Uber Kung-Fu Time Management

2nd May 2013 

Time management is hard at the best of times but needing to have "uber kung-fu time management" that seems like a step too far for me. This term has intrigued me and after a long discussion with my partner where we picked apart the semantics we agreed that we don't want uber kung fu time management; literally meaning super (uber) intense (kung) work (fu) of time management. I don't believe time management should be intensive or super work. Philosophically uber could also mean to take it to the next level, or going above, lacking gravity, what you want to be at the top of your mind and attention. This is more like what we want. I want my time management to be broad, natural, habitual, effective without intense work, not something that fills my head but a way of being that creates a smoother path for the work that follows, more like a 'tao', a path or even a 'meta-tao' , a way of being . So i think i will aim for "meta-tao time management". 

So how do i start this meta-tao time management? Well trialling some of the strategies presented in the Diploma of management course.
 
I sat down to do a "mind sweep", something i found very tricky to initiate in the first ELP workshop, and found myself having to stick to one area of my life. So I opened the work drawer, you know the drawers in the filing cabinet in your head, and started writing a to do list. This is something i usually avoid as i hate having multiple to do lists that never get crossed off. So how do i remember everything i have to do? Well I don't! Things get forgotten, some things get remembered too late, and sometimes i do remember and things do get done. Although i planned to do a 'mind sweep' this was definitely not a 'mind sweep' as I left all the other areas of my life untouched in my head (home finances, parenting, maintaining relationships, housework, cooking, errands, toy library work, hobbies, dreams, plans). So I successfully pushed all these thoughts to the side and just thought about work. I started referring to notebooks, diary entries and emails to try to get a complete to do list.

Once this was done I went about dividing the list in to categories; grouping client work, practice support, service development work and team work tasks together in different coloured highlighters.

My next plan was to then divide all the tasks into an Urgent/Important matrix. 
There was not one task that i felt was not important on the list. So i then grouped the work based on time frames. 

So my Matrix looks something like this 

Urgent
News service quotations
Responding to enquiries about services 
Client work - reports
                        - preparation for appointments within next 2 days
                        - follow up from appointments within last 4 days
Data collection (within 2 days) 

Important
  Practice support 
 peer support 
Maintaining data base (spreadsheets of services)
Developing processes
Client work without a specific timeframe
Managing CPD opportunities for team and self
Planning and preparing team meetings
Follow up from team meetings 
Planning and preparing client work 


I have found this a time consuming but ultimately useful tool. I feel I have now got some guidance for myself about how i should prioritise my work. It will be interesting to see how I manage to apply this to my work. 

I now need to work out the work times that distract me from these priorities and try to eliminate the time i spend on these tasks. 

Meta-Tao Time Management here i come :)