"Pre-crastination"
One of the sessions I run during my Time Management workshops is on “How to Become a Time Lord”. Readers familiar with this long-running British Sci-Fi adventure will know that a Time Lord has the ability to travel through time and space to right wrongs and prevent catastrophes happening.
Being a real-life Time Lord is easier and involves doing the opposite of procrastinating (“pre-crastinating”) …
Procrastination is putting off to tomorrow (or later) what you can or should do today. It usually involves tasks that we consider difficult or unpleasant. Some “experts” say that procrastination is merely a way of putting something off until it becomes so urgent that you have to do it (and risk doing it badly through having less time). Others say that procrastination can be good because putting off a decision may, for example, allow for more information to come to light to support better decision-making.
My suggestion for “pre-crastinating” goes like this. Assuming that many of us have a “ToDo” list (and, for some, it may even be “prioritised”), we may often come to a point during the day when we can’t progress any of today’s tasks because we’re waiting for a final piece of information, equipment or delivery to come through. At this point, I look ahead to the next day (or days) to see what needs doing and whether there’s anything that I could do relatively quickly whilst I wait for people to come back to me on today’s items.
Ideally, this item shouldn’t be something that demands prolonged and concentrated thought, because there’s always a risk that we’ll be interrupted by that vital “last something” for the task that’s underway finally coming through. Anything like an email, phone call, that can be done within minutes generally falls into the “can-do” category. Writing up that sales report may not.
The effect of this is to free up time in the future time for other important (or sudden “urgent”) tasks which may need more effort. Ultimately, it reduces potential stress, plus it makes us look like we’re in complete control.
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My websiteprovides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Career, Productivity, Strategy
posted by William Martin @ 13:49
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