Background:
Are you making the best use of your time?
It's the end of another busy working week and, even though you came into the office early and left late almost everyday, you don't feel as if you've polished anything significant.
Faced with countless meetings, frequent intervention, and urgent last-minute tasks, you can easily be busy all day without making any progress on high-priority projects and goals.
Controlling the events of our lives brings peace of mind.
Managing what’s really matter in our lives only happens if we established goals and taking the necessary actions to meet them.
Time management is the key to success in the workplace as well as in our personal lives.
These days, very few organisations have one-role positions anymore. More often than not, you'll find yourself with one official title, but juggling many other responsibilities. Having to perform effectively at different roles often requires a multitude of skills. But one skill that helps, possibly the most, is efficient time management. Good time management skills can mean the difference between feeling like you are being pulled in a hundred different directions and getting any meaningful work done.
Time management also means that you have to save time for emergencies. What this means is that no matter how much planning you strive for, emergencies will chance and you will have to have a certain degree of flexibility to deal with these issues when they befall.
You should also make sure that when planning your goals that you don’t overlook time for your family, your spiritual or religious activities, and downtime for yourself as well. Make sure that you include these activities in your long and short – term goals.
Definition of Terms
1. Time Management – the ability to plan and control how you spend the hours in your day to effectively accomplish your goals, it is the process of organizing and planning how to divide your time between specific activities
2. Eisenhower’s Decision Principle – a decision matrix to help individuals make the distinction between what’s important and not important and what’s urgent and not urgent.
3. Important activities – have an outcome that leads to us achieving our goals, whether these are professional or personal.
4. Urgent activities – demand immediate attention, and are usually associated with achieving someone else's goals
5. Scheduling is the art of planning all your activities towards achieving your goals.
Lesson Summary
Time management, as defined in the mindtools website, is the ability to plan and control how you spend the hours in your day to effectively accomplish your goals, it is the process of organizing and planning how to divide your time between specific activities. Good time management enables you to work smarter – not harder – so that you get more done in less time. Good time management also supposedly improves our work-life balance and therefore, our general happiness.
Why Time Management Is Important
1. 1. Time is limited
If you want to rise through the ranks, you have to acknowledge the importance of finding a way to manage this limited resource. Time is a special resource that you cannot store or save for later use. No matter how you slice it, there are only 24 hours in a day, fair and square, we all just have 24 hours in a day. Wonder how others accomplished more goals than you do?
2. You’ll have more productive hours
Time management can help you do tasks faster, just because you have organized your schedule. This doesn’t mean cutting corners or a decrease in quality.
Work smarter, not harder, and definitely not longer than you have to.
3. 3. Improved decision-making ability
When people are in a rush and are pressured to complete work, they are more likely to make reckless decisions that haven’t been well thought out. Time management helps you make conscious choices, so you can spend more of your time doing things that are important and valuable to you. When you manage your time effectively, you have a bigger picture of your vision and therefore you are guided in decision making.
4. 4. Become more successful in your career
Time management is the key to success. It allows you to take control of your life rather than following the flow of others. As you accomplish more each day, make more sound decisions, and feel more in control, people notice. Leaders in your business will come to you when they need to get things done. And that increased exposure helps put you in line for advancement opportunities.
5. 5. Learning opportunities are everywhere
Obviously, the more you learn, the more valuable you are to your employer. When you work more efficiently, you have that time to help others with their tasks or you can spend your time with other team members and learn new things from them. You can help out with that new product launch your development team’s been working on or volunteer to help host your company’s open house.
6. Reduce stress and Anxiety
You end up feeling rushed and overwhelmed when you don’t have control of your time. Think of a time when you were about to miss a deadline and were frantically trying to finish the project. If someone dumped a surprise on your desk at that moment and asked you how long it would take to finish the surprise task, how could you even begin to answer their question? Once you learn how to manage your time, you have a clearer picture of the demands on your time. You’re better able to estimate how long a given task will take you to complete, and you know you can meet the deadline.
7. 7. Free time is necessary
Everyone needs time to relax and unwind. We are all more effective when we take breaks in between to refrain feeling exhausted. Having good time management skills helps you find the best time to relax.
