Activity Management – Part II

Good morning! Yesterday, I posted an article about my thoughts on how to implement a technique to help you manage your daily scheduled activities. The idea was to put together a process that helps you become more efficient and more productive. If you havent had a chance to read that article, you can get to it by clicking here.

Today, I would like to talk to you about another techique that I use, that works particularly well when it comes to managing all those phone calls you need to return.

If your calendar is anything like mine, you tend to spend more time out of the office than in it. By the time you get back to your office, it’s time to catch up on voice mail and emails. When I clear out my voice mail, I make it a habit to schedule those activities right in my Contact Relationship Management (CRM) system. This way, I don’t have to manage multiple pieces of paper, and because my CRM synchronizes to my BlackBerry, the contacts and activities automatically end up on my phone as well. I try to do the same thing with my email. I triage my new messages and those that I can get delegated, deleted or responded to quickly with a short reply. Then I look for messages that require action on my behalf and schedule those activities in my CRM (often times, attaching the full email message to the contact record, or at least pasting the message into the history). Usually, by the time I am finished clearing out my messages from both my phone and email, I have a pretty good collection of activities in my database. Often times, a majority of those activities are phone calls that need to be returned.

Once my CRM is brought up to date, I’m back to my Task List to review the activities that require my immediate attention. As I mentioned yesterday, one of the tricks I use is priority management. Another trick I use is to take a look at my list of phone calls, and any calls that are of a high priority, I drag to a specific time on my daily calendar. While Im doing this, I also make sure I schedule the more difficult calls, (or the calls that require the most brain power) for earlier in the day. This way, I can make sure that I am getting the critical calls done first so in case something happens to my schedule during the day, I’ve at least focused my efforts appropriately. When I do this, I find that I tend to move from one call to the next without looking at the entire list again, and “cherry-picking” the next call. I can also be very sensitive about the amount of time I need to allocate to my activities and the time of day. If it’s “selling time” then I had better be doing the calls related to selling. By proactively reviewing and scheduling your list of calls, you’ll find that you are getting through more calls in a day, and achieving a much better connection rate.

I would appreciate reading your comments so if you have any feedback for me, please post them as a response below.

Enjoy your day!

Ken

Related posts:

1. Monday Morning Kick Start