Dreaming of the Office

Dreaming of the Office

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Timing is Everything: How Clocks and Timers Can Transform Your Workday
We’ve all been there. You glance at the clock, see it’s 9:15am, blink a few times…and somehow it’s nearly noon and you’ve achieved precisely nothing of…
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William Spears
Why You're So Bad at Estimating Time (And How to Get Better)
Let’s be honest: most of us are terrible at estimating how long things will take. I certainly am. I tell myself I’ll finish this post in an hour. It’s…
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William Spears
Think Like a Project Manager (Even When You’re Not One)
May 2025: First up, I’m delighted to announce the publication of Dreaming of the Office, Second Edition! It’s been a while coming, but it nicely pulls…
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William Spears
How to Stop Overloading Your Diary: Finding the Right Balance in a Hybrid World
Welcome back to Dreaming of the Office following a hiatus over Christmas and the New Year…and my paternity leave! Yep, my partner and I were delighted…
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William Spears
Cutting Down Your Task List: The Power of the Two-Minute Rule and the Art of Prioritisation
Your task list is supposed to be your productivity lifeline...the compass guiding you through the daily chaos of the working day, helping you juggle…
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William Spears
Starting Your Workday Right and Avoiding Distractions
Welcome back!
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William Spears
Finding Time for the Small Stuff: A Guide to Tackling Less Important Tasks
It’s hard enough trying to keep up with all the meetings and deadlines, yet alone the ever-growing list of small tasks that seem to multiply like…
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William Spears
Calendar Control: Putting in the Right Kinds of Appointments
We’ve obviously covered this in many different ways in Dreaming of the Office, but it’s worth taking a tour through the various types of appointments…
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William Spears
Juggling Work and Family: Keeping the Schedule Together
Today, I want to dive into a topic that’s often overlooked but is incredibly important—coordinating appointments, meetings, and those big events like…
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William Spears
Setting up a Meeting: Keeping Track of Suggested Appointment Times
How many times has it happened to you?
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William Spears
Task List Limbo: How to Handle To-Dos that Never Get Done
You know the feeling—those tasks that seem to linger indefinitely, haunting your list day after day as you shift the due date for the fifth time.
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William Spears
Effective Task Labelling and Due Dates for Optimal Productivity
We often talk about calendars and task lists and everything in them, but how should individual items be named or categorised?
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William Spears
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