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3. Figure out your no phrase.In order not to get stuck doing a lot
of C stuff that other people try to suck you into on the personal front,
perfect the art of saying no. Your response should be concise, polite,
slightly vague (so they cant offer an alternative), and unequivocal. A
phrase I like is, Thanks for thinking of me, but unfortunately I wont
be able to. Donotelaborate.
4. Handle a piece of paperor an emailonly once.A lot of time
management experts recommend this and its great advice. Every
time you pick up a piece of paper from your in-box (or look at
something on your computer) and then set it aside, promising
yourself youll deal with it later, you use up seconds that eventually
add up to minutes. Vow to deal with something the first time you look
at it. If it needs an answer, reply now. If it needs to be filed, do it
now. What this means, though, is that you must go through your
inbox only during parts of your day when youve allotted yourself
enoughtimeto fully deal with each item.
5. Speaking of email, only look at it four or five times a day:I
learned this from productivity expert Julie Morgenstern. As you can
imagine, it takes some practice, but its life changing. Rather than
constantly checking, checking, checkingwhich not only eats up so
much of your life but drives people insanerespond to email at only
specially designated times during the day.
6. Schedule stuff youd never think to schedule.Sure, some of the
greatest moments in life happen spontaneously and you dont want to
eliminate that kind of magic. But one of the best ways to make sure
certain things happen in your lifelike yourPimsleur Spanish
lessonsor researching your dream vacationis to put them on your
daily calendar. And as the former editor in chief of Cosmo, I will tell
theres nothing wrong or unsexy about even scheduling sex.
7. Do the math.Periodically you should figure out how much time
certain activities actually take up. Add up the minutes and hours.
Consider, for instance, surfing the web. Thirty minutes a day equals
three and a half hours a week equals a 182 hours a year, which is
seven and a half days a year!
8. Slice the salami.Okay, if I had to thank one person for the fact that
I was able to write eight mysteries and thrillers while I had a full time
job, it would probably be time-management expert Edwin Bliss. In
one of his books he pointed out that we often fail to tackle important
tasks not because we arent capable of doing them but because they
seem so big and unappealinglike a huge hunk of salami. Bliss
recommended slicing big project into thin, appetizing pieces. Rather
than vowing to write for a full morning, which I often did and then