Combatting time wasters - part 2 of 2

Phone calls are known to be a time waster. They can be one of the biggest time sinks in the business day. Even if you are already wise to the tactic of requesting friends not to call and chat with you during business hours, you can still end up losing time to small talk on the phone. I have been on calls with people and found myself drug into small talk by them. The most memorable for me at the moment was when I was trying to confirm hotel reservations for Las Vegas and one of the many operators I talked to wanted to talk about what it was like to live in Alaska and how they wanted to visit the state some day. Be polite, but don't forget that your time is money. The person on the other end is probably being paid by the hour, but chances are you are being paid based on the amount of work you get done. Time is money and the more time you spend in small talk on the phone is less time you have to make money. It can add up fast.

E-mail is another time sink, just like phone calls. My best tactic so far has been to only check e-mail if there is something I *have* to see, otherwise I leave it for a few days and then only check it after I have caught up on my work.

There are other places you loose time. General talk with your family and other time sinks, but you will need to evaluate where they are in your own day and how you can shorten or eradicate them.