NO MORE MONKEYS ! HOW TO BE THE TIME MASTER

NO MORE MONKEYS! HOW TO BE THE TIME MASTER

M.E. McWilliams, AARC 2013

YOU HAVE MONKEYS-- ON YOUR BACK

Do something for girl/boy friend’s

birthday!

Appeal parking fine!

Wash clothes!Find lost ID!

Pay tuition installment!

Get to tutoring

appointment!Buy batteries for calculator !

Finish math homework!

Read history chapter!

Write English

paper draft!

Call back mom!

Go to work!

Attend frat meeting!

WHY DO YOU IGNORE YOUR MONKEYS?

I will screw it up!--Fear of failure

I feel miserable while doing it!--Mood Avoidance

I have no idea how to begin!--Lack of knowledge

I am so far behind; What is the point?--Learned Helplessness

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU IGNORE YOUR MONKEYS?

Do something for girl/boy friend’s

birthday!

Find lost ID!

Pay tuition installment!

Get to tutoring

appointment!Buy batteries

for calculator !

Finish math homework!

Write English

paper draft!

Call back mom!

Attend frat meeting!

Wash clothes!

Read history chapter!

Appeal parking fine!

Go to work!

I WAS ONCE YOU

I had monkeys too, but I spent my time partying and napping. Oh I studied, but I studied

between midnight and 2 a.m.!

I could not understand why my grades were low--

I needed a SYSTEM!

M.E.Freshman, 1980

THE SYSTEM

1. Decide what monkeys are important.2. Break big monkeys into monkey bites.3. Jump-into the monkey.4. Get the monkeys in your face.5. Fight monkeys in the morning. 6. Adjust the monkeys all day.7. Rethink the monkeys on the weekend.

1. DECIDE WHAT MONKEYS ARE IMPORTANT

There are only 168 hours in a week.

You can’t save time. You can’t make more time.

You can’t do it all.Something has to go—

Wetmore, D. (2005). The productivity handbook.


1. At the top of the page, make a big star and next to it write down what is the most important goal you have right now.

2. Make a list of everything you did between 1:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. yesterday.

3. Put a check by all the things you did that contributed to your most important goal. You may be busy, but are you busy doing what is most important to you?

AND DO!


One of the best questions you can ask yourself is:

WHAT AM I NOT GOING TO DO TODAY?

2. BREAK BIG MONKEYS INTO MONKEY BITES

Some monkeys are

BIG!

Do not freak out.Think of your big task as an

elephant. How would you eat this

elephant? One little bite at a time.


How many “little bites” can you create out of the following BIG task:

Write a review of the movie Crash. The first paragraph will be about your criteria for a great movie. The body paragraphs

will evaluate whether the movie meets that criteria.

Take baby steps and before you know it,

you build momentum and you are running.

AND DO!



WHAT IS THE NEXT STEP?

3. JUMP INTO THE MONKEY

DO THE FIRST STEP!The task may require courage—FACE IT!The task may require you fail and then try again—THEN FAIL AND TRY AGAIN!The task may require sacrifice—GIVE UP WHATEVER YOU MUST!


AND DO!Tell about a time when:

you had to show courage. you failed and later succeeded. you gave something up in order to reach a

goal.

Build on your past successes. You did it before, you can do it again.



WHY AM I SO AFRAID OF THIS?

4. GET THE MONKEYS IN YOUR FACE

• Set up a calendar (google, outlook, yahoo). If you get stuck, google your question.

• Set up recurring events like birthdays and class. • Set up appointments and deadlines in red.• Use all caps and few words.• Anytime, any random thing to act on comes to

mind, put it in your calendar for a random day and time.

• Turn off alarms on your phone but leave them for web and ipad view. Make the alarms silent.

• Try viewing on phone and/or ipad.

Now you can see everything you need to see in one place!


THE PAPER CYCLE

Sometimes paper or an object like a usb or a laundry ticket, remind us of a task. We don’t have to record that on our calendar. We can get those

tasks in our face with this cycle.

The stuff comes in here. It is either

trashed, archived, or put in the inbox.

Choose 3 items from inbox and take those with

you out the door.


1. List Makers:

Reminders, Notes, Sticky Notes, Post-a-notes, Remember the Milk

2. Alarms:

When you want to be interrupted (Warning: Turn off your phone when in a meeting or class. Alarms make sound even if phone is on silent.)

Better me (posts to FB), Morning Routing (barcodes)


AND DO!

What is the criteria for a great calendar (ex: must allow for color coding)? Is your current calendar great?

