I would welcome your input on how I can improve this.

[chrisstribbs]

Hi there,
I'm a little bit stuck, having moved into a full time employed role from being a subcontractor. For a long time, I have used a mixture of GTD and time boxing to get a number of successful results. I have built this system over 15 years of self-employment, which also included a part time employed role for a while and a number of disabilities.

My role includes:

34.5 hour working week when breaks have been deducted

12 to 18 hours of client delivery per week

Which requires a minimum of 6 to 8 to 8 hours of preparation and after work, to write appointment notes and prepare for the delivery.

Project work and associated meetings.

Others having access to my diary to book in ad hoc meetings and calls.

Thus far, I have continued time boxing time for non delivery activities and explaining that these are flexible.

I am also using a getting things done approach to projects, by keeping these in a project list and reviewing them each week in my weekly review.

• how am I going to balance all these different things and different deadlines when extra things are added into my calendar?
• Thus far, my system has shown the flexibility by being able to rearrange a meeting multiple times where other things change. How am I going to find time to do the learning that is essential for my role?

Thanks for your input.

Edit:
The team will be putting extra client work in my diary e.g. to deliver an extra session or deal with questions best answered by a practitioner.

I don’t want to continue this work. People around me want me to and I dont know why.

 

[mcogilvie]

My wife and I are both university professors, so it’s a familiar problem for us. Meetings are deadly, and there are people who are happy to devote the bulk of their time, and yours, to meetings. You’re doing all the right things. You may need the active support of your supervisor to protect your time. As you settle into your role and your workplace, things will probably get a bit easier. You may want to propose alternatives to meetings or methods to shorten meetings. It may take time to win people over, but you will find allies. Be clear about the need for prep time and follow-up. A really tight, fast GTD system will help you “find” extra time, that is, use your time well. You need to avoid saying to yourself, “I need at least a one-hour block of time to make progress on this”, because you won’t always have it. However, it’s ok to say to others “I think I do my best work when I have….”

 

[chrisstribbs]

Thank you. Looks like I'll be doing all my learning in my own time :-(

 

[gtdstudente]

"Unclear why/what makes this meeting important, significant, ect.?"

"Please extend further clarification as to why/what makes this meeting appropriate, important, significant, ect.?"

etc., etc., etc.

If one professionally allows one professionally "off the hook", then whose professionally to 'blame'?

Track and show results thereafter of worthy improvement(s) ?

There can seemingly be excessive nuances which can be very capture worthy when it comes to human 'adult' engagement(s) ?

At the risk of sounding harsh
To err is human, to make the same mistake is stupid ?

As you see GTD fit. . . .

 

[fooddude]

The team will be putting extra client work in my diary e.g. to deliver an extra session or deal with questions best answered by a practitioner.

This sounds suspiciously like they are giving you work they don't want to do. I can't tell what you do, but they may need to be trained who is best suited to solve the problem or you need to just forward it to the "practitioner" that needed to be contacted. If I mis understood that sentence I apologize.

 

[chrisstribbs]

This sounds suspiciously like they are giving you work they don't want to do. I can't tell what you do, but they may need to be trained who is best suited to solve the problem or you need to just forward it to the "practitioner" that needed to be contacted. If I mis understood that sentence I apologize.

Thanks, well it is more that a client needs to ask me about how the service (workplace disability support) works as a seasoned practitioner. There's another practitioner doing the same services and less projects.... I think there might also be checking with me before the CEO when freelancers have a query.

 

[chrisstribbs]

"Unclear why/what makes this meeting important, significant, ect.?"

"Please extend further clarification as to why/what makes this meeting appropriate, important, significant, ect.?"

etc., etc., etc.

If one professionally allows one professionally "off the hook", then whose professionally to 'blame'?

Track and show results thereafter of worthy improvement(s) ?

There can seemingly be excessive nuances which can be very capture worthy when it comes to human 'adult' engagement(s) ?

At the risk of sounding harsh
To err is human, to make the same mistake is stupid ?

As you see GTD fit. . . .

Thank you for sharing your input.

 

[HelenM]

Thanks, well it is more that a client needs to ask me about how the service (workplace disability support) works as a seasoned practitioner. There's another practitioner doing the same services and less projects.... I think there might also be checking with me before the CEO when freelancers have a query.

could this be something where you produce a standard "guidebook" you could give to clients? Sort of a FAQ?
Regarding time - I have had some success in requesting agendas for meetings. No agenda? Not coming. Now, this does depend on lots of factors but it is perhaps something to think about. Also - no is a complete sentence. Sometimes I just decline meetings if it doesn't work with my calendar. You might need to be more established before you can pull that off, but again something to keep in mind.
You could also set specific times in the week where people can ad-hoc book you. Personally I don't allow people to book direct in my calendar, but you might not be able to stop that - but you can specify times. A bit like professors have "office hours."
If you have a slacking co-worker then try sending a few folk their way. Make them pull their weight!
As for training - you will have to block time. Don't do it on your own time unless it benefits you out of work, i.e. something that can help you get a better job it may be worth it, internal training probably not. Try telling your team you will be unavailable on say Friday afternoon as you're catching up with training, then put yourself on do not disturb, turn off your email and dig in. They'll soon learn.

