There are only eight hours in a work day. One of them is spent during lunch. Another is probably spent checking e-mails. The other six are packed with tasks you’ve been assigned by your boss or clients. Let’s not forget the many interruptions you get throughout the day. People who are not on your calendar just show up at your door and throw your schedule off track because they wanted to tell you something. Even a five to ten minute conversation can get you off schedule. So how do we manage it all? I think I have figured it out. This is the method that I use to organize all of my tasks and make sure that everything gets done on time.

1. Check all e-mails when you arrive to work. Start with the oldest unread e-mail. One by one, reply to your e-mails in one of three ways:
- If the e-mail is something that can be replied to within sixty seconds, reply to it.
- If the e-mail requires you to do something quick like make copies of something or sign and return a contract and is not urgent, put it your task list to complete by the end of the day or by its deadline.
- If the e-mail requires time for research, brainstorming or production, set aside time on your calendar to complete it. That’s right. Set an appointment with yourself on your calendar and do not break it! This appointment can range from one hour to four hours, depending on the time needed to complete the task. Also, remember to prioritize. If the e-mail doesn’t need a response until next week, you don’t have to schedule an appointment for it right away.

2. Block of the last 30 minutes or hour of your day to complete items you have assigned to your task list that are that day. (Tomorrow’s tasks can wait until tomorrow.)

3. Once all of your e-mails have either been answered, assigned to a task or put on your calendar, you are ready to start your work day!

4. If someone interrupts you during the day and gives you another task, jot it down and add it to your task list or calendar at the end of the day. Do NOT stop what you are doing unless they tell you it is urgent.

5. If you all of a sudden have to stop what you are doing to work on a new priority task, rearrange your calendar immediately. Place your new task in the current time slot and move everything else down. This may cause some of today’s task to fall over into tomorrow or maybe even next week.

6. At the end of the day, check your inbox again and browse it for any high priority e-mails (usually marked with an exclamation mark in Outlook). Go through these, reply to those that can be responded to quickly and add everything else to either your task list of your calendar. If your office is as busy as mine is, you will have a fresh batch of e-mails when you arrive the next day.

And the cycle starts over again.

That’s all, folks! I hope this helps. Let me know if it works for you!

Update on July 13, 2011

Tags: jasmine brooks, time management, work

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