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The Elephant & the Ugly Frog

The Elephant
When I run courses on project management (PM) the image of the elephant is often used. How to Eat an Elephant describes the PM process of breaking a seemingly impossibly big task down into smaller 'bite-sized', more manageable chunks. That's what we need to do for other workplace tasks, especially those we procrastinate over. By breaking something down into its constituent elements it becomes more manageable and less daunting.


The Ugly Frog 
It was Mark Twain that said

"if you eat a live frog first thing in the morning, then nothing worse will happen to you for the rest of the day"

Since this quote was first coined the idea of the frog and time management have been forever linked.

In my earlier blogs we looked at the notion of prime time and down time and this is where the ugly frog comes in. This frog is used as the pictorial representation of the task you really don't want to do and therefore put off...after all who wants to eat a frog, let alone an ugly one!

So, in terms of effective time management the task we should undertake first in our prime time is the ugly frog.

Time Management Training, Courses & Workshops

Our in house Time Management Training briefly comprises:

• Setting the scene 
• Time stealers & their management 
• Emails
• Meetings 
• "Have you got a minute"
• Procrastination 
• Time management systems
• Planning 
• The prioritisation matrix 
• Lists 
• Dealing with requests for your time 
• Prime time and down time 
• How to eat an elephant and a frog 
• Action plan 

For further information please see our website at http://www.dragontoothtraining.org.uk

Procrastination - why is it so hard to start?!

One of the biggest time stealers is procrastination - The art of being able to do anything except the task we know needs completing. In fact it is amazing how we can justify having to do almost anything other than the one thing we need to do.

Why is this important? Well, knowing in our mind we have a task to complete will impact on how well and how efficiently we can complete our current task. It can 'hang over us' like a cloud and therefore by understanding why we procrastinate we can help plan to undertake these tasks first in our  prime time (as we discussed in the first blog entry)

Some of the most common reasons we procrastinate are:

• Not being sure of what to do 
• A fear of 'getting it wrong', failing or letting someone down 
• Feeling like it is someone else's job 
• Concerns that if we succeed we may be challenged further 
• We don't think its important 
• We don't understand the tasks impact on others 
• Some people like 'taking it to the wire' and completing tasks last minute 

So, its all very well knowing what procrastination is but how can we tackle it?


Activity:

• Ask yourself why are you honestly putting off doing it (I do this as an individual exercise rather than a group one in case people feel awkward sharing their reasons)
• How important is this task - both to you and the wider team?
• When you break the task down does it become easier to manage?
• Are there elements of the task that you are unsure of or need guidance on? If so find a mentor who will help 
• Schedule task in your prime time where energy and enthusiasm is higher 

Time 'Stealers'

Time stealers or pirates are the things we do which could be viewed as:

• Not enjoyable
• Arduous 
• Not important 
• Things that take you away from what you consider to be important 

Everyone will have a different idea or list as to what these are and just the act of writing these down can be enough to spark some ideas as to how these could be tackled.

To get you started some of the common time stealers that my groups list are:

• Not unknowing or being unsure of what to do
• Having to cover for other people (sickness, holidays, redundancy etc)
• Meeting for meeting sake
• Being interrupted (phone calls, personal visits etc)
• Poor personal planning skills 
• Lack of motivation 
• Poor focus 
• Procrastination 
• Being a perfectionist 
• Feeling 'paralysed' by the sheer volume of work 

Activity 

If you are unsure or really want to get an accurate account of these time stealers then complete a real time workplace time log (not retrospective). It is important that this is accurate and impartial. I find 30minute time slots work well for most people and it never fails to amaze me how what people think 'wastes time' and what actually does are often two very different things!

What is Time Management?

Time management is having the necessary skills and discipline to plan and carry out tasks in the most effective and efficient way to YOU.

Your optimum way will not be the same as someone else's. For example some people are more productive first thing in the morning, whilst others may be after lunch. These times of high productivity are commonly referred to as PRIME TIME (the opposite of this being DOWN TIME)