Time Management:

At a practical level, managers are required to ensure that the most efficient (productive with minimum waste) and effective (having a definite or desired effect) use is made of their time with limited effort. Personal time management is about controlling the resource limiting most managers - time. Absence of time management is characterised by:

• Last minute rushes to meet deadlines
• Days that are unproductive
• Double booking
• Crisis management

Personal time management is a management process that requires planning, monitoring and reviewing. What follows is a summary of key steps to personal time management.

Assessing current practice:

In order to manage one’s time, the first step is to assess the current practice. This involves keeping a log over a one week period, of how time is spent. After a week, allocate time to review the log and identify areas for improved time management.

Improving time usage:

1. Eliminate wasted time - social calls to friends, telephone calls, dropping in for coffee, surfing the internet, answering emails as they arrive irrespective of their urgency. It is important to distinguish between an informal "over coffee" discussion that improves relationships and achieves a goal and a chat that is a ‘time waster’. It is also important to prioritise the importance of a report or document you are preparing - sometimes it is okay to get it 80% perfect and then let it go rather than spending hours of time perfecting the last 20% - bank it and move on. Beware of perfection, it takes too long. Allocate time for "fitness of purpose", then stop.

   Try and schedule appointments or tasks that are similar near each other - these may be similar in content, location or nature - to avoid time wastage in changing tasks, shuffling files and moving between locations.

2. Manage your emails. As email becomes the preferred method of communication, there is a necessity to ease the pressure of an ever-increasing volume of emails. Here is a summary of ways to ease the problem:

   • Get off the lists. The best way to deal with a problem is to never have it. If you are receiving a lot of unwanted e-mails, ask to be removed from the various lists. This would include your inclusion in unwanted "cc" lists or spam.
   • "Unlisted address". Just like getting an "unlisted" telephone number that you share only with those whom you want to give direct access, you might want to get a separate e-mail address that you use only for the important communications you wish to receive.
   • Check it once or twice per day even though email may be coming in on a continuous basis. E-mail creates its own sense of urgency, but most of the communications are not all that urgent. Respond to them a couple of times per day.
   • Deal with it. Like handling paper, you don't want to get into the "shuffling blues" where you read e-mail, postpone action, save it, re-read it later, and allow things to slip through the cracks. As you open each e-mail do one of the following:
   
   
   1. If it requires a quick response, (it will only take a minute or two), respond to it and delete it.
   2. If it requires a response but is not the best use of your time, try to think of a way of delegating it. There's a lot of difference between "I do it" and "It gets done".
   3. If it is going to take any serious amount of time to respond (beyond a minute or two), schedule it for action in your Day Planner and then download the message, save it, or print it out for future action.

3. Prioritise your work. Look at your list of "things to do" and prioritise. There are some tasks that need to be done every day. Set aside a time to do this, such as responding to emails, returning telephone calls, going through post. Try and be disciplined about how much time you spend doing this. Avoid filing things away that can be attended to quickly and efficiently (don’t have a file 13 - rather use a waste paper bin!) Develop a system for filing and sorting mail. If you have a secretary then leave this to her or him.

4. Avoid doing subordinate’s work - rather invest time in training your assistant or subordinate properly - time invested early is time saved later. Rather spend the time training and monitoring.

5. Avoid doing the work of others. This requires a level of trust, and letting go the need to control everything at all times.

6. Manage your manager - if tasks allocated to you are ill defined - clarify them early before time is wasted on unnecessary work and frustration. Try and set up clear time boundaries so that your manager and you are both aware of your time constraints. The more organised your diary is the easier this is to do.

7. Keep an appointment diary. Keep a diary and ensure that all your regular appointments are in your diary, as well as external appointments and other tasks for which you have blocked off time. Make this available to your secretary if he or she is responsible for scheduling appointments for you. In your diary keep a note of what information you will need for your appointment, decisions to be made and actions that had to be taken before the meeting. Allocate time at the beginning and end of each day to review your diary, make a list of what needs to be done and prioritise this list.

8. Scheduling work/projects. Don’t try and fit in work, projects or tasks in between appointments and meetings. You need to assess your schedule of work, and allocate time required to complete this work. Be realistic and factor in time to ensure that other people working with you are up to speed and that all the information you require is at hand. For any project ensure that you understand what is required and what is to be delivered. It is useful to break the task or project into small portions and estimate the time required. Schedule this into your diary.

Ultimately time management is an application of common sense strategies. Personal time management doesn’t solve problems, it only enables us to take control of our time - how we spend that time is up to us!

References:

1. An excellent series of free lecture and teaching materials on management is available, particularly on time management. Adapted from Blair G.M. Personal Time Management for Busy Managers.
2. Time management on the Web contains some interesting free articles by Dr D Wetmore.