I tend to view professional development opportunities with a slight degree of suspicion.   “So, you think I should take time away from my cram-packed schedule to attend an all-day session with an ambitious and somewhat ambiguous title like Managing Multiple Priorities?  I’m barely staying on top of things as it is, and besides, ain’t nobody got time for that.”  However, if I have learned anything from Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, it is that effective people make time to plan ahead and work on developing good habits.  So, I signed up for Friday’s training.

Through a combination of humorous personal anecdotes, hands-on activities, and straightforward wisdom, our trainer, Sally O’Boyle of Fred Pryor Seminars, guided us from a general assessment of our time management challenges to series of actionable steps to remedy our personal management pitfalls.  For me, the lessons on priority-setting and procrastination were especially helpful.  Rather than go into too much detail there, here are a few tips from which we all can benefit:

• Reduce or eliminate distractions.  Did you know that each distraction is 8 minutes of wasted time?  Post-it notes attached to your screen, email notifications, and people who stop by with stories about their dog are all distractions, so get rid of the visual clutter and either shut your door or orient your desk so that passers-by do not assume you are available to chat.
• Handle each sheet of paper only once.  Find yourself sitting on a pile of papers from last year?  To keep track of how much time and energy each paper is sapping from your day, punch a hole in the corner or put a check mark on the page each time you handle it.
• Shave time off phone calls and drop-in visits.  Is a conversation drifting off-course?  Redirect by summarizing what has been said thus far, and wrap it up by saying, “I know you’re busy, so I’ll just…” 

Time is a limited commodity, but I believe this training was worth the investment.  If you were not able to attend this one, keep your eye out for a future opportunity.  And if one of your colleagues participated in Managing Multiple Priorities, you may want make it your priority to see what other lessons he or she gleaned from the day while the information is still fresh.  However, do not be surprised if they log your visit on a sheet of paper—that just means they are putting one of Friday’s lessons into practice.