Time management for information professionals: workshop report

NOTE: I used bold, italics, and underline in my Word document of this report to make it easier to read; unfortunately, when I copied and pasted the report to my blog, those niceties were lost. I don't know how to maintain them in the blog short of adding them back in manually. I will share my Word document if anyone wants it.


On Saturday, June 11, 2005, I attended an excellent workshop on “Time management for information professionals,” at the new One Palace Road building at Simmons College in Boston. The instructor was Pamela Kristan, author of The spirit of getting organized: 12 skills to find meaning and power in your stuff. There were 5 participants including me. I have handouts if anyone is interested in them.

The workshop began with each of us explaining a little about ourselves: one of the participants is a paralegal who must bill her work in 6 minute increments; one was a law librarian serving many attorneys in a large Boston law firm; one was a librarian/manager responsible for many different areas; and the last participant works for a corporate library.

Common time management problems among all of the participants included: too much e-mail; fishbowl office or cubicle; frequent interruptions throughout the day; know we need to delegate but don’t know the best way to do it; priority tasks are pushed aside by special requests; consistently have to stay late in order to finish (although we never really feel finished); procrastination; desk messy/can’t find things; filing piles up/can’t find what we need.

The instructor began with the idea that making choices=time management. She suggested the first of several themes: Pause button concept: treat interruptions like the pause button on a VCR: when you’re interrupted, make a mental picture of what you were doing at the time of the interruption so that you can go back to where you were. She suggested using a sticky note to write down a reminder; an example for me might be to write down that I was thinking about where to find the policy I drafted last year on usage of the public computers, so that after the interruption, I can go back to what I was thinking about before the interruption.

Brief history of time management: Previously people lived in accordance with nature; they could do certain things during the day but not at night because of the darkness. With the advent of fire and later lights, people could do things at night that they previously could not. The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century had folks working in factories in artificial light, doing work in pieces instead of creating the entire product. Our modern time management problems began with the advent of electronics: computers, Internet access, e-mail, etc. In the not-too-distant past (several decades ago), the normal turnaround time for a response to business communication was approximately 10 days. Now, when we send an e-mail message, we expect an immediate response; the same is true of our colleagues sending us messages: they expect a response within a few hours at the most instead of 10 days. We are now way beyond being able to keep up. It is no longer possible to keep up with all of the demands placed upon us every day by technology. We need to divorce ourselves from the unrealistic expectations engendered by machines. The instructor referred to this as the escalation of expectation: we must break the cycle of expecting an immediate response and be able to bear the consequences.

It is impossible to do it all: electronics have made us more aware of the possibilities: “Since I know about it, I should be able to do it.” But it is literally impossible to do everything we hear of, that we’d like to do, that’s good for us, or that others expect of us.

We are constantly making choices, but we don’t necessarily know the reasons behind the choices. We need to learn to make choices consciously and bear the consequences of the choices. The purpose of this class is to give us the tools to be able to make the necessary choices and to develop the skills necessary to put it into practice.

We discussed the 80/20 rule: in any collection of items, 80% of significance of entire collection is in 20% of the items. Our job is to extract the 20% and concentrate on that. It’s possible to learn to figure out what the 20% is in less time. We do many things every day that are not important: that’s okay to a certain extent, but we should realize it and should not invest a lot of time or energy into the things that are not important.

The instructor mentioned developing the observer: observe what’s going on; don’t make value judgments, just observe. From the instructor’s handout: “Your inner observer furnishes data to support your choices. It notices not only what’s happening, but also how you feel about it…” This involves both/and: staying in touch with your internal rhythm while being attuned to others.

Time management profile: Reflect our preferences for operating within our given time.

(From the instructor’s handout):
Do you like to: Start projects from scratch? Finish things; get them off your desk? Keep things humming along?

When working on a complex project, do you: Figure out what to do first, what to do next, etc., and then do the steps in order? Dive into the middle and work your way around it?

When doing a task you like, do you prefer to work in: Long stretches of time, without breaks or changing tasks? Short segments of time, taking breaks and/or changing tasks frequently?

When your energy is fading, do you: Seek out other people for a chat, visit, or phone call? Retreat into your “cave”?

When is/are your peak time(s)?

When is/are your slow time(s)?

We discussed that certain tasks require a certain type of time management profile and that your strength is also your weakness. Pam recommended that we identify our profile/pattern, use it when appropriate, and learn how to do things differently when appropriate. One of the participants mentioned that she knows she needs to change some things, specifically she needs to re-organize her work area, but she doesn’t want to take time out from her tasks to do it. But it’s impossible to do everything anyway, so it makes sense to spend 20 minutes or so on something that will organize you better or will help you to work more efficiently, even though it does mean time spent away from your actual tasks (but you can control how much time).

The next concept concerned when a project is bigger than the amount of time you have to devote to it. For example, you have 30 minutes before a meeting and you want to get something done on a big project. Get in, get out concept: set a timer for 20 minutes, then work diligently for those 20 minutes. At the end of the time, close down: look back at what you did, ask yourself what really helped me move forward? Acknowledge to yourself any progress you made, so that you’re not recognizing your accomplishment only when you finish the project (which can be weeks or months in the future). Decide what you need to do next, write it on a sticky note and put it on top of the project’s papers; then put everything away in your “pending projects parking place.” This method gives you a sense of accomplishment for even small progress; gives you the chance to identify the next step and to write it down; and everything is cleared away and organized for the next time you can work on that project.

