Delegate and Automate to Get More Done

Tasks are thrown at us each day via calls, emails, meeting conversations, texts and people stopping by our office. With our limited time, it often feels as if there are never enough minutes to get it all done; yet, our inability do it all on our own does not eliminate the never-ending to-do list. Until cloning becomes a realistic option or we can get our Inspector Gadget tools, we need alternative solutions.

When evaluating tasks requesting your attention, think this way:

1. Does this task need to be completed at all? If not, can it be deleted, totally removing it from my to-do list?
2. If the task must be done, does it need to be done immediately? If not, to when can it be deferred?
3. Does this task require my unique skill set? If not, can someone else learn from doing it or does someone else have a skill set that will get it done better, more thoroughly or more quickly? To whom can it be delegated?

In any instance where a task can be completed by someone or something else, you open up time in your schedule to allocate towards getting something done that only you can accomplish.

Resources for delegation are not limited to existing member of your team, whether those at your company, members of your household or volunteers on a committee you chair. There are endless options for delegating the different types of tasks on your to-do list: Errand Girl, Fancy Hands, Fiverr, GigSalad, Guru, Metro's Other Woman, Moonlighting, Outsourcely, Red Butler, Sweeps, Task Rabbit, Thumbtack, Upwork, 99Designs. Likewise, consider delegating the task of grocery shopping to options such as Instacart, Shipt or Amazon Prime Now. Or think about how personal assistants can help, like Amazon Alexa, Cortana, EasilyDo, Google Home or Siri.

Automation is a form of delegation where you delegate to technology and can massively expand how much you get done concurrently. Set what rules apply to your needs in automation tools like IFTTT, Podbox, Zapier and social media managers like Buffer, Edgar, Falcon Social, Hootsuite, SocialOomph and Sprout Social. These "set it and forget it" solutions fulfill your desire to do two things at once while not hiring a human-being to help.

What are some tasks on your to-do list that could benefit from deleting, deferring or delegating? Which of the aforementioned tools might be a positive addition to your productivity toolbox?

Baker’s Dozen Rules for Proper Time Management

How do you handle managing your time? Do you have a philosophy or best practices by which you swear for time management?

If you’ve been reading my blog awhile, you know I believe in managing our actions and the tools at our disposal rather than talking about time management as there’s nothing we can do to change how each day is limited to only 1,440 minutes. Still, this National Time Management Month is a great time to discuss some basic principles for best investing our limited time.

Here are some of what I recommend as basic principles for investing your time and, thereby, making every minute matter:

1. Saying yes to doing one thing means no to another. As time is a limited resource, we cannot invest the same minutes in multiple ways, and we can’t get back what minutes we’ve already invested elsewhere.

2. Be proactive in planning how to invest your time with monthly reviews of what’s upcoming, weekly strategy sessions to draft plans and daily wrap-ups.

3. Assign a “when” to each “what” to get more done. I have yet to find a calendar with “someday” but I complete tasks for which I’ve set aside time.

4. Plan no more than 3 – 5 “must-do” tasks per day. It is easy to feel like we are superheroes who can complete endless lists of to-do items; however, we are all human and can do only so much with what time we are gifted daily.

5. Enlist your energy level as a productivity tool. If your energy peaks first-thing in the morning, you may choose to tackle your most difficult tasks first; however, if your energy peaks later in the workday, you may prefer to start with easier tasks and build momentum to do your more difficult work later.

6. Align your actions with your priorities and goals to prevent burnout. As what’s important may shift over time related to work, home, community or society and the private realm of mind, body and spirit, continually audit how you are investing your time and focus your actions to what’s important.

7. Delegate or automate when you can. Consider resources like Fancy Hands, Fiverr, Guru, Help Tap, Moonlighting, Task Rabbit, Thumbtack, Upwork and 99Designs to enlist others’ help for getting things done; alternatively, If This Then That, Podbox, Zapier and social media managers like Buffer, Edgar, Falcon Social, Hootsuite, SocialOomph and Sprout Social help you “set it and forget it” so things happen without you having to invest your time to do it all.

8. Keep a list readily available of which tasks can be done in a 10- or 30-minute time slot so you are prepared to hit the ground running when those free moments magically appear.

9. End procrastination. Break projects into bite-sized actions so each step is less daunting. Ask for help or seek direction on anything that is ambiguous. If a task takes less than 5 minutes, just do it. Assign rewards for celebrating successful completion of tasks or ramifications for missed deadlines.

10. Utilize a timer. Get started on a “big, hairy, audacious” goal. Capitalize on how activity breeds activity. Attack challenging tasks for shorter times. Stay on task when working for a longer period of time. Energize greater results with shorter spans of effort.

