I bought a small dry erase board to hang at my desk this week. The plan is for this to help me implement another time management strategy...having a "Focus Board" for a particular project/theme of the week.

To manage recurring tasks, I make use of the Outlook task list. I'll discuss that in another post at another time. The thought behind a "Focus Board" is to have a place to record one or two tasks or goals above my normal to-do list that I want to either make good progress on, or complete, by the end of the work week. By writing them on this visible board, this can help me stay focused when other project ideas or distractions come to mind. Those ideas can wait until whatever is on the "Focus Board" for the week is finished.

All of us have daily to-do lists that should be accomplished. However, if we only do those repetative items, we may never conquer larger projects. Ideally, you should schedule some "project time" (or at least put "work on project" on one of your days to-do lists) for each week. Then, you can focus on whatever project you've listed on your focus board during the time you've allotted. Keep that project listed on your focus board until it is complete, even if it takes more than a week. Restrict yourself to listing no more than two projects at a time on your Focus Board--maybe one home related and one business related.

Let me give you an example. This week, my focus board has two items...one is to catch up on some professional development reading, and the other is to create an additional handout for a class we just finished developing. Those are the only two items listed on the Focus Board. That's all I feel I can reasonably do in addition to my typical, daily to-dos. (One of my weekly to-dos is to polish or prepare an article for one of our websites. In this case, the form I want to create will also knock out this repeating "to-do" item.) The professional development reading works for this week because the holiday is allowing some more free time. It seemed a good time to focus on some reading.

The key is to Focus Board lies in its name...it's a visual to help yourself stay focused. One danger to effective time management is having so many scattered goals in our heads. A combination of a reasonable, repetitive to-do list with a changing Focus Board can help you balance attention on routine tasks while also beginning to tackle larger projects. Print This