We discussed the question of controlling interruptions: communication is vital: tell your co-workers when you can be interrupted and when you need time for a project, etc. One idea is to have “stop lights” in front of each office: red (don’t interrupt); yellow (possibly okay to interrupt); and green (okay to interrupt). We in the reference department have tried a modification of this: when an office door is closed, we assume that the person doesn’t want to be interrupted. Use your observer to determine what time of day you are usually interrupted; is there a certain time of day when you are likely to be interrupted? For projects that others give you later in the day, try something like “I’ll need it by 3pm so I might be able to do it before I leave at 5pm.” This is an example of being proactive. Another proactive move is to go to another place temporarily if you need to work uninterrupted.

The issue of communication styles is important: “Some people want just the facts, others want the whole context (details). Some want to know how things affect everyone, others just want results.” (from instructor’s handout). Use your observer to determine the other person’s style, then talk to them using their (not your) style.

Delegating means empowering someone else. Use your observer to determine what project or part of a project can I delegate? Take notes when you’re observing and thinking about this; then take time to look closely at the notes to determining what you need to do yourself and what you can delegate. Identify the right person to delegate to, ask that person if it’s possible to delegate to her/him, then train him or her to do what you need. Again, clear communication is key.

By consensus of the group, we discussed physical space (i.e. desks, etc.) next. We have more stuff than ever before; the 80/20 rule works here. (The example dealt with organizing papers at home, but it could be applied to work as well). People are afraid to tackle big organizing jobs (closets, files, etc.) due to the fear that they won’t be able to stop and that the project will take hours or even days. The key is to set a time limit and stick to it. Set a timer for ¼ to 1/3 less than the total time allotted, to allow time to close down. The first step is to SORT the papers into categories: 1. Spend 10 minutes to straighten up (neater) the piles of papers that need to be organized. 2. Find a pile containing items which are unknown to you (i.e. you don’t know what they are). Take a sample from that pile and base your categories on that sample. 3. Sort “like with like” from sample. Don’t let your associative mind run off: for example, if you find an invitation in the pile, don’t allow yourself to get distracted by calling the person to RSVP; just sort the invitation into the appropriate category and continue sorting. Also, don’t start reading instead of sorting. Pam (the instructor) said she knows when she’s moved from sorting to reading when she removes her glasses. Be aware of cues like that and don’t let yourself get distracted. Allow yourself a category for “don’t know where it belongs.” Ask yourself: how do I use this? and sort accordingly. The next step involves STAGING: after you determine the appropriate categories, ask yourself: where should the stuff go? (from the handout): “Move it along: Move things in the direction they’re headed; …things to file might go on top of the file drawer or in the first folder…data entry next to the computer. Active/archive: Have things you use often close at hand, what you use less often farther away. Things rarely used can be out of sight, even out of the room. Like with like: Put like things together: all the car things, all the financial things, all the unread magazines, etc.” SUSTAINING: Spend as much time as you need to keep the papers organized, but no more. Observe how long/how often you do maintenance tasks and modify accordingly. Pam’s advice regarding work files: alphabetical arrangement might not be best. She prefers functional arrangement instead: grouped by subject regardless of alphabetical order. Organize e-mail folders and printed files using the same categories. SHEDDING: We keep much more stuff than we need, both at work and at home. For work files, decide which ones you really need and organize only those; put the others somewhere else for a set amount of time (year?) and record which files you needed to access during that time. At the end of the year, use the record to decide which files to discard and which to add to the ones you’ve already organized.

Choices: Must say no to other options, in order to be able to choose the one you will go with.

Procrastination: She asked us to imagine our lives if we are no longer procrastinating; what do we give up by not procrastinating? The group came up with a list including: complaining about workload (camaraderie); adrenaline rush when finish something at the last minute (motivation drama); attention (having others ask about the project/task; even though it’s negative attention); what we like; time; guilt (which can perversely contribute to not getting something done); not having to face the outcome (fear of failure); etc. After we discussed the list, Pam mentioned that we can still have the above items but from sources other than procrastination.

E-mail: Practice recognizing the messages you must respond to/do something with; the ones you don’t need to; and the ones you might need to (i.e. yes, no, or maybe). Agree with your colleagues to eliminate e-mail loops: thanking for message, thanking for thanks, etc. Be clear on the criteria for messages which do not require a response; try putting the answer in the subject line: Pam uses NFM (no further message) at the beginning or end of the subject line, so that folks can just look at the subject line and then delete the message (i.e. for a quick answer, etc.) Use many folders in Outlook with the same groupings as your paper files. Use the sorting function of Outlook: sort into now, later, whenever categories; can have messages from certain senders show up in a different color; sometimes helpful to move items from in-box to a temporary holding station until you can assign a priority to the message (keeps the in-box from appearing so cluttered).