What is in this guide?
This guide will looks at how to manage your time to be effective and efficient. It contains the following sections:
Any busy person who wants to be effective must also be able to manage their time properly.
- Time management works well when it is treated as an integral part of the overall plans of the organisation and each individual, rather than as an isolated and often a by-the-way activity that has to be done as and when we find time.
- We all have exactly equal hours available to us - it is the use of these hours that makes the difference between effective people and others. Those who always do the most important things they need to be doing at that time, are more effective.
- Many successful people and organisations budget money for their operations and they go further by budgeting (scheduling) their time as well.
To manage time properly you have to do the following three things:
- Identify the things that waste your time and are not productive.
- Make a list of all your tasks and prioritise the most important ones.
- Draw up a daily to-do list to make sure that all tasks are completed in time.
Time wasters are all those things that are not essential to your core tasks. You may do them because you are used to doing them, or because they are easier to do or because of other people and the demands they make or problems they cause. These time wasters can either be caused by your organisation or by yourself.
2.1 Time wasters caused by others:
- Visitors - You may have many visitors who come in, unannounced, either for work or to chat. As a result it becomes almost impossible for you to do your work. Staff or members of the public come to chat and you find it hard to chase them away.
- Telephone calls - You get interrupted by many phone calls from friends who want to chat or other callers who are asking you questions that someone else should answer. Your callers remain on the line for a long time.
- Waiting -You are frustrated by the time you spend waiting for different people such as people late for a meeting, leaders who delay you because they are busy with other things or staff who arrive late for appointments or work. Sometimes you depend on other people's input before you can complete a task and you could waste time waiting if they delay. You may spend too much time in queues for example at the bank, the post office or at the station or taxi rank.
- Meetings -You find yourself sitting in many unnecessary and unproductive meetings that take 3 hours instead of 30 minutes.
- Crises - When you have planned your work properly and you know how you will manage it, it can suddenly be disrupted by a crisis. This tends to throw your entire schedule out.
- Transport - Driving or using public transport in urban areas during peak hours can be a nightmare, because suddenly there is a traffic jam that can make you late for an extremely urgent and important meeting that should take place before or after working hours. While you are waiting for the traffic to clear up the time for your meeting is already gone.
2.2 Time wasters caused by you:
- Disorganisation - You are so disorganised that you always lose the important documents and you seldom find what you need on your desk and you scarcely ever finish your tasks. Your desk often looks like it has been hit by a hurricane, and at the end of your working day you carry part of your paper mess home with the hope that you will order it. You do not keep a proper diary or to-do list and have no idea of what is most important to do first.
- Procrastination - You leave your tasks till the very last minute and when you have to do it you find that you are under so much pressure that you cannot meet the deadlines.
- Inability to say “No " - You feel that you cannot say "no" to requests because that is letting people down, something that is not in your value system. You cannot say "No" because no one else can do this task as well as you, or there is no one else to do it.
- Lack of interest - You are not doing your work because you are not interested in it, or you are afraid of failing if you try. You may not have sufficient information about it, or you simply do not want to do it.
- Burn Out - You are exhausted and are unable to concentrate, you are very emotional and feel you have been working and living under so much pressure. When the stress becomes too much for you this is called “burn out."
Start by identifying time wasters. Try keeping a log of your time for a week, on an half-hourly basis. At the end of the week ask yourself the question: "Was that the best use of my time?” You may be surprised to see much of your valuable time is wasted on nonsense. You may also find that the meetings that you attend are taking more time than they should. List all your time wasters, and then, for each of them try to find out the cause of the problem and come up with a solution.
Here are some basic tips for a system to manage your time better:
- List goals and set priorities for the week. List work and personal tasks – if you leave out personal tasks like paying accounts, taking your child to the dentist, etc, you cannot plan properly and they may end up disrupting your work.
- Classify all tasks as A [must do on a specific day - urgent and important], B [should do as soon as possible or C [must do sometime this week].
- Develop a daily to-do list for each day and put down all your A's that have to be done on a specific day. Use a form like the one at the end of this guide or write it in your diary for every day.
- Do the most important and urgent things first. If you do not have time for your B's move them to A for the next day. If you finish all your A’s for that day, start with the B’s and even the C’s. Do your C's whenever you have time, but keep an eye on them so that they do not pile up at the end of the week.
- Try to handle each task only once and finish the job before moving on.
- When confronted by conflicting demands about which task you need to do the following three questions are quiet helpful :
- Is it necessary to do it now?
- Am I the only one who can do it, or can it be delegated?
- What is the most efficient and quickest way to do it?
- Delegate any task that you do not have time for and that someone else can handle. Make a clear request about the nature and quality of the work you want done, set a deadline and ask for a report once the task is complete.
For efficient time management you need the following basic tools:
- A diary and/or daily to-do list - Keep a diary of appointments and block out time for you to do the things on your daily list.
- A weekly task list -Your weekly task list is the basis for your daily list. Add all tasks as they come up and classify them by putting A, B or C after them so that you can add them to a daily list. Cross them off once dealt with.
You can copy and use the form which appears below.
To-do list for ............................................. [Week]
A: Must do today
Mon
1.
2.
3.
4.
Tues
1.
2.
3.
4.
Wed
1.
2.
3
4
Thurs
1
2
3
4
Fri
1
2
3
4
Sat
1
2
Sun
1
2B: Should do today if possible
Mon
Tues
Wed
Thurs
Fri
Sat
SunC: Must do this week (work):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.C: Must do this week (personal):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.