “Do Not Call” registries is by saying that they are not selling anything, but are just taking a survey. Recognize these calls for what they are, and tell the person you are not interested and that you are hanging up. Don’t argue or discuss it. Give notice that you are hanging up, then do.
Be circumspect about giving out your cell phone number.
Recognize when you are using talking on the telephone to avoid doing something else you really need to! Be honest….we all do that sometimes.

Try at least one of these today and see what happens.

For more information on how to be more productive, visit: http://meggin.com/GetMoreProductive.php

Avoiding Telephone Time Thieves – 1

Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D. — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 15:34:50 +0000

Implement the following ideas to avoid letting the telephone “steal” your time (and of course, it’s not the “telephone” that is stealing your time, now is it?)

Don’t answer the phone. If you are doing something that has your attention, don’t pick up the phone. Let your machine or voice mail pick it up. We often let ringing phones interrupt us at times that we would never let a person interrupt us.
If you *do* answer your phone, set a timer that will go off after a designated amount of time. If it’s audible, it lets you and the caller hear it.
Have an egg timer by your phone. This is just to let you know the amount of time that has passed. There’s nothing audible…it just gives you a sense of the amount of time that is passing as you are on the phone.
Tell the truth. If someone calls and you are right in the midst of something, say that. If you have been on the phone longer than you can afford, tell the person that. Be honest.
At the beginning of a phone call, tell your caller that you have about 10 minutes, or whatever is the amount of time that you can devote to the call.

And here’s a bonus: When you do answer the phone, say, “Hello, Meggin McIntosh here (or probably, better to use your own name). How can I help you today?” This lets the other person know you are ready to help and you are ready to get right to it.

For more information on how to be more productive, visit: http://meggin.com/GetMoreProductive.php

Noticing Time Thieves

Meggin McIntosh, Ph.D. — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 15:56:53 +0000

Lurking all around you at home, at work, and everywhere in between, there are tasks, situations, technology, humans (and other mammals) who can potentially steal your time. Be on the lookout for the following time thieves:

Email
Telephone
Drop-in visitors
Procrastination
Self-distraction
Filing systems that aren’t
Energy suckers (which might include gossip or other negative and non-productive interactions)
Slow or inefficient reading
Junk mail
Re-thinking, i.e., churning through the same idea over and over and over.
Social media (I sure love it, but…whew…my time can sure get ‘taken’ (or really, I’m just giving it away!)

There are others that you might notice, too. The idea is just to become aware of what might be stealing your time and energy.

Also, consider this teleseminar (which is available as an MP3 along with extensive handouts) to help with time thieves: http://meggin.com/ATPAvailabletoPromise.php