Time Tracking Exercise Follow Up

Did you complete the time tracking exercise? How many days did you track your time for? What method did you prefer the planning method or the recording method?



Congratulations on investing the time to save time. Seeing as we invested in tracking time it is important to evaluate our recordings. We want to do the following:


1) Analyse the way we used our time, what can you see from looking at how you spent your time?


2) What are some better ways you can use your time based on the analysis?


3) What are your wasteful tasks?


4) What are your unproductive tasks?


5) How can you reduce or eliminate your wasteful and unproductive tasks? It is okay to do this one step at a time.


6) How can you consolidate your time so you have large chunks of time for your most important work?


What will this achieve?


> make us more aware of adding “quick” tasks into our day


> allow us to slowly eliminate time wasting


> allow us to eliminate unproductive work


> allows us to find chunks of time for our most important projects


> ensures we question what we are doing and when we are doing it


About Us


LifeStyle Refocus is a Melbourne based personal assistant, corporate concierge and lifestyle management consultancy. They are all about saving you TIME. By taking care of your “to do” list so you can spend time doing the things that are truly important to you. For more information go to www.lifestylerefocus.com.au or contact Silvana on 0417 595 744 or Michele on 0437 311 802.

What does clutter do to you?

Clutter affects you and the people around you in many ways, for example:
> You waste time searching for things
> Clutter occupies space
> You lose things
> Extra money is spent on items which have already been bought
> Money is wasted on excess furniture and storage to hoard the clutter
> Clutter makes you feel busy and causes unnecessary stress.
> You get distracted and have difficulty focusing
> Clutter affects your image. You look out of control
> You cannot prioritise or work efficiently when you can't see or find the tasks that need to be done

How do you know when it's time for you to Declutter?
It will become very obvious when:
> You have difficulty finding things
> You're always saying, "I know it's here somewhere!"
> You can't see your desk for the mess
> You cut your fingers in the filing cabinet when you try to dig out a file
> You have to push your body against the cupboard door to close it
> The bookshelves are beginning to break because of all the weight
> You've forgotten what your floor looks like because it's buried under the mess
> You feel out of control and overwhelmed when sitting in your office

Don’t let your clutter control you, your moods, your success, your time. Take ACTION and start to clear the clutter.

About Us

LifeStyle Refocus is a Melbourne based personal assistant, corporate concierge and lifestyle management consultancy. They are all about saving you TIME. By taking care of your “to do” list so you can spend time doing the things that are truly important to you. For more information go to www.lifestylerefocus.com.au or contact Silvana on 0417 595 744 or Michele on 0437 311 802.

Office Organising Tips [Part 4]

Conquer Your Filing
In an idea office environment we should be able to find anything that we need the instant we need it. So why is it that we can not always do this? The answer is in whether we have invested the time to establish a filing system that we understand. It is easy to file items however the objective of filing is to find the filed items quickly.

By creating a filing system where we can retrieve documents when we need to find them we can save ourselves hours a day.

Steps to conquer your filing.

Purge what you do not need!

Put like items together in broad categories such as a main category, then a sub-category. For example, the main category is financial, sub-categories include bank accounts, shares, cash flow, profit and loss etc.

Keep a file index [a master list of file names].

Always check your file index prior to creating a new file or when deciding where to put new documents.

Keep the most recent papers in the front of the file. When you open the file the most current information will be on top.

Set up new files when you need then, this way the paper is dealt with and you have completed your task. It only takes a couple of minutes to keep everything in its place!

Create a filing system for your electronic documents that mirrors the system you have for your paper documents.

Remember . . .
Throw out papers you do not need. The 80/20 principle applies to filing as well. We only refer to approx 20% of the documents that we keep filed. So next time before you spend the time filing a document ask yourself whether you really need to keep it. If the answer is yes, ask yourself whether you are placing it in the most logical spot to find it when you do need it.

About Us

LifeStyle Refocus is a Melbourne based personal assistant, corporate concierge and lifestyle management consultancy. They are all about saving you TIME. By taking care of your “to do” or “wish list” so you can spend time doing the things that are truly important to you. For more information go to

www.lifestylerefocus.com.au or contact Silvana on 0417 595 744 or Michele on 0437 311 802.

Office Organising Tips [Part 2]

Organise Your Desk
What does your desk look like? Are you happy with the way it is set up? Do you even stop and look at your desk and analyse whether it is working for you? Your desk can be a key factor in your productivity.

A cluttered desk can affect you as follows:
§ It can waste your time
§ It occupies space
§ You can lose things
§ Money is wasted on extra office furniture and storage to hold all the extras you are keeping
§ It can affect how others see you
§ It can appear that you are out of control
§ It can be difficult to prioritise your work when you can not find what needs to be done

What to do:
§ Keep only supplies that you need on a daily basis on your desk
§ Ensure the top draw closest to your desk holds your "office tools" that is the stapler, pens, pencils, paper clips. It is close by but not occupying space
§ Create a paper flow system for your incoming documents so they do not accumulate in your in tray
§ Use your in tray for items that have not yet been placed into the paper flow system
§ Avoid looking at document and putting them back into the in tray or on your desk, it is wasting valuable time

The act of maintaining your desk is one step on the way to be more effective and profitable. Remove the clutter so you can focus on the important areas of your business.

About Us
LifeStyle Refocus is a Melbourne based personal assistant, corporate concierge and lifestyle management consultancy. They are all about saving you TIME. By taking care of your “to do” or “wish list” so you can spend time doing the things that are truly important to you. For more information go to www.lifestylerefocus.com.au or contact Silvana on 0417 595 744 or Michele on 0437 311 802.

Office Organising Tips

Empty your mind
Empty information from your brain and organise it. That can be done by using a diary, a notebook, a planner, and your computer or specific software packages that are available. By doing this it gives your brain space to think about what you should be focusing on because you have the prompts you need to deal with tasks or appointments when they occur.

Reoccurring tasks
Do you have reoccurring tasks that you have to do? It may be checking office stationery supplies [weekly, monthly etc] or paying insurance premiums [annually]. Place these tasks into “Microsoft office tasks” and it will remind you when you start up your email program of the jobs that have to be done. They can be set up as reoccurring tasks so that they remind you when needed.

Give yourself time
Try and leave some space within your day to focus on a project or key action items. This allows you time to deal with tasks that have to be done.
Do you know that we underestimate how much time it will take to complete a task? It is a habit that we all do until we fully track our time and have an educated understanding of the time tasks take. Think about when you check emails and how long you think that will take you. How often are you surprised when time has just slipped away? Therefore whenever you think about how much time something is going to take allocate twice as much time. This accommodates for such things as interruptions or further research that may be required to complete the job properly.

Conquer large projects
When you are feeling overwhelmed by large project take a few minutes and break the project down into small, sequential steps. Then start from the end task and schedule these steps into days and approx time each task would take. This way you will have it completed on time. So long as you stay on track with your time line you will feel that you are making progress and not be overwhelmed.

About Us
LifeStyle Refocus is a Melbourne based personal assistant, corporate concierge and lifestyle management consultancy. They are all about saving you TIME. By taking care of your “to do or wish list” so you can spend time doing the things that are truly important to you. For more information go to www.lifestylerefocus.com.au or contact Silvana on 0417 595 744 or Michele on 0437 311 802.