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Time mgt for librarians
- 1. Time Management for Librarians
- 5. The information explosion Processing Producing
- 18. First, clean your desk!
- 28. A Day in the Life of a Good Time Manager
Hinweis der Redaktion
- Time can’t be managed; it passes and that’s that. We can manage our activities to make better use of time. Everyone has the same amount of time, 1440 minutes every day Efficiency is doing things quickly and well; it needs to be coupled with effectiveness, which is doing the appropriate jobs. You can’t be efficient or effective if you work reactively based on the order things come into your hands. A clean desk doesn’t automatically make you productive, nor does a messy one make you creative. But a clean desk makes things easier to find, if coupled with a good filing system.
- Often the people who stamp out the fires get the recognition and credit. But the people who prevent the fires from breaking out in the first place are the more valuable!
- There was a time (in the mythic past) when we had limited communication channels on the job > limited amount of information to process. Nowadays, we have more channels than we can handle > more info coming at us > spend more time processing that info, at the expense of our productivity
- One key concept for managing your time: keep your Processing and your Producing separate I’ll talk about what I mean by Action categories in a while, for now just understand the difference between processing and producing.
- Before we get too far, a few words about procrastination! First definition is from Merriam-Webster online, second is from Michelle Tullier, Complete Idiot’s Guide to Overcoming Procrastination. Remember: procrastination doesn’t happen to you! Procrastination is something you do. Therefore, you have control over it.
- Frank Bruno describes 5 types of procrastination: Functional: done for a good reason, e.g. insufficient information, illness, deferred for a higher-priority task Dysfunctional: useless or self-defeating Short-term: a few hours or days late Long-term: you never get around to doing sth Chronic: dysfunctional & long-term combined
- (Whiteboard or flip chart brainstorm) (then click to reveal this list) Other reasons: Generally stuck (in job, in personal life) Feeling overwhelmed Don’t get the instant gratification you want Avoid making decisions or judgments Lack of urgency Sense of personal control HABIT is a big one. One can get into the habit of putting things off, just because one always has done so. There’s no immediate reason, but we still do it. This is a tough habit to break, but it’s part of what we’re going to try to attack today.
- Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, late 19 th -early 20 th C, talking about distribution of wealth…80/20 principle has become shorthand for any unbalanced relationship & applies to practically everything. 20% of a resource or activity accounts for 80% of the effort put into it If it takes 1 hour to get something 4/5 perfect, it would take 5 hours to get it totally perfect. Some library functions are like an assembly line. Backlogs have repercussions for routines occurring downstream from you: Acquisition -> Cataloging -> Processing -> Shelving -> Ultimately, Public services
- The system I’m showing you is based on Greg Vetter’s, which he calls The Vetter Way (of course).
- When you process your in-box, each item in it is going to one of four destinations: Out Box: anything you want to move to another location (mail, a colleague, central filing, etc) Action: anything you want to take action on or work on. Trash: anything you no longer need/use, something you want to get rid of. Support: reference items, resources…things you don’t intend to work on but are keeping around to refer to. The faster you move stuff OUT of your office, the more productive you are. (People who travel may include a Home destination too, for things to take along on trips etc.)
- I put an important URL on a green sticky note. Can you find it on this desk? How about this one? “ A clean desk is the sign of a sick mind,” right? But if you can’t find something on your desk, spend 30 seconds looking for it, repeat 10 times a day? 30 secs x 10 x 5 days x 50 weeks = 20 hours, 50 minutes wasted per year. Over half a week per year looking for stuff on your desk!
- This means just five things! Yes, it’s harsh. It’s meant to be. The point is that everything else belongs somewhere else! “ But if I don’t see it, I won’t find it!” Everything goes in its place, and you know where those places are – it doesn’t have to be visible to be findable! (example of underwear or sock drawer).
- You see how quickly it adds up, if you let it? Be realistic. If you allow one exception, be sure you can keep it to one. Don’t let the extras multiply, or you’re back where you started!
- Action categories are different from Support—these are the things you’re currently Producing with. These should be in a file very convenient to your desk; you’ll be in here a lot. Here I definitely recommend different colors, to tell at a glance what’s what. My To Do files are red, Routine are green, Projects are purple, and Ticklers are standard drab olive. How you arrange them is up to you; you’re going to be working from each of these categories every day. Mine are in this order (front to back) but I’ll be talking about them in a different order later on. Briefly: To Do: High-priority tasks reserved for your daily Quiet Time (I’ll get into that later) Routine: Things you do a lot. Batch similar tasks together for economies of scale. Projects: Ongoing (but finite) efforts requiring multiple steps to complete Tickler: Date-specific items, that can only be done on a given day.