8. You’ll be able to prioritise your tasks.
Effective time management will mean you prioritise your tasks efficiently so that you focus on the most important and time-pressed tasks first. The last thing you want to do is waste time on things that don’t matter and then rush the things that do.
9. You’ll learn to set milestones effectively
Organising your tasks and setting milestones on the way to task completion will help you keep the momentum required in order to complete it. Without set guidelines, you may find yourself disorganised and procrastinating or putting forth a half-hearted effort.
Setting milestones will also allow you to know that you are making progress that will boost your confidence in achieving your target.
10. Your Focus will Improve
No matter how many tasks you need to complete, you should always aim to work on only one at a time. Attempting to multi-task will only result in time wasted and various other problems in the project. Regardless of the size of the task at hand, setting priorities and milestones will give you something to fix your attention on.
11. You’ll learn to delegate more efficiently
Once you have planned your workload, clearer picture will be visible that will enable you to better plan on how to delagate tasks to your mates. It's rare that you'll have all the skills required to excel at all the roles you are expected to carry out. Rather than forcing yourself into a role you don't care for (and ending up hating every second of it), you should try to delegate your tasks instead.
12. Your self-confidence will Improve
Just imagine how your self-confidence will soar when you can get all your tasks done, be helpful to others and still feel relaxed.
13. Deliver on Time
By focusing on the high priority tasks first you will also ensure that you meet deadlines and deliver your work on time. If you have agreed to complete a job by a certain time, then you need to ensure that you deliver on that promise. If you don’t, then you can potentially lose out on important clients or customers, or even lose your job.
14. Provide Better Quality Work
Since you are prioritizing, you are able to put all of your focus into the task and give it all the time and attention it requires. Since you are following your schedule, you are not getting distracted by other things, or stressing about everything that needs to be done, you can produce your best standard possible.
15. Eliminate Procrastination
In this modern world, it’s so easy to get distracted by other things and put off work when it’s something you don’t really enjoy doing, or when you’re not sure how to start a certain task. When you have a set schedule you would feel like you are required to follow it, you can help to eliminate procrastination and face the task head on.
Techniques and Tools in Time Management
Principles of effective time management that you might wish to consider:
1) Planning
Good time management requires a careful well-developed plan before jumping into action to accomplish tasks in the best possible way. A few hours of proper, creative planning will save you many more hours of frustration when you find you have to revisit jobs or elements that were not completed as necessary or even in the right sequence.
Here are a few strategies to guide you complete your plan in a timely manner:
a) Carefully list the required and specific tasks.
b) Set attainable goals to avoid frustration and disappointment.
c) Keep your schedule flexible to allow for contingencies and unexpected or unavoidable problems.
2) Prioritizing
Prioritizing those listed tasks is equally important when you want to manage your time effectively. Prioritize the various tasks based on their importance in moving you closer to your desired outcome.
Here are a few strategies to help with this key item:
a) Schedule the various tasks based on their priority in terms of reaching your pre-determined outcome day by day.
b) Be a productive, even “outside the box,” thinker who is not afraid to be innovative when setting up your plan.
3) Focusing
Once the tasks have been prioritized appropriately, it is now important to focus on each individual task, so that each one is completed at the highest level of performance with intensity on each task equally. Focusing on the individual tasks will minimize the chances of making mistakes and helps to make better use of your time.
Here are a few strategies for this part of your plan:
a) Do not start more than one project at a time as multi-tasking is actually a myth and you may end up having to redo some of your tasks which is not efficient. When we try to do too many things at once, we fail to embrace a more complete picture of our situation. In business this can be most damaging. Give your all to each call.
b) Do not work for more than 20-30 minutes without taking a short break as the human brain needs to rest from focusing intensely if it is to maintain a high level of results. The only time that “rule” can be broken is if you are on a “creative roll” and want to complete something that you are deeply into.
4) Time Lines
Always set an appropriate deadline for the outlined work. This will help you to keep an eye on the status of your work, help you assess you are progressing and having a clear end time will help you to stay determined on your goal. This approach will enable you to take corrective measures if any unforeseen issue arises and derails the plan temporarily from the planned path. Lack of a deadline can cause you to lose track of the work that needs to be completed or introduce some procrastination. Either one of those issues can end up prolonging the plan and getting you into trouble that could be difficult to rectify.
