DISCLAIMER: This post is written as a live blog from Mozcon. There may be typos and grammar to make my high school English teachers weep. Please excuse those … it’s a fast=paced conference with back-to-back sessions and no time for proofing or even proper writing.
Back from the afternoon break of some San Palagrino and an ice cream bar (hat tip to Moz for some awesome snacks). Now we’ve got Marta Turek from ROI DNA on saving time.
She begins by noting that marketers are responsible now for customer engagement. No longer is it about us getting a client it’s about converting and keeping them. To make it more difficult – the average marketer will waste 3 hours per day on interruptions (one every 8 minutes).
The success is in developing a set of new habits. These need to be defined. The steps are:
Over 21 Days:
Each day integrate a tactic that will make you more effective
Each day you will focus on doing that days tactic plus all those before it
By day 21 the firs tocic will be a habit like brushing your teeth
But What To Focus On …
You need time
You need context
You need mindset
You need to review it all
SO what to focus on. 49% of workers agree that meetings are the biggest time waster. So stop one is to review your calendar to determine how much time you actually have to do real work. If you don’t understand why a meeting is being requested – decline it (writers note – good luck with that 🙂
Find your open blocks uninterrupted and block it off.
Now, the next step according to Marta is to:
Create a master list of all the things you could have to do
Prioritize a monthly list
Which of course leaves the questions … how to keep your uninterrupted time clear.
Her first tip I tend to do myself and it’s a great suggestions … turn off the distractions. Close email, Facebook, etc. and focus on the task at hand.
Time yourself. This will help you understand how long things take for planning. I know I always tend to underestimate the time to do things and Beanstalk’s Mary Davies will occasionally have to ask me to time a task I’m assigning to an employee to make sure I’m being realistic. I’m often not. My staff can thank her for that.
Document correctly. It can take longer but when it comes time to delegate a task, you’ll have it all documented so you don’t have to deal with it.