Self-motivation is one of the requirements of being a good court reporter. While self-motivation keeps a court reporter working and getting work done, still there are times when tight deadlines can be tough for even the best court reporters. Tight deadlines often mean added stress. Straining to meet all of those deadlines can seem daunting and overwhelming.

To help tackle your excessive workload, here are some time management tips that will help you keep yourself organized and moving forward, accomplishing more work in less time:

1. Take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don’t start your day until you’ve completed your plan for how you will spend your time. For instance, are you going to work on editing your latest transcript first, and then switch to proofreading later in the morning? Will you edit until the entire transcript is finished before switching tasks? Making decisions at the beginning of your day will allow you to easily move from one task to the next without hesitation.
2. Take five minutes before every task to decide what result you want to attain. This will help you know what success looks like before you start. Take five minutes after each task to determine whether your desired result was achieved. If not, what was missing? What do you need to bring the task to completion?
3. Put up a “Do not disturb” sign when you absolutely have to get work done. When I’m working in my home office and close my door, my family knows they are to let me work without disruption. Whether your office is in a traditional setting or a home office, it’s amazing how much you can get done when you are not being interrupted.
4. Resist answering the phone every time it rings, or answering email as soon as it shows up. Disconnect instant messaging. Don’t instantly give people your attention unless it’s absolutely crucial. Instead, schedule a time to answer email and return phone calls. Eliminating these constant interruptions can do wonders for boosting your productivity.
5. Break large, time-consuming tasks into smaller tasks. Work on them a few minutes at a time until you get them done. This works for large tasks as well as tasks over which you find yourself procrastinating. For instance, when it’s time to organize my tax receipts, I dread sitting down and going through all of them. But if I break it up into just a few minutes this morning, then work on it again a few minutes this afternoon, it makes it easier to accomplish.
6. Know when you work best. Are you a morning person? Then plan your priority tasks for the morning. Not sure when you work your best? Discover your best time by monitoring your productivity over a period of time. Once you find your best time, set your schedule to keep your best time free for your most important work. I know that I need to do proofreading in the morning, because I am often not as fresh in the afternoon and find it difficult to stay on task. But in the morning, I can get through many pages easily and know I didn’t miss anything.

We all have our own time management skills that work for us. Adding a new skill occasionally will help you make the most of the time you do have, and allow you to be more productive and less stressed.

What are some other tips that have helped you with time management?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Susan Kay is a Co-Founder and Co-Owner of Brown & Jones Reporting, Inc. Connect with her on LinkedIn and Google+.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 19th, 2013 at 10:19 am and is filed under All Posts, Court Reporting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.