11. Limit distractions. Turn off the pings and dings for notifications. Send your phone directly to voicemail as needed. Set a timer for how long you will use social media. Consider working remotely at times. Employ technology (like KeepMeOut, LeechBlock, Nanny, SelfContol and StayFocused) to block distracting websites temporarily.

12. Manage your tech instead of letting it manage you. Typical smartphone users check their phones 150 times a day, and it takes time to re-focus on the task at hand whenever distracted by our tech tools. Start with these tips to manage email and, then, make your mobile device a tool working for you rather than technology to chain or confine you.

13. Do not confuse immediate or urgent with important. What are the consequences of getting something done sooner versus later? When folks get you to stop working on what is important to achieving your goals in order to address their needs, they are managing your time; if you were unavailable, whether due to meetings or travel, an immediate issue would have to wait.

What tactics do you utilize for making every minute matter? Have you had success with any of those listed above or will you be implementing any of these strategies?

Automate Your Computer Backup

For most folks, it is not a matter of "if" but "when" regarding whether your computer will crash, get a massively destructive virus or be destroyed by a natural disaster. Instead of worrying about your data, take action. You can be prepared with automated, remote storage, which eliminates having to plug anything in for backing up your information and provides offsite backup in a remote area with totally different natural disasters. Compare current offerings from Backblaze, Carbonite, CrashPlan and Mozy to see from whom you can get the best deal; then, after creating your account, download your choice's software from its website, follow the instructions for setting the parameters of your automated backup and relax because your information is being secured as you continue working. There's nothing to remember, but I do recommend occasionally checking that your set-up is functioning properly, which you can plan for once a month or so.

How do you currently backup your data? Might you implement one of the tools I've mentioned here?

Delegate or Automate When You Can

As time is a limited resource, it is not possible for any one human-being to do everything on his or her own... There simply are not enough minutes in the day. Still, since our inability to get it all done alone does not eliminate the never-ending to-do list, it is imperative to come up with alternatives, particularly until cloning becomes feasible for us all or we get our Inspector Gadget tools.

When evaluating your to-do list, consider what requires your unique skill set versus what can be accomplished by someone else; alternatively, consider what can be done more quickly or more thoroughly by another individual. Delegate or automate when you can. In any instance that you delegate or automate the completion of a task, you open up time in your schedule to allocate elsewhere.

Resources for delegation are not limited to existing members of your team. There are endless options for delegating many different types of tasks via Help Tap, Upwork, Fancy Hands, Fiverr, Guru, Moonlighting, Task Rabbit, Thumbtack and 99Designs. These websites include options for all instances of budgetary constraints and many skill sets. Likewise, consider automation as delegating to a computer, and evaluate the many options for automating tasks to best fulfill your needs. If This Then That, Podbox, Zapier and social media managers, like Buffer, Edgar, Falcon Social, Hootsuite, SocialOomph or Sprout Social, are all excellent for automation. Once you know which of your to-do items can be delegated or automated, find the resource to do so.

Delegation and automation are powerful tools for getting more done in less time and, thereby, boosting your productivity while maintaining your peace of mind and not missing opportunities.

What are some tasks on your to-do list that could be delegated or automated? Which of these tools might you be able to implement in your own productivity toolbox?

Utilize Automation to Do More With What Time You Have

While each day offers us only 1,440 minutes, beyond sheer strategy and proactivity, there are plenty of ways to make the most of what limited time we have. According to Dictionary.com, automation is "the technique, method or system of operating or controlling a process by... electronic devices, reducing human intervention to a minimum", which conveys the value of automation in that less of your direct human intervention opens up your time for addressing other functionality that cannot be done otherwise. Here are a few ways automation allows you to do more with your limited resource of time:

- Use cloud-based back-up for saving your files that matter. Computers crash. Fires can destroy all your devices. Emergencies happen, but you can be prepared with automated remote storage, saving you the time it takes to plug in a back-up device and safeguarding you from accidentally forgetting to do the back-up yourself. Simply "set it and forget it" with one of these options: Carbonite, Crash Plan or Mozy.

- Use a social media manager to share the right info at the right time. Whether you depend on Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, you must post the best message for your audience at the best time for that audience to receive it. While timing and messaging varies by platform, you still have other things to be doing; you can't stay planted by your computer all the time. Although there is controversy about their SEO impact, there are tools to help with the aforementioned issue as well as monitoring your business' social media results. Schedule messages to be posted on each social media outlet when you want via one of these options: Buffer, Hootsuite, Postling, SocialOomph or Sprout Social.

