The following is one of a series of articles that I have published recently on solutions to help students, business people and others improve the ways they organise their life an do things. An organised person is much more likely to be a successful person. To see other articles visit my Articles about education and other issues of interest to students and parents .

Interruptions
You can deal with unscheduled interruptions in two ways. You can either try to get rid of them or budget time for them. Your choice will depend on the importance you place on the need to listen to clients and to staff or your desire to get work done.
A friend was especially busy trying to meet a deadline for an important report. The voice from the corridor was that of a talkative acquaintance. To avoid interruptions and in utter desperation my friend crawled under his desk. The receptionist ushered the visitor into the room. 'That's strange!' said the receptionist. 'He can't be far away. He was here a few minutes ago. Would you like to wait?' With that they sat down and began to talk - and talked, and talked - for nearly an hour. My numbed friend eventually emerged from his cramped quarters, very stiff and very embarrassed. He told the story against himself and vowed it would never happen again. He would face up to his time-wasting problems and learn how to deal with interruptions.

Overcoming interruptions
Try to eliminate interruptions or delay them so they don't interfere with your peak-time priority work.
• Improve your office communications to reduce questioning from staff. Use circular letters, newsletters, video messages, conference phone calls and meetings.
• Schedule meetings so staff can ask questions and discuss policy matters.
• At meetings, start on time, get to the point quickly and keep to the agenda.
• Train your secretary to 'filter' visitors and phone calls.
• Plan for a quiet period free from interruptions each day.
• Escape to a 'secret' quiet room to do planning and creative work.


Time-wasters

Look for these time-wasters:

• Unscheduled meetings . Unnecessary meetings . Too many reports
• Too many rules
• No priorities
• No clear objectives
• Out-of-date job specifications
• No time plans
• No deadlines
• Attempting too many jobs at once
• Interruptions (telephone calls and unscheduled visitors)
• Poor filing system
• Low staff morale
• Lack of procedures for routine jobs
• Failure to delegate
• Filling in non-essential questionnaires
• People with pet projects
• Unclear requests
• Lack of feedback
• Lack of information
• Procrastination
• Too much reading . Junk mail and so on.

Dealing with time-wasters
1. Mark your time-wasters.
2. Which ones waste the most of your time? Place them in priority order.
3. Take your number one time-waster and see what you can do to overcome it. Then move on to your next-time-waster.


By tackling one problem at a time you will progress. Try it! See

Good luck

Gary Hadler
B.Ec, Dip.Ed, MBA
Principal ITS Tutorial School
www.tuition.com.hk

Gary Hadler B.Ec, Dip.Ed, MBA Has had over 15 years experience in training in the Business and Management area. To read more articles from Gary please visit http://www.tuition.com.hk/articles.htm.

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