Here are a few strategies to keep you on track:
1. a) Break up the larger tasks into smaller chunks and then set individual deadlines for each of them.
2. b) Always set realistic time lines so as not be constantly disappointed in what you are trying to do. Time lines that are reasonable will keep you satisfied that you are continuing to move forward toward your goals.
5) Discipline
Effective time management is possible only when you stick with the developed plan. This means being disciplined as self-discipline is essential to every time management strategy as it ensures that you will realize your desired goals.
Here are a few strategies for this last key element:
1. a) You need to maintain consistency in all your work.
2. b) It is important to check periodically to see if you are staying on schedule according to your time line.
6) Make time for relaxation
Time management is not limited to just managing work-related affairs. It is also about keeping work away from your personal life. Downtime needs to be a key part of your time management strategy, as it will help you relax and rejuvenate. You need to give personal space as much time and validity as your professional commitment.
7. Periodical social media disconnect helps save time
The itch to constantly check for messages and social media updates. Be it at work or outside, constantly being on the phone often keeps us away from the tasks at hand. So, try to disconnect every now and then. Disconnecting, as you will realize, will help you give your undivided attention while at work, and not keep you away from your friends and family in their company.
Remember…..
• Time is of the essence so make the most of your time!
• Time is infinitely more precious than money, and there is nothing common between them.
• You cannot accumulate time, you cannot borrow time, and you can never tell how much time you have left in the Bank of Life.
• You don’t control the clock…..but you do control the energy and enthusiasm with which you manage that precious resource!
Successful time management involves a keen awareness of time as an important, non-renewable resource. You must organize your tasks based on priority and efficiently accomplish those tasks following the guidelines outlined in your carefully developed plan for the project.
Eisenhower's Urgent/Important Principle
Using Time Effectively, Not Just Efficiently
Business thinker Stephen Covey popularized the Eisenhower’s Decision Principle in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In that book, Covey created a decision matrix to help individuals make the distinction between what’s important and not important and what’s urgent and not urgent. The matrix consists of a square divided into four boxes, or quadrants, labeled thusly: 1) Urgent/Important, 2) Not Urgent/Important, 3) Urgent/Not Important, and 4) Not Urgent/Not Important:
Figure 1 – Eisenhower's Urgent/Important Principle
What Are "Urgent" and "Important" Activities?
When we know which activities are important and which are urgent we can clear enough time to do what's essential for our success. Eisenhower's Urgent/Important Principle helps you deal with truly urgent issues, at the same time as you work towards important, longer-term goals.
Important activities have an outcome that leads to us achieving our goals, whether these are professional or personal.
Urgent activities demand immediate attention, and are usually associated with achieving someone else's goals. They are often the ones we concentrate on and they demand attention because the consequences of not dealing with them are immediate.
How to Use Eisenhower's Principle
1. List all of the activities and projects that you feel you have to do. Try to include everything that takes up your time at work, however unimportant.
2. Think about each activity and put it into one of four categories, as shown in Figure 1, above.
3. Then use the strategies described below to schedule your activities.
Eisenhower's Urgent/Important Principle
1. Important and Urgent
They’re tasks that require our immediate attention and also work towards fulfilling our long-term goals and missions in life.
There are two distinct types of urgent and important activities: ones that you could not have foreseen, and others that you've left until the last minute.
You can eliminate last-minute activities by planning ahead and avoiding procrastination .
However, you can't always predict or avoid some issues and crises. Here, the best approach is to leave some time in your schedule to handle unexpected issues and unplanned important activities so you can reschedule other tasks if needed.
If you have a lot of urgent and important activities, identify which of these you could have foreseen, and think about how you could schedule similar activities ahead of time, so that they don't become urgent.
Here are a few specific examples of Urgent and Important tasks:
• Certain emails (could be a job offer, an email for a new business opportunity that requires immediate action, etc.)
• Term paper deadline
• Tax deadline
• Wife in emergency room
• Car engine goes out
• You have a heart attack and end up in the hospital
• You get a call from your kid’s principal saying you need to come in for a meeting about his behavior
2. Important but Not Urgent
These are the activities that help you achieve your personal and professional goals, and complete important work. Make sure that you have plenty of time to do these things properly, so that they do not become urgent.