- Use a password manager for safekeeping your many different logins. As more of our work and play is conducted online, it becomes increasingly important to use a diverse set of strong passwords; however, as the list of passwords grows, the harder it is to remember them all. Further, the dangers associated with a printed list are frightening, whether it is losing that list, damaging that list or having that list fall into the wrong person's hands. Allow your brain to focus on thinking, rather than remembering, and rest assured that your passwords are safely secured in the cloud, instead of just a piece of paper. Employ one of these options for your password management: 1Password, Dashlane, LastPass, Roboform or SplashID.

- Use tools to manage your email, rather than letting email manage you. The average busy professional receives over 150 email messages each day. While "processing" emails is much more efficient than repeatedly "checking" emails, it still takes a good chunk of time to go through that many messages daily, let alone should you get behind at all. While there are plenty of technological tools designed to help, there are a few that rise above the competition. If you use Gmail, Boomerang allows you to send an email later, take messages out of your inbox until you actually need them, be nudged into following up at a specified time when there's no reply to a message you've sent and utilize email to remind yourself of what you think about needing to do while on-the-go. Alternatively, Mailbox lets you quickly swipe messages to your archive or trash, scan entire conversations in a chat-like view to more rapidly work through what messages have been received and bring messages back to your inbox when more appropriate for you to focus on what's important now. Finally, Mailstrom identifies which of your emails are related, groups them together for you to more easily process them quickly and empowers you to more succinctly unsubscribe from mailing lists you no longer desire.

- Put the Internet to work for you. It is very valuable to use all available options for helping business processes occur without your involvement, and there are several shining stars operating in this space. If This Then That integrates 152 different channels (or applications), each of which has its own options, allowing you to create "recipes" for a trigger action to lead to a resulting action. For example, you could use the trigger of "when I receive an email that has an attachment to my Gmail account" for the resulting action of "that attachment is added to my Evernote database" as a recipe. Plus, If This Then That is currently totally free... Happiness! Browse all the recipes currently being utilized by clicking here. Likewise, Podbox and Zapier expand the options for various channels or applications that can be integrated, but they can have fees.

How do you currently utilize automation? What benefits do you perceive could come from greater automation? Are there tools mentioned here that you will start to use?

Top 10 Tips for Getting from "To-Do" to "Done"

Tips To Mark Tasks Off Your List

Whether for our occupations, running our homes, volunteer work or helping take care of those we love most in our lives, most of us have an endless list of tasks that must be completed… Yet, how can we best move those actions from “to-to” to “done” status? Here are a few useful tools and tactics to make that process a little easier.

1. When faced with a task, decide if you should "discard", "delegate", "delay" or "do" the action... Not everything must be done, and those that truly must be done don't always have to be completed by you.

2. Consider options like eLance, Fancy Hands, Fiverr, Task Rabbit and Thumbtack to outsource what others can complete more quickly than you can or to open time in your schedule for attacking other to-do items.

3. Strategize on what tasks can be automated via If This Then That, Podbox or Zapier; program them into the selected solution so you can move on to something else that needs your attention.

4. Be realistic about what can be accomplished on any given day... Narrow your running to-do list into three to five tasks per day of your week; then, start each of those priorities with a verb to drive action.

5. Remember that every “what” assigned a “when” is more likely to get done. Since I've yet to find a calendar that includes “someday”, be specific about when each action will be completed and schedule enough time to make progress.

6. Complete a weekly strategy session before each week to create a game plan for (a) what carries over from the prior week, (b) what upcoming appointments require preparation and (c) what tasks must be done when. Keep in mind the importance of scheduling what’s important but not urgent related to your goals.

7. Consider an electronic task manager app because it will offer reminders, allows undone tasks to more easily carry over to later dates and can have recurrences scheduled, like Any.Do, Carrot, Remember The Milk, Pocket Informant or Wunderlist; however, know that paper lists can work if that is more in line with your personality and your workflow, particularly for those that are not mobile workers. While the options are endless, the priority is that you get things done.

8. Break larger projects into smaller, more manageable tasks to be done individually, eliminating procrastination from overwhelm or not knowing where to start. When handling many large projects, try adopting a project management tool, like Asana, Azendoo or Mavenlink.

9. If you’re having trouble getting tasks done, utilize a timer… Once you get rolling, you might not stop, you can do anything for 15 minutes or so, and shorter times can lead to an extra burst of energy.

10. Always keep in mind that your overall well-being is very instrumental for your productivity: be sure to exercise, eat well (starting with a good breakfast), get enough sleep for your needs, take time for massages and incorporate positive music in your workspace.

What have you found most helpful in your attempts to mark things off your to-do list? What tactics do you utilize for finishing tasks?