Lifestyle Designer » Elimination

The Art Of Batching Tasks

Ceena — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 10:14:34 +0000

The Simple Process of Batching

There are a gazillion things you can do everyday. Throw out the trash, buy a liter of milk in the grocery, take your 2 dogs for a walk, check your mail, iChat with your friends, watch the Final Four with your buds, go have tea time with your girlfriends, to tweeting during games, even just sitting at home and lazily typing an article to be posted on your blog!

“What the ef? Why should I need this?” Batching is VITAL to your success in Lifestyle Design. Trust me, it will save you a million minutes….or so.

From the past articles, you’ve learned how important the Stage of Elimination is. In short, you eliminate redundant tasks so you can focus on the one’s that would help you reach your goals which ultimately lets you waste your time the way you want to waste it.

So what actually is “batching tasks?” This means you have to set tasks in to a group. It’s doing the same tasks for a certain period of time without interruptions to do other tasks.

Here is an example. You check email every 10 minutes because you get lots of mail. You read each one and you decide to answer each one. Then you go back to doing what you were doing. Then 10 minutes later, you check it again and do the same things. You waste time because you keep on doing the same thing and you keep getting distracted from what you were actually SHOULD BE doing. Before you know it, the day is over and there’s no way you can get it back.

Why am dedicating a post about batching tasks? In the next stage, Creation, you will start with your online business and there is no way you can manage time without batching especially if you are juggling your time with a job.

Some Things To Keep In Mind:

1. Stop Multi Tasking

Yes, you can do it, yes you are capable and smart enough to handle it, but please stop doing it. It is more important for you to focus on something right now. Batch up your emails and read them once or twice a week for a certain period of time, like 30 minutes then get on with your life.

2. Know The Right Place To Do A Batched Task

You need to type an article for your job or website, and you batched it so you can write around 3 or so within 30 minutes. That’s great! You started typing and around halfway your first article, you phone rings. So you ignore it and you focus, then type again. Someone knocks on the door. You get bummed out and stop doing the articles and finally give in to distraction. I hate that, you will too.

3. Batch Small Tasks Together

You certainly have many small, menial tasks. What you do is write it down. When you get to a certain point of the week, spend a few minutes to do these things one by one. Do not include them in your daily routine of important stuff.

4. Stop Twittering….Or Surfing…Or Instant Messaging….Please…

You will get distracted, it’s a sure thing. What you should do is close these applications, or better yet, make sure you don’t have internet connection. Set a certain time of the day to Twitter or to Surf. Don’t do it while doing tasks.

5. Schedule Making A List….Everyday…Before You Sleep

Why? Because when you do it before you sleep, your subconscious mind will keep on working and it will help you finish the task faster when you do it or sometimes gives you a better idea on how to do it. So batch up tasks you need to do and schedule it. You can skip doing this if you already make a list of tasks for the whole week. All you need to do is review them nightly. (Be sure to read this method for Goal Setting too, they go well together)

You will be more focused, trust me. You will finished tasks faster and you will have more free time. With the free time, you might even teach people about how this method worked out for you because you just have too much free time!

Now, let me finish 5 more articles so I can leave it for auto posting. =)

It might be hard to contact me for a while so catch me on Twitter ok? (Cause I only check mail once a week)

The Art Of Batching Tasks is a post from: Lifestyle Designer

Step By Step Elimination: Towards The Next Step

Ceena — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:31:54 +0000

Step By Step

Find a system that works for you and your lifestyle, and then apply it. At work, build a system that can replace you, the physical you, so that you can do more important (or fun) things. But always be aware of delegating tasks. Before you delegate or outsource time consuming tasks, you have to do elimination. Eliminate first those tasks that are not important. It is useless to delegate tasks that are not worth doing. You do not only waste your time, but also of others. This article will give you easy, yet necessary-to-follow steps, in doing elimination.

Know what you want. Have aspirations in life. What is the point of designing your own lifestyle if you don’t know what kind of life you want? Having a goal, whether it is to have vacation time once a month or something bigger, will be the driving force of your entire life. If you don’t know what you want in the long term, have something smaller for the moment. This will guide you later to bigger aspirations. The key is to have a destination, a point you have to reach.

If you still haven’t, please read the Definition/Recalibration Stage at http://www.yourlifestyledesigner.net/articles

Identify tasks. Once you know where you want to go, the next step will be to recognize tasks that will help you reach it. This will be easier now that you have a goal. Look at the tasks you are working on now. Most probably they are not leading you to the lifestyle you want. In every task you take on, always check if it will make you get to your aspirations faster. Know also what tasks you still have to undertake, and take action as soon as possible. Take action right this minute. Start preparing what you need in order to start on the task.

