From the course: Time Management Fundamentals

Setting your processing schedule

From the course: Time Management Fundamentals

Setting your processing schedule

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- Before we continue, if you haven't yet spent one hour processing items out of your inbox, I'd encourage you to pause and schedule that now before proceeding. As you practice, you'll likely realize that while you're off to a good start, you still have a lot more processing to do. In fact, you'll make processing a lifelong habit. Aim to process each of your approved gathering points to empty at least once per week. Not all at the same time. You just want each to reach zero for one weekly moment. Sound intimidating? It's very possible though. Most of my clients do this. First, set a recurring appointment in your schedule for processing. My recommended weekly allowance of processing is about five hours a week. Try five hours a week for a couple of weeks and then adjust as needed. I know this may sound like a lot but remember processing is just another word for deciding, deciding what, when and where. Most people already spend 10 to 15 hours per week processing because they constantly switch their attention from decision to decision. This system asks you to spend less processing time by doing it in a more focused way. When should those five hours per week happen? Most jobs have natural ebbs and flows. Aim for times when you're least likely to be interrupted. So if you're not usually interrupted first thing in the morning, you could test processing from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM, Monday through Friday. That would give you five hours a week. I recommend blocks of at least one hour at a time. Most people get into a productive processing rhythm at around the 25 minute mark. When you process for at least an hour at a time, you'll make the most of that rhythm. I personally prefer scheduling two large chunks of time on Monday and Friday for processing. Give a schedule a try, then adjust over time. Pause this video and create a recurring schedule in your calendar for processing at least least five hours each week. Then come back for one last step. Okay. We're almost done. What about the backlog of all those boxes? During the initial gathering, you may have finished with several boxes, perhaps dozens. Also, if you completed the mind clearing exercise, you have gathered dozens of incomplete tasks to a notepad or other gathering point. This means you'll need to spend extra time processing, just this once. Generally, you'll schedule one extra hour per large unfinished box and one hour for every 30 unresolved tasks you gathered from your mind. So if you had five box boxes beyond your normal inbox and 60 unresolved tasks, you'll need about eight extra hours for processing. Don't try to do it all now. A good target to aim for is completing this backlog processing within the next month. Yes, it'll take some work to get to zero but the payoff is amazing. It's a liberating feeling and one I'd love for you to experience. So go to your calendar and schedule that extra time for your backlog processing. It'll be worth it.

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