These past few weeks have been good for me. They certainly made me realize that I need to maximize productivity but still maintain producing work that is of excellent quality-not a very easy value to maintain…When I first started my internship at the SAMRO Endowment for the National Arts I was very concerned with the quantity of work I was producing. I guess my understanding of data capturing was that shallow. Noeléne Kotzé quickly observed this and then advised me to be conscious of quantity but become more quality driven. She truly stands for SAMRO’s organizational values that I highlighted as the title of this post. She inspired me to think more like an ambassador for SAMRO. As I checked my work, I realized that it is so easy to make a mistake and fixing that mistake is additional time spent. Technology does help in identifying mistakes more rapidly and improving the presentation of the work. By the end of this week, I must have made time to explore other computer software that will make my work more excellent and convenient for those who may explore the SAMRO music archive in the future.
It is increasingly important for me to understand the way the organization works and ask questions about certain issues relating to the organisation’s mandate that I am unsure of. I read samro’s seasonal magazine called “Notes”. It helped me to have a better view of each structure at SAMRO and how it fits into the organization. It was helpful to note and have a clearer understanding of SAMRO’s sales and marketing department regarding their current achievements and goals. At the end of the day, people that I socialize with will ask me questions about SAMRO and expect answers they can trust. The research skills I acquired from university do help because instead of waiting for information to come to us, we seek to find it in order to improve the way we do things. The challenge for me at the moment is time management. Lately, I do less ethnomusicological work than I would like when I get home. I work better when I don’t turn my tasks into a routine but I realize that I need a time table so....ja. I’m thinking of doing a monthly plan and then slightly changing it once a month. What do you think?
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Hi Kgomotso
A friend sent me a pertinent (to your blog post) email, and I hope you won't mind if I paste it here in its entirety:
TIM FERRISS'S SECRET TO A FOUR-HOUR WORKWEEK
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Have you heard about Vilfredo Pareto? Maybe, maybe not.
He was an Italian economist who came up with an absolutely brilliant concept called the Pareto Principle, or the 80-20 rule, as most of you will probably be familiar with.
Anyway, Pareto's Principle states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.
The lovely thing is that this works with MANY, many examples:
* We wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time (try it out - you'll see I'm right)
* We only ever look for 20% of papers ever filed (which is why I say don't even file half the stuff you currently file)
* We make 80% of our money from 20% of our clients.
So, Timothy Ferriss. In case you've never heard of him, he's the author of The Four-Hour Workweek, a book I strongly recommend you get.
He is also a big believer in the 80-20 rule and in fact, he recommends firing 80% of your clients, or at the very least, not actively pursuing them.
Back to time management...
If, on any given day, you have 10 tasks on your list, 2 of those will be BIG, IMPORTANT tasks that will produce HUGE results (I say 10 for mathematical ease because I'd prefer that you have no more than 5 or 6) and the rest is probably just "busy work".
The key is to identify just which of those tasks will be the ones that lead to the HUGE results.
The ULTIMATE aim is to simply stop doing the other 80% or to start delegating those tasks if they have to get done.
If delegating is not an option, then do the important ones FIRST and then only continue to do the other tasks.
(Marcia Francois)
- So YES Kgomotoso, I say write up your routine and then analyse it. so that you can identify your 20% every single day and give yourself the chance to do those tasks first.
I second that Lesley.Planning is very important.I think I need to draft mine as well. Throughout my studies I never really had a personal time-table written down. All I knew was that after a long day of music lessons, came a four-five hour piano practice in the evening, weekends were also for piano practice,assignments and other extra works. I had no time for relaxation as all I could think of was my daily oral routine. I only realise now that If I had written down a time management plan, maybe I would have enjoyed my studies much better. I think I need a time management plan too.
Vorster.
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