Comments on: Getting Beyond the Busy Work

By: jackie connelly

jackie connelly — Tue, 05 May 2009 15:13:48 +0000

I hired an awesome local marketing consultant (PLUG: http://www.sara-pereira.com) who, after writing my annual marketing plan, broke it all down into monthly (and then into weekly) tasks. Literally all I have to do now is open to the page of the current week and work my way down the list. There’s space to add other to-do’s as they come up which may or may not relate to my sales&marketing, but even if they don’t relate, I write them here so that everything is on one piece of paper.
I’ve also heard about organizing a meeting with yourself once a week as you mention here, and I agree I think it’s both a great idea AND something that’s really hard to do. Right now i’m trying to physically schedule it into my friday afternoon calendar, we’ll see how that goes.
As always, great post, love it!
~ j

By: finding focus | Lorissa Shepstone

finding focus | Lorissa Shepstone — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:46:54 +0000

[...] recently read this great post from emira: getting beyond the busy work. such a timely post for me. i’ve found more and more my day is consumed with all the [...]

By: Lorissa

Lorissa — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:05:59 +0000

This is such a needed reminder for me right now – thank you! I’ve found myself beyond stressed with my to-do list, and tired from a “busy” day, but not actually accomplishing much. It’s all that “busy work” and no “real work”.

Amazing how just the thought of shutting down my email for part of the day almost has me breaking into a sweat. What if a client urgently needs me? What if there is a hiccup that must be resolved immediately? That “feeling needed” thing? – yeah, guilty. But, this is definitely a step I need to take, especially if I want to grow the business. I like the idea of a weekly meeting with myself as well – refocus, set new goals and hopefully, move forward.

By: StephanieHillberry

StephanieHillberry — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 15:28:02 +0000

On a good day, I force myself to shut off my email (including all of my RSS feeds) all morning. I open it at lunch to respond to messages, etc. and then I shut it down again until late afternoon.

Because I’m a blogger and spend A Lot of time online, this is always hard for me. But to take my blog to the next level, ironically I have to Step Away from the Web for dedicated chunks at a time.

Also, I find that if I physically Remove the phone and Shut the door to my office, I can concentrate much better. Something about that connection to the physical world helps….

All said, multitasking really doesn’t work well for me in the long run. I am the most successful at accomplishing my daily goals if I just stick to one thing at a time.

By: Paula G

Paula G — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:53:05 +0000

Oh how I love this post… I will have to blog about this one. What I love to do is challenge my coaching clients to disconnect. It can do wonders to cure overwhelm, help you get things done, and generally make you more peaceful. Once the withdrawal shakes pass from putting down the IM, blackberry, cell phone, etc. you can really get into a flow.

I totally relate and feel your technology pain. Having experienced multiple bouts of this in recent months I have taken a new approach and hired someone to solve the problem (just because I CAN eventually figure out a problem doesn’t mean I SHOULD). Nonetheless… all the more important to underpromise and overdeliver so these “life happens” moments don’t do us in… or at least very infrequently.

By: Laura.

Laura. — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:43:39 +0000

i do this at my boring desk job! i open my email once when i get to the office, check for any new tasks, delete the ones that are system-wide reminders, answer the ones that can be answered quickly–basically do as much clean-up as possible in my inbox.
then i make a to-do list from the rest of the emails: items to research, projects i need to work on. i also spend a fair amount of office time with my phone on ‘do not disturb’. with these two distractions, gone, i can get a lot done. or, i can spite my employer by surfing the internet, researching things for my own business.
when i have done all the tasks on my to-do list, and need to contact my clients, or need something new to do, i re-open my email.
it usually works pretty well. i have also disabled that stupid pop-up that alerts me to a new email. that is the worst, for my workflow and my brain.