Q2 tasks are typically centered around strengthening relationships, planning for the future, and improving yourself.
Here are some specific examples of Not Urgent but Important Tasks:
• Weekly planning
• Long-term planning
• Exercising
• Family time
• Reading life-enriching books
• Journaling
• Taking a class to improve a skill
• Spending time with a rewarding hobby
• Studying
• Meditating
• Service
• Car and home maintenance
• Date night with wife
• Creating a budget and savings plan
3. Not Important but Urgent
Urgent but not important tasks are things that prevent you from doing what you are expected to do. Ask yourself whether you can reschedule or delegate them. A common source of such activities is other people.
Here are some specific examples of Quadrant 3 activities:
• Phone calls
• Text messages
• Most emails (some emails could be urgent and important)
• Co-worker who comes by your desk during your prime working time to ask a favor
• Request from a former employee to write a letter of recommendation on his behalf (it’s probably important to him, but let’s face it, it’s probably not that important to you)
• Mom drops in unannounced and wants your help with a chore
4. Not Important and Not Urgent
These activities are just a distraction – avoid them if possible.
You can simply ignore or cancel many of them. However, some may be activities that other people want you to do, even though they don't contribute to your own desired outcomes. Again, say "no" politely, if you can, and explain why you cannot do it.
If people see that you are clear about your objectives and boundaries , they will often avoid asking you to do "not important" activities in the future.
Specific examples of Not Urgent and Not Important Tasks include:
• Watching TV
• Mindlessly surfing the web
• Playing video games
• Scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
• Gambling
• Shopping sprees
How to Schedule Your Time
Set a regular time to do your scheduling.
There are different ways you can do your scheduling, depending on your personal taste, type of work and your budget. A simple traditional and easy way to keep a schedule is to use a pen and paper you can also try organizing your time using a weekly planner, apps and software such as Google Calendar®, MS Outlook® and Business Calendar.
Your planner should be user-friendly, that it lets you enter data easily and allows you to have a glance of an appropriate span of time (day/week/month) in the level of detail that you need.
Once you have decided which tool you want to use, prepare your schedule in the following way:
Step 1: Identify Available Time
Start by establishing the time you want to make available for your work.
How much time you spend at work should reflect the design of your job and your personal goals in life.
For example, if you're pushing for promotion, it might be prudent to work beyond normal hours each day to show your dedication. If, on the other hand, you want to have plenty of time for out-of-work activities, you might decide to do your allocated hours and no more.
Step 2: Schedule Essential Actions
Next, block in the actions you absolutely must take to do a good job. These will often be the things you are assessed against.
For example, if you manage people, make sure that you have enough time available to deal with team members' personal issues, coaching, and supervision needs. Also, allow time to communicate with your boss and key people around you.
Step 3: Schedule High-Priority Activities
Review your To-Do List , and schedule in high-priority and urgent activities, as well as essential maintenance tasks that cannot be delegated or avoided.
Try to arrange these for the times of day when you are most productive – for example, some people are at their most energized and efficient in the morning, while others focus more effectively in the afternoon or evening.
Step 4: Schedule Contingency Time
Next, schedule some extra time to cope with contingencies and emergencies. Experience will tell you how much to allow – in general, the more unpredictable your job, the more contingency time you'll need. (If you don't schedule this time in, emergencies will still happen and you'll end up working late.)
Frequent interruptions can eat into your time. Learning how to manage them can reduce the amount of contingency time you need to set aside. Some interruptions will be hard to predict, but leaving some open space in your schedule gives you the flexibility you need to rearrange tasks and respond to important issues as they arise.
Step 5: Schedule Discretionary Time
The space you have left in your planner is "discretionary time": time that is available to deliver your priorities and achieve your goals. Review your prioritized To-Do List and personal goals , evaluate the time you need to achieve them, and schedule them in.
Step 6: Analyze Your Activities
If, by the time you reach step five, you find that you have little or no discretionary time available, you need to go back through steps two, three and four, and question whether all of the tasks you've entered are absolutely necessary. It may be that some things can be delegated or tackled in a more time-efficient way.