Time Management

**FictionNet** · 23 February 2011, 4:53 am

I've just been re-reading the interview GPWA did with me - awesome photo, btw, thanks

- and one of the questions asked me for some time management tips. My answer was:

"Probably the best time management tip I can offer is to watch how I do it and then do the exact opposite. In fact, I need tips from anyone who's nailed it. It'd be good to read an article about this in a future GPWA magazine with tips from other affiliates and casino staff."

How about bumping this idea? Anyone have time management/organising tips? I still have no real schedule or work pattern and I know I could be 10000% more productive.

**baldidiot** · 23 February 2011, 6:09 am

I totally understand this!

What has helped for me is to define working hours - I match my wifes hours, so when she's working, so am I. I have separate phone, email and skype which I use for business and they all get turned off when she comes home. I find that making this distinction makes me more productive when I am working and gives you a better work-life balance.

Similarly I define a lunch break - it's crazy how much more productive you are when you have a "schedule"!

I run a number of projects on various industries, not just gambling. I find it helpful to set aside time for specific things. For example I set aside an hour in the morning to check stats and build links, rotating through projects.

I also find it helpful to make lists of things which need to be done - it's quite satisfying to cross things off! Although I have to admit there are some low priority stuff that have been on various lists for a loooong time

Finally set aside time (once a week, month etc..) to do your admin - receipts etc... and store them up until then!

**AWH-Gemma** · 23 February 2011, 6:17 am

Lists, lists and more lists, they help to organise your thoughts so much which in turn organises your actions. For those of you that work from home that are able to do this, I strongly recommend having a clear office space if you are able to and not working in your leisure space

**davemerry** · 23 February 2011, 6:57 am

Several good points from baldidiot and Gemma! I'll add in my top tips for managing time, although I am certainly no expert at time-keeping myself!

I could not live without my Outlook Calender - I simply add in all day events (with the colour red) for tasks I need to do on a particular day and then mark them as green when completed. It is great for reminding yourself as it is always in front of you, my list sometimes builds up to around 20 items per day, some of which I would never remember had they not been in my calender!
Using the Outlook flagging function. If you recieve an email and need to reply but are in the middle of something then click the little flag next to the email message and it adds it to the Outlook sidebar as a reminder - making sure it doesn't get lost in the massive amounts of email you may receive!
Keep a consolidated email account. This may not be the best idea for security reasons but I set all my email (from multiple accounts) to forward to one particular account (although I do have them all set up on Outlook for replies) - that way no matter where an email comes in I have 1 inbox that contains them all and it is easy to keep on top of.
Keeping seperation between work and home time is pretty key, now the company has grown we obviously have office space however initially when I left my full time job to pursue affiliate ventures full time I was in my home office. You roll down at 8 and start work then stop to watch some interesting news then make some lunch then fall asleep on the sofa, then make a coffee then have to run an errand and then have to cook dinner, after which a family member needs picking up and then you pop to meet your mate for a quick beer then you work in bed on your laptop when you get home but your partner is tired so you go bed - you get my point, there is a load of distractions. From 9 - 5 you have to be in work mode without comprimise - its hard but acheiveable. You can obviously work late etc. but have a set time where it is compulsory to be in work mode. Just pretend the boss is on your case over your calender to do list and it pushes you through.

**FictionNet** · 23 February 2011, 8:08 am

Awesome stuff. Thanks for some f**king great replies so far. Keep the feedback coming.

**SlotsAff** · 23 February 2011, 10:27 am

This is a good thread - I actually wrote a piece on this for GPWA magazine a while back. This was bearing in mind I was working from home:

