You know the story. You’re the first one in the office. You have big plans to cross major projects off your list. Then you open your email to 35 new messages. Then you open your personal email. Then you check your phone messages. You have to respond to at least a couple of emails. Oh yeah! Coffee, catch up with your workmates, time for the meeting, and it’s suddenly 11:45 and  you’re thinking about lunch. But you don’t feel you deserve it because  you haven’t actually gotten anything done that you were planning to do. Sure, you’ve put out fires, responded to queries, answered messages, but you haven’t moved forward in your own goals for the day. What were they again? No matter, look—another folder on my desk that somebody needs back in an hour. Better tackle it. So it goes, so that some days you never get to your own projects (or  they’re so interrupted that progress is slow). You’re not goofing off — au contraire, you eat at your desk, you work long hours, yet still, you know somehow that not working as efficiently as you could be. But how to manage it  better?

Because I struggle with this, I’m always looking for articles, books, websites—anything  that will tell me how to focus better, be more organized, test myself for ADD, wonder about the state of our multitasking society…

Recently I found an article on time management — “An 18-minute plan for managing your day.” Devised by Peter Bregman, a business, leadership and life consultant, it’s a strategy so simple and easy, that it struck me. I’ve been using it this week and  it’s working really well for me. Mostly, it’s just about accountability. You have scheduled tasks, a clock and check in times, all of which are very good and simple ways for a person with an over-multitasked brain  to refocus and get back to work. I should of thought of that. But I didn’t.

If you could use some help juggling, here it is:

Step 1 (5 minutes) Set a plan for the day before you even turn on your computer. Write a list of the most important tasks to accomplish that will further your goals and allow you to leave at the end of the day feeling  productive and successful. Then schedule those tasks into time slots, putting the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day. He says that the act of setting a date and time for a task has proven (in studies) to make people 80% more likely to actually do it.

Step 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus. Set an alarm to go off every hour. When it does, take a deep breath, stretch, look at your list, and see if you spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage the day hour by hour. Don’t let the hours manage you.

Step 3: (5 minutes) Review. At the end of  the day, shut off your computer and review your progress. What worked? Where did you focus? Where did you get distracted? What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?

His method is about the power of rituals, because of their predictibility. If you choose to focus deliberately and keep reminding yourself over and over of that focus, you will stay focused. It’s that simple.

Does anybody out there in the blogosphere have a method that works to keep them on track, organizationally, as well as on-time?