
Time management hacks - karika
http://www.slideshare.net/egarbugli/26-time-management-hacks-i-wish-id-known-at-20
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pagade
Look at your TODO list and check if you can:

Eliminate - Is this really needed to be done? What if I just don't do it?

Delegate - Do _I_ have to do it? Is it ok if someone else does it for me?

Automate - Will I have to do this again? If yes, can I automate it?

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sgpl
^ This is much more helpful than the posted content; which is essentially a
collection of quotes on time management.

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jacalata
"Things I wish I'd known at 20: Your time is worth $1000/hour, act like it"

Actually, for most 20 year olds that's not true. For me, for instance, it was
absolutely a good tradeoff of time and money for me to catch a train to the
airport, taking 1 hour and $10, instead of catching a $50 cab for a half hour
trip (therefore, I am saying that half an hour was worth less to me than $40).
Clearly he meant this 'metaphorically', but when your metaphor breaks down so
easily, it might not be as meaningful as you thought. What did he actually
want to say there? Was it something less pithy like 'value your time'?
'Consider the opportunity costs of everything you spend time on'?

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tedivm
Lets say that 30 minute cab ride cost an additional $40. If your job is paying
you $8 an hour then you have to work an extra five hours for it. Taking the
bus didn't cost you half an hour, it saved you four and a half.

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trhtrsh
Your job may be paying you $8/hr, but if you can be doing something to move up
to a higher paying job, the value of that activity may well be >$8/hr

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m_ke
My best time management hack was replacing my todo list with a calendar. With
todo lists I tended to put things off for later and never got everything done.
With a calendar I'm forced to commit to a specific time.

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azov
It's missing one slide: "it's more important to be happy than productive".
Crossing stuff off your TODO list with maximum possible speed is not the end
goal in itself.

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Houshalter
What if being happy is on the TODO list?

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jdotjdot
Then you are bound to fail.

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lubujackson
Unless you can be happy in hour increments.

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wongwf82
The biggest hack I have was using 20 minutes countdown clock like
<http://e.ggtimer.com/20minutes>. And it must be easily accesible from the
Bookmarks toolbar so I can easily select 20 minutes, etc. and then get going.
I think this relates to point #7: "We're always more focused and productive
with limited time". :)

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Paul_D_Santana
The simplest and easiest way to get more important things done:

Ask yourself three times daily, via Outlook reminder or whatever is
convenient:

"Am I inventing things to do to avoid the important?"

This is from the book The Four Hour Workweek, an excellent, excellent book.
I've listened to it twice now (26 hours). This book has changed my mindset and
has made me much more efficient and effective at work, and life in general.

Also suggested in the book, time tracking software like rescuetime.com or
Manic Time is extremely eye opening. It was astounding how long I was spending
writing emails. Now I have various email templates for common issues I face.
What a great book.

[Edit]: Well that is quite the coincidence: another article on the front page
of HN talks about Tim Ferriss: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5470252>

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trhtrsh
The key to productivity is to harness procrastination: Always have something
else to avoid, that makes your work seem like procrastination. Make up a
dreaded obligation, so that work for your other goals is seen as an escape.

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prof_hobart
The only one I don't agree with is 21 - "Yesterday's home runs don't win
today's game".

Whilst you can no longer do anything about what happened yesterday, it can
still have a huge influence on how today goes, particularly if you spend much
of your day influencing other people, and you often need to keep that in mind.

E.g. - I'm preparing for a presentation with a director - did my last
interaction with him go well? If not, I'm probably going to have to work extra
hard at getting my message across.

Unfortunately a lot of people don't seem to get this and treat pretty much
every interaction as a self-contained thing, not realising what effect
existing preconceptions will have on this interaction, and not really thinking
about what impact this interaction wil have on future ones.

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trhtrsh
You didn't read the whole quote. It says to focus on the present and future,
not rest on past laurels.

The quote was "Yesterday's _home runs_ don't win today's game" not
"Yesterday's _practice_ don't win today's game".

~~~
prof_hobart
But yesterday's home runs may well have a psychological impact on both you and
your opponent in today's game.

Not resting on your laurels is fine, but putting what happened yesterday
totally out of your mind when you come to today's game/task isn't always the
best thing to do.

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chatmasta
Time management is knowing your limits and navigating around them. Or, in HN-
speak, "optimizing for your productivity given a constraint of 24 hours."

