Time Management

Okay, so this title even put me to sleep while I was typing it.

But seriously, I always consider myself a great time manager--I seem to be able to pack my days full of "stuff" more than anyone else I know. I have little secret tricks, like my Franklin Planner, which I have archived back to 1991. It's kind of cool even to look back at days where I was using it for everything--now I just use it for major projects and events.

But, here are the tasks I was faced with today:

1) I had a very minor yet whiney customer insist that I come out and meet with them about something they may buy from me in 6 months. I've rescheduled 3 times.
2) I had 78 Emails to sort through, which will dictate my next 2 weeks of work
3) I had to get the oil changed in my car or I'll, like, void the warranty or something
4) I have 5 customers waiting to buy something (total is 1/2 of my annual budget), but they need me to send them a quotation first, which I am procrastinating for some idiotic reason
5) My desk is about to be declared a war zone and needs to be straightened up
6) I need to do research for a customer into what they can do with their existing equipment
7) I need to submit a report to my boss every Monday
8) My paycheck was incorrectly calculated (commission), and they are shorting me (one year's worth of car payments !!!!!!) Last time that happened, it took them 60 days to correct it, severely pissing me off.
9) I have a customer whose equipment is working, but wants me to immediately drop everything and install an upgrade
10) I have 3 fellow employees calling me and asking for advice and help

If you have ever read Stephen Covey's "What Matters Most", you will know that there are 4 quadrants:

1) Stuff that is important and Urgent
2) Stuff that is important but not urgent
3) Stuff that is not important but urgent
4) Stuff that is not important and not urgent

If I was going to schedule my time, I would put the following in quadrant 1:

4, 7, 8

Quadrant 2:

2, 3, 6, 9

Qudrant 3:

1, 10,

Unfortunately, I think blogging falls into quadrant 4, until it starts generating some income. Also in quadrant 4: Listening to "Menudo" CDs, playing Sega, Thinking about buying a Porsche someday, (theoretically) fishing, watching the food network, Reading anything written by Sue Grafton, and cow-tipping.

Which leaves cleaning my desk, which I couldn't figure out where it goes, which is probably why it never gets done.

So...seriously, what do I end up doing?

I do my report first and fire off a couple of questions about my customer's applications, clean up 20 Emails and take off for the whiney customer just to shut her up (but while I'm there I treat her like the most important person in the world, then subtly work in to the conversation that my customer list has 2,602 people on it--which is true). Oh, and I sent a quick Email to my boss asking him to help me get my check thing straightened out (which he did!).

On the way back, I get my oil changed and check my voicemails while I'm waiting, scheduling out my week from what I can remember from the Emails.

I grab Quiznos and go back to my desk to eat while I work (so somehow the calories or carbs or light-saber charges or whatever the hell I'm supposed to be worried about doesn't count since I'm eating while working), doing 3 of the quotes and sending them off before leaving to meet the customer who wants the upgrade (before that, I took 20 minutes and picked up Ryan from his second to last day of kindergarten so I could thank the teacher and tell her how much I appreciate her). I call back the 3 fellow employees on the way to the upgrade and settle those issues.

I finish and get back ahead of the traffic, answer 20 more Emails and prepare for the last 2 quotes. I send out 2 more research Emails so I'm done with that until the answers come back (hopefully someday...)

After dinner I played catch with Ryan in the backyard for an hour.

And now here I sit at my messy desk, feeling like I failed today.

Looking at tomorrow's list, I have 15 even more urgent things to do....