High Priority, Mid Priority, Waste. There are just three categories to put your tasks in. Tasks should go in the “high priority bin” if they are a must in achieving your aspirations, and if your goals will not be realized if these tasks are not taken. YOU will be doing these tasks. Your time should only be consumed of vacations, family, hobbies, and these high priority tasks. The rest will go to your “mid priority bin”, where you can ask someone else to do it, or pay someone to do it, and to your “waste bin”, where you throw it away and never think about it anymore. Mid priority tasks are tasks that will help you achieve the lifestyle you want (your aspirations), but are not the fundamental tasks. Even if you do not do them, you can still reach your goal. They are enhancers. They either make it easier or faster for you to reach your aspirations. They are not so important that’s why you can outsource them. Pay someone to do them or be resourceful and find someone who can do them for you without a cost. If you are not sure whether a certain task is important or not, then they also fall under this category. You put them on hold and return to them when you can. One by one you will realize which of these tasks should be done, and which should be eliminated. Lastly, the waste bin. The tasks you eliminate because they are just that—WASTES.

Eliminate to Obtain. This step will free you. Eliminate to obtain the lifestyle you desire and your aspirations. Just let it go. They do not help you, but hinder you from getting to your destination.

Remember, get rid of time wasters, stick with more focused actions and these lead to faster results, more fun times, better productivity. Understand these and the next stage, the Creation Stage, will be very easy for you. Ignore this and you will take a lot longer…trust me, I’ve been there.

Step By Step Elimination: Towards The Next Step is a post from: Lifestyle Designer

Waste Time or Time Wasters?

Ceena — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 03:16:28 +0000

I’ve had people ask me why I keep telling people to avoid time wasters but I encourage people to waste time doing things they want. What’s the difference? You still waste time! Right?

Well, in a way, yes. They both waste time….BUT they have a big difference. Mainly, their respective definitions.

This is how I see it.

Would you rather be caught up with work that was forced to you or would you rather waste that time doing something you’d enjoy?

No contest right? Yeah, I hated it when people kept pushing things to my face for me to do. Thank God they stopped because that really saved me a lot of time to waste on something else! Like shopping or hanging out on the beach :p

Really, listen to me. I encourage you not to waste time EVERY TIME especially when starting out with the business creation stage. You need to focus your time there. When you get to a stage where you feel comfortable with it, you can then waste your time on things you love without restrictions.

Eliminate redundant time wasters AND look forward to “wasting time” with your family, playing games, or partying the whole night. That will keep you going even when you feel like giving up.

Waste Time or Time Wasters? is a post from: Lifestyle Designer

Criteria for Elimination

Ceena — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 09:20:28 +0000

Criteria for Elimination

Elimination is not an excuse to laziness. Although I believe it is a smart move to outsource most of your tasks to free your time for more important ones (or more vacations to other countries), in order to have a well productive life, you should still have clear criteria of tasks to eliminate or outsource to others. There are several criteria to take into consideration. But I have been saying incessantly to eliminate the not so important ones. Thus I focus on only four major criteria. All tasks you undertake from now on should go through these criteria.

Your aspirations for yourself and your life, i.e. everything and everyone around you, family, friends, your country, your purpose, etc., are the most important subject. You will get the life you want and design the lifestyle you want by pursuing your aspirations. Therefore, everything you do must make you reach your aspirations faster, that one thing you desire the most. When I take on a “project”, I always ask myself if it’s relevant to my aspirations or would it help me reach them faster. Does this task put me closer to my aspirations in life? Sometimes certain people or tasks confuse you more and lead you away from what you really want. It is always important to remember your end goal. If it doesn’t lead you to what you desire the most, eliminate it.

Money matters. I enjoy traveling the world. I’d like to try new and different things. I find work preventing me from doing those things even though work finances them. That’s why in every project I do, I always ask myself this, “Does this task provide me with enough money to finance my aspirations in life?” It doesn’t have to be much, but it has to be enough to make me do the things that I enjoy and desire the most in life. Now you might think that every work-venture provide money and so is important. This is where our third criteria will come. You should then ask yourself if overall, this task influences your aspirations.

How heavy and important will this task’s influence be in my lifestyle? This has a lot to do with prioritizing and organizing your life. I found out through experience that when I try to serve everyone or every sector my product can serve, I only earn minimum, compared to serving the most profitable clients who buys big and remain loyal. Knowing this made it easier for me to eliminate certain projects. I look at its overall contribution, weight and effect on my end goal. Some things are just not worth it. I put into levels the weight of each tasks, the urgency of it, and start eliminating.

This last criterion affects your lifestyle the most. Without this, you are paralyzed. TIME makes all things happen. When you have time anything is possible. It is what you do with your time that makes a difference, nevertheless, you need time. The task or person must free your time to have the lifestyle you want, or at the very least, use your time wisely. Is this task or person consuming my time productively or the way I want it to be consumed? A time wasted puts you further back from your aspirations. If a task is important to be done but is so time consuming, outsource it to others who can do it better and in lesser time than you can.

You can design the lifestyle you want. You can make others adapt to that lifestyle. You just need to start eliminating all the wastes. You just have to focus on your aspirations. These are vital for lifestyle design.