 

[chrisstribbs]

could this be something where you produce a standard "guidebook" you could give to clients? Sort of a FAQ?
Regarding time - I have had some success in requesting agendas for meetings. No agenda? Not coming. Now, this does depend on lots of factors but it is perhaps something to think about. Also - no is a complete sentence. Sometimes I just decline meetings if it doesn't work with my calendar. You might need to be more established before you can pull that off, but again something to keep in mind.
You could also set specific times in the week where people can ad-hoc book you. Personally I don't allow people to book direct in my calendar, but you might not be able to stop that - but you can specify times. A bit like professors have "office hours."
If you have a slacking co-worker then try sending a few folk their way. Make them pull their weight!
As for training - you will have to block time. Don't do it on your own time unless it benefits you out of work, i.e. something that can help you get a better job it may be worth it, internal training probably not. Try telling your team you will be unavailable on say Friday afternoon as you're catching up with training, then put yourself on do not disturb, turn off your email and dig in. They'll soon learn.

Thanks for these excellent points.
I just tried to create a FAQ word document on one drive to prompt me and it would not let me edit a new document.

I was told I had autonomy over my time and can say no by my boss (our CEO). I then said no to something (with reason and i had a chat with the colleague)and boss didnt like that :-( . I can't stop people booking in my diary sadly, though have suggested 12-1 as bookable.

Have tried having protected focus time for tasks to be told not to do that.

I might need more conversation with my manager to keep time for learning, have been logging that I'm doing in my own time.

 

[fooddude]

was told I had autonomy over my time and can say no by my boss (our CEO). I then said no to something (with reason and i had a chat with the colleague)and boss didnt like that :-( . I can't stop people booking in my diary sadly, though have suggested 12-1 as bookable.

Have tried having protected focus time for tasks to be told not to do that.

I might need more conversation with my manager to keep time for learning, have been logging that I'm doing in my own time.

This really seems like an opportunity to replace this CEO with someone you can partner with. Did you ask why the person you replaced left? I have always been in commissioned sales and no one was allowed to just put a meeting on my calendar. Good luck.

 

[chrisstribbs]

This really seems like an opportunity to replace this CEO with someone you can partner with. Did you ask why the person you replaced left? I have always been in commissioned sales and no one was allowed to just put a meeting on my calendar. Good luck.

We used to partner well. This is a small company, so my colleague is in a similar role. I am more active with the work I did as a subcontractor, such as CPD for our freelance team.

 

[Stefan Godo]

Hi there,
I'm a little bit stuck, having moved into a full time employed role from being a subcontractor. For a long time, I have used a mixture of GTD and time boxing to get a number of successful results. I have built this system over 15 years of self-employment, which also included a part time employed role for a while and a number of disabilities.

My role includes:

34.5 hour working week when breaks have been deducted

12 to 18 hours of client delivery per week

Which requires a minimum of 6 to 8 to 8 hours of preparation and after work, to write appointment notes and prepare for the delivery.

Project work and associated meetings.

Others having access to my diary to book in ad hoc meetings and calls.

Thus far, I have continued time boxing time for non delivery activities and explaining that these are flexible.

I am also using a getting things done approach to projects, by keeping these in a project list and reviewing them each week in my weekly review.

• how am I going to balance all these different things and different deadlines when extra things are added into my calendar?
• Thus far, my system has shown the flexibility by being able to rearrange a meeting multiple times where other things change. How am I going to find time to do the learning that is essential for my role?

Thanks for your input.

Edit:
The team will be putting extra client work in my diary e.g. to deliver an extra session or deal with questions best answered by a practitioner.

I don’t want to continue this work. People around me want me to and I dont know why.

there are many points to be adressed here:
0. GTD is just GTD, it does not matter how many roles, jobs, responsibilities you have. The process is universal (people did the exactly same steps BEFORE sript was invented - obviuosly the intensity and carrier was different)
1. review your capture system (tools and habits). It seems that in meetings, F2F discussions, client work you get a lot of inuts - which you need to process later (evtl overtime). Smart notetaking can substantially decrease the load (and time demend) of capture, clarify and organize.
2. Meetings are not the problem. Unnecessary and bad meetings are.
Good (necessary) meetings are veins of the company where a lot gets CLARIFIED, ORGANIZED, REVIEWED and DONE.
How to do it depends on the meeting goals, if you give more info, I can help further.
3. agree on rules of appointment bookings - if you need individual (asynch) work slots, defend them - I guess others need it too, make an agreement. you can still timeblock - use a (colour?, other) coding which says which appointments/timeblocks are flexible and which are not.
4. read the new TEAM: Getting Things Done with others book, it describes the steps needed.