INTRODUCTION TO TIME MANAGEMENT

REASONS FOR TIME CRISIS AND ITS EFFECTS

TIPS & TRICKS FOR TIME MANAGEMENT

OUTCOMES OF PROPER TIME MANAGEMENT

What is Time Management?

• Time management has five main aspects:

• Planning & Goal Setting

• Managing Yourself

• Dealing with Other People

• Your Time

• Getting Results

The first 4 all interconnect and interact to generate the fifth – results.

Time as a Commodity

• Time is the most precious thing we have.

• Time is ultimately the most valuable resource.

• Time and how we spend it within the organization must be managed effectively.

• Time is totally perishable.

• Time cannot be stored up for use later.

Essential Habits

• Essential habits for good time management are:

☻ Know where the hours are going ☻ Keep focused on the end result ☻ Work to defined priorities ☻ Schedule time for important issues ☻ Delegate routine tasks and responsibility for them ☻ Confront your own indecision and delay ☻ Take the stress out of work ☻ Keep applying the essential habits!

Why Crisis Occur

₪ Failure to recognize the crisis

₪ Underestimation of time required

₪No contingency plan is ready

₪ No follow-up on delegated tasks

₪ Improper Day Planning

∫ Crises management

∫ Low value on goals

∫ Feeling of victimization / lack of control

∫ Shallow relationships

∫ Short career path in the organization

Effects of Crises

¶ Stress

¶ Burnout

¶ Firefighting

¶ Focus on the immediate

¶High dependency on others for basics

Tips & Techniques

Time LogsTime Logs

Quality TimeQuality Time

Managing DocumentsManaging Documents

Managing InterruptionsManaging Interruptions

Managing WorkspaceManaging Workspace

Managing your PhoneManaging your Phone

Anticipating & Preventing Crises

• The most effective way to anticipate and prevent crises is to:

– Set deadlines and stick with them

– Use interim targets and milestones to break the task or project into manageable chunks

– Build the schedule so that it is realistic

Time-logs

• A time-log is an effective way to see where your time actually goes to during the working day Record the information for about 2 weeks to get a representative picture of time spent

• By logging activities and the time taken to complete them, the time-log provides useful information that can identify

• Accuracy of estimating time for tasks• Time stealing activities• Level of interruption• Loading during the day • Crises points / tasks

Quality Time

• Quality time is where you can plan to do the most important high priority tasks

• It allows for deep concentration through eliminating interruptions

• It imposes a structure on work

• It allows you to move away from reactive work to proactive work

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Dealing with Documents

• Document handling can steal a vast quantity of time from our working day

• Improve your document handling by:• Handling documents only once by :

– Act on what is required by the document

– File the document for reference later

– Dump the document

Dealing with Documents

• Have a good system for handling your documents that allows you to:

– Define what you need to keep and for how long

– Allows you to file materials easily and logically

– Facilitates access to materials

– Purge the files on a regular basis

Managing Interruptions

• Try to reduce the number of interruptions by applying the following techniques:

• Create a visual barrier at your workspace to reduce the incidence of ‘drop-in’ visits

• Don’t have extra chairs in your workspace - people do not hang around as long if they must stand

• For important work - move to another space so the potential interrupters can’t find you!

• Tell people that you are busy, explain why and arrange to contact them at a more suitable time

Managing Your Workspace

• How our workspace is organized has an impact on how efficient we are - try the following to improve efficiency

– De-clutter your desk by clearing it at the end of each working day

– File documents once they have been used

– Purge files regularly

– Organize a work flow system in your space

Managing Your Phone

• The telephone can be responsible for eating vast quantities of time - control the phone by using:

– Batch your outward calls

– Delegate calls that you don’t have to make personally to one of your team

– Terminate calls once the business has been done

– Set up a Rota in your team for handling incoming calls

Time Management & the Organization

• Looking at time management from the perspective of the organization what are the benefits:

– Improved productivity through improved use of time by the personnel

– Better performance in terms of on time delivery to customers

– Increased profitability through better use of the human and non-human resources

Improved planning and control of business systems through time based management

Better alignment of activities by incorporating a time bound system for co-ordination of tasks and projects in the business

Reduction of stress that arises due to crisis management by reducing the incidence of crises by better planning

Time Management & The Organization