Criteria for Elimination is a post from: Lifestyle Designer

The Benefits Of Elimination

Ceena — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:14:15 +0000

As the song goes, why work without living? What is the point of working your ass off if you’re not living the life you want? Key word: LIVING; not waiting endlessly to finally get that life you want. I have been a slave to this “waiting”. Until I realized the waiting will never end. I will continue “waiting” because there’s just too many things in my plate right now! My dreams will be just that—dreams. In this article, I will help you see how easy it is to make your dreams into reality. It doesn’t matter how small or big, simple or bizarre they are. The important thing is you can achieve them. I will show you the magic elimination can do for you.

I believe there are 5 main areas in your life that will benefit the most from elimination. The first and foremost is yourSELF. It is important to find yourself happy. You will have clearer mindset to address the 4 remaining areas once you have addressed yourself. Remember: Once you have achieved the lifestyle that you wanted for yourself, it will be easier to make everything around you move according to that lifestyle you designed. Elimination will give you what you need and have been wanting for so long—TIME. Time for yourself. TIME to relax. TIME to enjoy the fruits of your labor. The process is so easy. Get rid of unnecessary, unimportant tasks. The result is TIME.

The next thing that will come into your life when you do elimination is MONEY. The inflow of your income will increase dramatically. Elimination lets you focus on what is more important (tasks or ventures that are already providing you with what you need financially), living you with more time to explore new income generating opportunities. You will also know what unimportant things are eating away your income. Through time, you will be attracting more income with less effort. And yes, money can buy happiness. Money lets you travel the world. It lets you buy the things that you want and have the LIFESTYLE YOU WANT. These things make you happy, and when you’re happy, you’ll have so much more to give!

Elimination will also help your relationship with your FAMILY. You will be spending more time with them, doing activities together, and taking family vacations. It isn’t really that hard to imagine a close, happy family. When all the clutter and unnecessary works are destroyed, all that is left with you are quality and fruitful experiences for the whole family. WORK, which will have the next big change in your life, will be enjoyable. Because you have eliminated all the unimportant, you will be left with tasks that you are willing to do or need to be done. To put it simply, LESS WORK! You will be able to prioritize your workload.

All these benefits will then lead to the fifth and last area in your life—your HOME, a happy, organized and very productive home. It is actually a cycle, each area contributing to the full development of one another. And it all begins with ELIMINATION. YourSELF is happy and free to venture on more important things, more often on MONEY-generating ideas. Now that you have both time and money, you can be with your FAMILY anytime you want, anywhere you want. You won’t be bound in a four-walled office but instead, your WORK will follow you, making it pleasurable. Elimination is a key to designing the lifestyle you want and this involves the five areas of your life.

The Benefits Of Elimination is a post from: Lifestyle Designer

Eliminate to Attain: An Introduction to a Better Lifestyle

Ceena — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:22:51 +0000

Eliminate. To get rid of. To expel. To ignore. Some say you should improve your life and add more to life, but a lot of good things can change in your life if you know how to eliminate or to ignore. Eliminate things or tasks that consume your time. Ignore the unimportant. The math is simple. People, things and tasks that are not important, consume and waste your time, thus need to be ignored. Veer away from people or things that interrupt you from doing the important, or at least from doing the things that you want. Wouldn’t it be nicer to say, “There’s just not enough time to do the things that I want”, rather than to say, “I don’t have time. There’s just too many things to do!”?

It’s the little things that make a difference. By taking an hour to organize your time, set objectives and deadlines, and appoint certain tasks to others, you will be able to have more time for your family, your hobbies, and more time to relax. Time is the key. Imagine finally doing that thing you’ve always wanted to do but you just don’t have the time. Imagine having not only the time to do what you’ve always wanted but also having the money to finance it. Now you don’t have to look at your kid’s sad face each time you say, “No, I can’t take you to the park today. I have work.” You can play and spend time with them any time you or they want it. Tired of hearing your wife nag about that broken light in the living room? With elimination, you will have time to finally fix that broken light! You will be more productive in all aspects of your life, especially at work, just by freeing your time to do the important.
Elimination doesn’t mean getting rid of everything or having an excuse to be lazy. A successful elimination process requires knowing what tasks to eliminate. Does this task make a difference in my life? If you think that a person, thing or task doesn’t have a positive improvement in your life, or in a smaller scale, within the 24 hours of your life, ELIMINATE or IGNORE it. Does it add clutter and waste my time? Get rid of small unimportant things to get to the more important ones. Get to the point, immediately. Avoid useless chit chats. Does it help free my time to do the things that I want? If it doesn’t help, but instead prolong the realization of your goal, ELIMINATE, TERMINATE, IGNORE!
I can’t stress enough the importance of elimination. It will free you in ways you can’t ever imagine! Why waste your time? Wastes go to the garbage, and thus, all the unimportant should go too. Remember, LESS is MORE. Less clutter, less distractions, more time. Keep it simple. DO just the important. Don’t stress yourself from doing all the insignificant things. Distress and ELIMINATE.

Eliminate to Attain: An Introduction to a Better Lifestyle is a post from: Lifestyle Designer