Set it up and then be a slave to it!


One of the best questions you can ask yourself is

CAN I SEE MY CALENDAR FROM HERE?

5. FIGHT MONKEYS IN THE MORNING

Why is the morning the best time to work? The Morning 360!

Emails Calendar Backpack/purse House/room Dress First task: Do the thing you dread,

and the dread of it is certain.


In order to make the morning work for you, you have to take care of the night:Set an alarm for bed.

Ritual you like Shower All-Clear (10 minutes)

Quickly respond to a few more emails Quickly put things up and put things out for

tomorrow Quickly act on open screens and close


AND DO!

Getting up early only works if you go to bed early. What are the things you most look forward to about going to bed early?

Nothing good happens after midnight!



CAN I GET UP A LITTLE EARLIER?

6. ADJUST THE MONKEYS ALL DAY

Plan the day by choosing the random tasks for that day. Then as day goes on . . . ADD tasksDELETE tasks

Because I am not going to do this Because it has been done

MOVE tasks Into afternoon, next day, or day after that Because of interruptions Because it is taking longer than I thought Because I am feeling overwhelmed

At the end of the day, the calendar should be empty for that day as you have moved what didn’t get done.


AND DO!At the end of the day, there will be a lot of tasks that you had to keep moving down the list. You will need to PRIORITIZE and make some choices. What would you need to know about the following tasks to help you decide how to number them?

BIRTHDAY PRESENT FOR SWEETIE

LOST ID

BRAINSTORM FOR ENGLISH PAPER

BATTERIES FOR CALCULATOR

HISTORY CHAPTER 3

WASH CLOTHES



WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ?

7. RETHINK THE MONKEYS ON THE WEEKEND

Why aren’t more things getting done?

PROCRASTINATION PRODUCTIVITY: busy but not with the important things, often texting or emailing Unsubscribe from mass emailsImmediately delete what you canImmediately act on what you can: Send the document, create a task on calendar, reply etc.Reply only when you must (Cut back on Thank you! and Great!.) Write half as much as you used to write.

LOOK BACK AT WEEK



TOO MANY INTERRUPTIONS: When asked, Are you busy? What are you doing? Say, I have to go to ____ [stand] but for you I can make five minutes.

LOOK BACK AT WEEK



WHAT IS IMPORTANT HAS CHANGED: Rethink what is really important to you. It can change. What you do must be aligned with what is important.

Or could it be that what is important has not changed, but you are not making the right choices to support it?

LOOK BACK AT WEEK


Remember how you don’t want to be the fireman reacting toproblems he didn’t see coming?

Organize calendar for the week. Look at the following week. Glance at the week after that.

LOOK FORWARD


AND DO!On your calendar, For SundayAt a time of your choosing--Make a recurring event forRETHINK

Live a life without regrets.

Nothing good happens after midnight!

DO IT NOW!



WHY ISN’T ____ HAPPENING ?

BONUS: WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU ARE REALLY BEHIND?

Get up one hour earlier 360 Double-Time:

Do some things “less well” than usual: apple for breakfast instead of a full breakfast, iron the shirt but not the pants, respond with one-sentence emails, etc.

Skip some things completely: No Starbucks, no hoops with friends, no lunch with sweetie, no work-out, etc.

Hide: Find a place where people can’t find you. You can close a door, but people will still knock.

3 things: List on paper just the next three things to do. Do those three and list three more.

BONUS: HOW DO YOU AVOID GETTING BEHIND? GIVE YOURSELF LESS TO MANAGE!

LESS:clothes to wash and fold and dry cleanstuff in the house to cleanerrands (use bank drafts and direct deposits)organizations with meetings to attendtasks that someone else can doemails to reply to (unsubscribe)time spent on meetings I must organizefriends who want my time (What?! Yes!)

Simplify! Simplify!Keep your accounts on your thumbnail.

Thoreau

BONUS: WHY DO I STILL FEEL SO STRESSED?

You will need to schedule fun on your calendar. Doing so ensures that it will happen and that you have a balance to your life.

Your ability to generate power is directly

proportional to your ability to relax. You actually save time by

taking the time to relax. You will work much faster when you do work again.

Allen, D. (2001). Getting things done. New York: The Penguin Group

THE SYSTEM

1. Decide what monkeys are important.2. Break big monkeys into monkey bites.3. Jump-into the monkey.4. Get the monkeys in your face.5. Fight monkeys in the morning. 6. Adjust the monkeys all day.7. Rethink the monkeys on the weekend.

NO MORE MONKEYS ! HOW TO BE THE TIME MASTER

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