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inor-bidi;} </style> <![endif]--> Time Management
Time Management plays a very important part in an Affiliate Manager’s job – well, it will do if the AM is to do his/her job properly. Setting aside specific slots for certain aspects is key to a routine (yes, we all need one) and to focusing at the tasks at hand. As stated in Wikipedia, “it refers to principles and systems that individuals use to make conscious decisions about the activities that occupy their time.”
As an AM in the gambling industry I realize its fast paced and can be quite hectic at times – here’s a little insight into how I manage my day and how I am compulsive about the way I do things.
08:00: After waking up, having breakfast and getting ready, check my Inbox/BlackBerry for any urgent issues. If there are any, I will try to deal with them there and then (i.e. send the issue off to the payments team/poker team etc). Just spending 10 minutes sifting through my Inbox gives me a great idea of how my first few hours will pan out.
08:40: After dropping my girlfriend off at work and returning home, I get back to my PC to tackle the emails in my Inbox. Some require one line replies, some require me chasing some other person in our organization – all these emails are dealt with within the hour to avoid me rushing later on.
09:30: I log on to MSN/Skype and login to our Affiliate Program backend – I normally have a few queries/requests via the instant messaging tools and that has become the main method of communication with quite a lot of affiliates. Those are dealt with as they come – at the same time I am checking if any affiliates have signed up, if my affiliates have sent me a message via the internal messaging system.
At the same time, I speak to my colleagues (Claire, Nicole, Katerina & John) about the pressing issues for the day (i.e. uploading new creatives, ideas for the monthly promotion, issues with a payment. Speaking to the CRM team etc) and I gage what needs to be done there and then or later on in the day/week. All these ideas/action points I normally try to complete as soon as I can to leave the rest of the day free so to speak.
10:30: Stats update from the previous day – I run all the reports, update our spreadsheets and send to the relevant people. I then run a report based my affiliates that I handle and compare to the previous days’ results – I try to identify trends in their stats (i.e. if FTDs/revenue has gone drastically up or down etc). Depending on the results, I will contact the corresponding affiliates to try and maximize their efforts – i.e. if a new style of banner has seen an increase in FTDs since the start of the week, or if numbers have dropped try the previously posted banners for a week and compare. There are many interpretations of what works and doesn’t but tweaking it here and there will help build a picture of what works on a particular website or target audience.
At the same time, I am receiving emails and instant messages from affiliates/colleagues and I like to reply or pass the email on to be dealt with straight away – letting it all build up, in my opinion, will lead to more time being wasted in the end. This is something I deem wrong as affiliates/players/colleagues will be left waiting – hence affecting their perspective of how effectively you run your role.
14:00: After all the morning madness is over, I look at our VIP affiliates’ sites and statuses – I have already seen their stats in the morning and possibly emailed them. I try to spend the same amount of time with everyone but unfortunately that isn’t possible – I have to segregate my affiliates into different groups so I can check their stats/speak to them in an ordered fashion. For example, I will tackle a group of rakeback affiliates in a free 2 hour window one day during the week hence helping my mind solely focus on rakeback issues – I believe this helps me perform better as I am not distracted by casino issues for example in that time frame.
Then during the rest of day, I will login to all the forums, speak to my affiliates/colleagues, reply to emails, as they come in or need to be dealt with. I like structuring my morning with certain things I need/like to do but try to leave the afternoons a little more open to be able to react to the emails I sent out in the morning and to speak to affiliates. I also like checking all the major keywords in Google in a variety of our main target countries and see who is performing well and who has dropped/risen etc.
All in all, being flexible with your time is key to succeeding (or trying to) in this role – I have my musts that I do every day but managing to deal with all the day to day activities quickly, effectively and within certain time periods, will free up my day to spend more time with the more important issues such as developing relationships, reading the forums, understanding the stats and giving a good interpretation of how to react in order to continually maximize the suitability and appeal of your brands both to players and affiliates. I consider myself quite organized and some people think I have OCD, but not knowing what you are doing next or the status of a query is something that I could not cope with J

**Gabriel_LCP** · 23 February 2011, 11:34 am

Wow all of these replies are very useful! I think everybody could always improve on their time management!

**wagerjunction** · 23 February 2011, 1:03 pm

What Christoff outlined is pretty much the key. Try to stick to some kind of routine where you will be able to allocate a certain period of time for an activity - bearing in mind priorities.

Also like Gemma said, lists do help. I personally make a list at the end of each working day about tasks I will need to handle the following day. This way, when I get to work the next morning, I just refer to my list and this helps.

Those Outlook tips from Dave are really useful too - I also couldn't manage without my calendar and flags.

Personally, I try to handle tasks that will require a fresh mind and better concentration first.

I usually start by checking my mails and dealing with those which require an answer - then I work on my contents, articles, etc, coz they require some imagination and I won't be able to produce good stuff once my mind is saturated- afterwards I move on to the reporting side as this type of work is pretty much done in auto mode - finally I allocate the last 2 hours or so of my day to my much beloved forum

**Anthony** · 23 February 2011, 3:11 pm

http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/02/1...of-work-hours/

Fixed-Schedule Productivity
The system work as follows:

Choose a schedule of work hours that you think provides the ideal balance of effort and relaxation.
Do whatever it takes to avoid violating this schedule.

This sounds simple. But think about it for a moment. Satisfying rule 2 is not easy. If you took your current projects, obligations, and work habits, you’d probably fall well short of satisfying your ideal work schedule. Here’s a simple truth: to stick to your ideal schedule will require some drastic actions. For example, you may have to:

Dramatically cut back on the number of projects you are working on.
Ruthlessly cull inefficient habits from your daily schedule.
Risk mildly annoying or upsetting some people in exchange for large gains in time freedom.
Stop procrastinating.

**jarvi** · 23 February 2011, 4:42 pm

Better to think of it as task management rather than time management. All of us have the same amount of time and it's about deciding what are priorities and what are not. Much easier to manage what you do rather than how much time you have, because you are limited to 24 hours each day.

I'll go against the grain with most of the comments. I don't use lists and have tried many times and failed. Well sort of anyway. I have three things I must do each day and try not to start other things until those three are done. Sometimes they are done in the first hour and I come up with three more. Other times they drag over to the next day. The secret is to not add anything to the list until all three are done, otherwise, one or two might never get done if the new ones jump the queue.

