PI Time Management

Ok, pull out your calendar before reading this post.

Your time is important! Juggling investigations, writing reports, and keeping in contact with witnesses, victims, clients, and others takes time. Often we forget to schedule time for routine, day-to-day tasks. When we don’t, we fall behind. Appointments for interviews, or conducting surveillance are often scheduled for you.
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Using your calendar find time each day to complete your day-to-day tasks. The most common tasks are: processing email and scheduling, returning or making phone calls, and office tasks that include writing reports, completing time logs, and tracking business expenses.

EMAIL/SCHEDULING: Where you see gaps in your calendar, enter appointments for processing your email. Give yourself 2-3 times during the day to do this depending on how much email you receive on average. When the time comes, focus specifically on reading and responding to your emails. This is also a great time to schedule appointments and phone calls.

PHONE CALLS: Schedule 2-3 times each day that you will return phone calls, call your clients to provide updates, or make other phone calls. If you need to talk with someone during those times, you can schedule a time to talk with them to ensure they are available and you can devote your attention to the call.

WRITING: Look for times toward the end of your day to complete the tasks of updating notes, logging expenses, and recording your investigative time. Waiting until the end of your day will allow you keep up with everything each day.

Few Tips:

• Use recurring appointments for the same time each day. If you have a conflict on one day, you can easily move your routine task to another time.
• ​Color code your calendar so routine tasks stand-out.
• Use these appointments to focus on the tasks you have set.

​It doesn’t take long for your calendar to fill up. You can see that making sure you have time to complete daily tasks is important. This also reduces the temptation to multi-task. Multitasking is often an inefficient use of your time. Setting up these appointments will ensure you don’t miss anything and at the end of the day, you will be assured you have covered all of your tasks and meetings.

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