In the wake of the July 4th holiday, it’s the perfect time to return to our discussion on time management. The first step in developing this skill is to make it a habit. Luckily, one of our Founding Fathers had the secrets to doing just that. At the age of 20, Benjamin Franklin resolved to live a virtuous life through deliberate focus on improving his bad habits. He published his methodology in 1726.
To this day, people use the model he set up to improve aspects of their personal and professional life. If people focus on just one habit a week in 12 week cycles, they will spend one month a year improving 12 bad habits. Plastic Printers decided to apply this technique to time management.
The first article focused on the first 6 habits; this article will focus on the last 6.
A Friendly Reminder
Thankfully, you do not need much to put this method into practice. That said; please remember to bring:
- Commitment to improvement
- Focus for problem-solving
- Materials for creating visual reminders
When you are ready to start this project. Those are some of the same principles we put into everything involved in printing on plastic. The 7th habit picks up right where we left off. It’s time to put that focus into practice.
Habit #7: Set aside task-oriented time. We’ve talked about time blocking before. One of the best things you can do to improve time management is to give your schedule a consistent structure. Keep yourself on-task by developing a schedule that’s built around those tasks. Figure out how long it takes you to do something and deliberately create the window you need in your schedule.
Printing on plastic requires task-oriented focus from the time an order is placed to the time it’s designed, printed, and shipped. That’s just one example of how time blocking can make your day more efficient. Speaking of efficiency; that brings us to habit #8.
Habit #8: Look for shortcuts. If you find yourself doing several repetitive tasks a day, find ways to do those tasks faster. This could be as simple as learning a handful of keyboard shortcuts or setting up task-sharing on your office agenda. Saving a few minutes here and there can give you more time to close-out tasks on a daily basis.
Habit #9: Turn on your vocational cruise control. Certain work functions don’t require a lot of ongoing attention. For things like: password changes, security scans, system updates, and schedule alerts; set it and forget it. Allow these processes to run independently and only make changes as-needed.
Habit #10: Coordinate a preemptive strike. Set aside time in your day to brainstorm and problem-solve. Think about what lies ahead for that day, week, or month and come up with a plan to tackle some of the issues that might arise. Concentration should always be part of preparation.
When something goes wrong with printing on plastic, our industry-leading specialists are also expert problem solvers. They have taken the time to develop contingency plans for mechanical breakdowns revising orders. You can do the same thing at your job. Ask yourself, what are some problems we can be prepared to solve before they occur? Construct a plan that addresses the problem and keep it on the back-burner.
Habit #11: Become a hurdle jumper, not a full-scale repeller. The world is full of goal-setters and go-getters. Do you know what the difference is? Goal-setters talk a good game, but go-getters take the goal they’ve set and break it down into small, achievable steps. If you want to make that transition, focus on the snapshots in front of you and stop day-dreaming about the big picture.
Habit #12: Invest your time in what’s important. Instead of starting and stopping numerous projects at the same time; set your priorities. Decide what is most important to complete and stop all of the extraneous activities that lead to decreased productivity and distraction.
Show & Tell
We’ve put these habits into practice when printing on plastic. Since these guideposts have served us so well, we decided we would pass them on to you. There are a couple of ways we can do that:
- By instruction, like the content of this article.
- By demonstration, like placing an order on www.plasticprinters.com.
Printing on plastic is a lot like show & tell. We can show you what we’re capable of and tell you about it. Then, you can show other people what we’re capable of and tell them about it, and the habit-forming chain will continue.