Regular hours are also not my style. I used to have the standard 9-5 office job and always managed to massage the hours to suit. Now if I'm working well I'll keep going and if it's not working then I'll stop, go for a ride, run etc. A few personality tests I have done indicated I wasn't suited to routine/regular things. Amy, if you are reading this, it's why I haven't sent through more questions. I've been in work mode for the last few days.

For email management I tend to follow Mark Hurst's ideas in his book Bit Literacy. Just remember, it's not a system to do the actual work, just manage it better. Similar idea to writing lists and clearing the brain of having to remember everything you need to do. Keep the inbox empty and important things won't get hidden amongst the less important.

Now if some-one can tell me a great way to plan travel and accommodation I will be indebted to you for life.

**davenewgates** · 23 February 2011, 5:36 pm

Prioritizing my tasks and making a list of what to do/finish first helps me manage time efficiently. I had couple of sticky notes on my room for my schedules.

**Former Member 14** · 23 February 2011, 5:59 pm

Originally Posted by jarvi

Now if some-one can tell me a great way to plan travel and accommodation I will be indebted to you for life.

Sure, complete the following instructions:

Get one world map and lay it flat on a table/ground.
Grab a pencil, close eyes and rotate pencil over map, anti-clockwise in the Northern hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern hemisphere.
Whilst doing that repeat this mantra: - eni meni mini mo catch a bull frog by the toe, if he hollows let him go, eni meni mini mo.
On the word "mo" drop the pencil to the map, where it lands is your next travel destination.
For accommodation, repeat same process.

See I have no time management issues :P

Cheers

Dave

**Renee** · 23 February 2011, 6:09 pm

Originally Posted by davemerry

I could not live without my Outlook Calender - I simply add in all day events (with the colour red) for tasks I need to do on a particular day and then mark them as green when completed. It is great for reminding yourself as it is always in front of you, my list sometimes builds up to around 20 items per day, some of which I would never remember had they not been in my calender!

This is by far the best thing for time management... Set constant reminders to do things.. And if you cant do them at that very moment they pop up, snooze them for a time you think you will do it.. And keep doing that until you do it..

I also make notes within the outlook calendar entry to know where i'm up to with it, so if its a recurring thing, rather than dismiss it I just set a new date and save/close it.. so when it pops up again it will have all my notes there.

I also write lists.. Right now I have an A4 booklet with 3 pages back to back full of stuff i need to do... In reality, none of this is going to get done until the migration is complete, but once I hook into those lists, I'll stay in the office late until they are done...

Then I'll start my lists all over again

Generally things on my list get done in order of priority.. If something can be taken care of in 2 seconds, it gets done first, then the most important things get done..

I think setting priority to your lists is the best thing you will ever do for yourself.

One thing I can tell you does not work (at least for me) is setting a schedule.. So emails for first hour, then something else for 2 hours, then something else.
Over the day things pop up that are more important than other things and I end up pushing other things out of the way..

**jarvi** · 23 February 2011, 7:36 pm

Dave I actually pull out an atlas and look through for ideas. Researching the good versus bad locales, sorting out flights and reasonably priced accommodation with reliable internet is the part that takes too long.

The common themes with many of the replies so far is that you have to know your priorities and you have to know how you work the best, because not everyone is the same.

**Topboss** · 23 February 2011, 11:59 pm

This is a very good thread and it is one thing I always battle with.
In general I tend to be a sloppy worker and try and attempt 101 tasks all at the same time.
Having said that, though, I find that I work extremely well under pressure and those are the times I put my head down and work through each task one at a time.
Its when things get a bit quieter that I start flitting around - I get bored doing the same task - eg I can only write maybe 3 reviews a day and then I have to move on to something else.

The few tips that I do find that work well for me is the following ( many have already said some of these and some go against the grain )
I do not use skype and show my msn profile as offline. - This can be frustrating for other people who want to contact me, but I found that I would land up having chatty conversations all day which weren't always work related and before I knew it - many hours had gone by and I would have achieved nothing...or even landed up with more work, because I would find myself promising Affiliate Managers more exposure etc.
In the morning I have a brief flick through my emails - delete all the spam first and then work through whats left.
I immediately answer the urgent emails ( even if it is just an acknowledgement to say I have received their email and will get back to them today/tomorrow )
I then flag the emails I must attend to
Those that can wait get transferred into folders on outlook - I have folders for link exchanges, new games, new casinos I might want to consider in the future, travel bookings etc.
I then look at my stats ( the best part of my day ) This doesn't take long because I use "stats remote" which I find is a real time saver.
I then start my day and add content, irritate Aff Managers for late payments and all the other bits and pieces which happen throughout the day...

**NRLD** · 25 February 2011, 10:00 am

I once attended a time management course, the only thing I really came away with was a) write extensive lists, including the nitty grittys - make a coffee etc and b) do one thing at a time.

Point a works for me, b is not so easy - with skype, emails, phone calls it's very easy to try and do too many things at once - multi tasking is not always the best way.

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