- Tickler is arranged with day files in front (today first, to end of month, beginning of next month & around again) then months (starting with next month). Pending can go either in the very front or very back. Drop date-specific items in the day they’re to be used. E.g. tickets, materials to bring to an appointment/meeting, reminders to call s.o. on a given day, etc. If the date is more than 31 days ahead, drop it in the month folder. 1 st of month, take the month folder and distribute its contents into the day folders. Pending is for things you can’t act on until something happens. This isn’t for deadlines! If Project X is due on the 15 th , and you drop it in say the 8 th (a week ahead of deadline), you won’t see it until then. You could be working on it now! Project X goes in a different category.
- Familiar Routine file: shopping list. Same idea applied to other things we have to do.
- The To Do category contains the individual tasks you intend to work on, either in the immediate or indeterminate future. They are ranked A, B and C in order of importance. Crucial to understand: IMPORTANT tasks and URGENT tasks are not the same thing! Taking a course on (for example) quality reference service in the virtual environment might be not at all urgent—you could do it any time—but extremely important because it will make you a better reference libn. That’s why we want to be PROACTIVE rather than REACTIVE: we’re no longer letting the urgent tasks drown out the important ones. For your sanity’s sake, don’t put more than a dozen tasks in To Do A. You’ll overwhelm yourself. Anything more, and some of them are demoted to B’s.
- Project files are a little different: you don’t work out of them directly, they’re a kind of holding area for jobs that require multiple steps. To Do’s can be done at a sitting. Projects can’t.
- Format trumps content: my Greg Vetter book goes in Support > Books > Vetter, not Support > Classes > Time Mgt. Good to have a Support > Tools drawer for pens, stapler, tape, calculator, etc. Tools vs. supplies: tools are reusable, supplies are single-use. Don’t hoard supplies & tools! (How many pens do you need?) The central supply closet is there for you.
- Computer directory arrangement can parallel the Support categories in your physical files. Use subdirectories the same way you would use subcategories. You’ll obviously have some physical categories & files that don’t have counterparts on the computer, and vice versa. It’s tempting to interrupt yourself every time a new e-mail comes in. Try to limit yourself to processing your e-mail just before you process your In Box. (Actually, process your voice mail, e-mail, and then your In Box—that way you can put voice-mail or e-mail related notes in your In Box, and they’ll make it into your Action categories.)
- Why the In Box first? It’s simple to remember: one place for everything. It means things won’t get lost (which pile did I put that in?). It eliminates interruptions, as you’re not drawn to each new thing that comes in—just dump it & forget it until you next Process the In Box. Process your In Box first thing in the morning, after lunch, and just before the end of the day. Do not work out of your In Box—processing it means moving Actionable items into Action categories, where they’ll be ready for you to Produce with them more effectively.
- Stand to make the process active; action creates energy. Use your senses. Say “Action, Tickler, 23 rd ” or “Action, Routine, Read” or “Support, Classes, Time Management”. Look at the file you’re putting it in. Feel yourself bending over the file and reaching for it. Sense memory enhances your retention of information.
- In a perfect world, your whole organization would take Quiet Time at the same time, so nobody would be tempted to interrupt their co-workers. Second-best idea: partner with someone to run interference for each other’s QTs. Field their calls & visitors. Librarians rarely have the luxury of scheduling QT at the same time every day. But do try to be as consistent as you can about taking a regular QT. You may have to take 2 4-hour stretches a week instead of QT every day. Just don’t push yourself past the point of diminishing returns.
- Let the system do the thinking for you! You don’t need to decide right away what’s more of a priority than what. You’ll only ever work on the A’s, but you’ll be reviewing the B’s and C’s weekly. Some of them will move to become A’s. (When I say put it in your To Do, I really mean put it in your In Box, and then into To Do when you process the In Box.) Instead of dropping your tasks in the actual A/B/C folders, you may want to staple those folders shut and keep a handy supply of unlabeled folders. Give each task its own unlabeled folder, nestled behind the A/B/C tab.
- Librarians tend to keep everything.
- Study in Industrial Engineer magazine: avg. interruption lasts 6-9 mins; avg. recovery time = 23 mins.