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Time management

22nd January 1998
Page 35
Page 35, 22nd January 1998 — Time management
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Too much to do—too little time. I expect you know the feeling. It seems that the amount of work each of us has to do is far too great to get done. How can we manage our time in order to work more effectively? I'm going to suggest fifteen steps to help you become a better time manager.

n Learn to prioritise ruthlessly. U Don't try to do everything—try to do what is most important. Ask yourself; "what will happen if I don't do this?" If the answer is "nothing will happen", then you can afford not to do it!

SI Handle each piece of paper M once. Decide quickly whether it needs action now, reading now but no action, reading some time, or not reading at all. Then put it in the right place—in : the middle of your desk, in your files, or in the bin.

g]Take time to make time. Plan what you are going to do, and how. Don't rush into your work like a bull at a gate. Every day, look back and see what wasted your time, and then see whether you can stop that time being wasted in future.

m Divide your tasks into "must do El now", "must do this week", and "nice to do". Make a list, and ensure that all the

"must do now" tasks are done before the others. Then try to get ahead by doing the ones that have a week left to go. Only then do the "nice" things. By the way, if you have a particular kind of task you don't like—for example, making cold calls to potential new customers—you should do them first; avoid the temptation to leave them till it's too late to clo them at all.

R Learn to say "No". Give your M.4 reasons, but learn to tell people it is imdxKiible to do what they want. Keep your basic housekeeping up to date. If something might come in useful later, get it filed in the right place— don't cram your desk with piles of paper. Even if your firm doesn't have a "clean desk policy", it's a good discipline at least to clean your desk before you go home for the weekend.

§Train everyone in your organisation to tell you what they want you to do with any information they give you. A lot of 3,-time is taken up with "for your information" 6 memos. Do you really need to know? All .2 memos should start with a statement of what you are expected to do; "Let me know if this client has paid his bill," "please tell me

whether you think we should go ahead," or (and this is usually what 'for your information' means) "you might like to know this... if you don't have any work to do!"

8 Get a proper organiser—whether it's

a Filofax-type diary or an electronic organiser such as a Psion—and use it. The best types don't just have a diary; but have a "to do" list for each clay. One great advantage of electronic organisers is that they carry over your "to do" tasks from day to day, automatically, until you finish them.

9 Make sure you can concentrate on

the task in hand. Like number six, this may involve changing the way the people around you work, It's vital that people respect your need to finish one task before you go on to another—except in the case of situations needing really urgent action. You might need to agree a list of things, or people, that you can be interrupted for.

Seventy per cent of managers say that they would get their work done if it weren't for wasting their time in useless meetings. Make sure you have an agenda for all meetings, and that it includes not only the subjects to be discussed, but what the outcome of the meeting should be for each subject—a decision, a commitment, a list of recommendations, identification of next steps, or just information to be gathered. And if you don't think you need to be at the meeting, don't go.

glDon't work stupid hours. A common reaction to too much work is to put in long hours, However, most of us have a physical limit to how much we can do. Beyond that limit, the law of diminishing returns means that we get less work done for each extra hour we

work. A 12-hour day is probably the limit for most people in the office. While you're working, keep your concentration fresh by taking a rest, or changing the type of work you are doing, every hour or so. Or take a quick walk. And then get back to your dusk.

DEDelegate effectively. You may find that much of your work can be done by people who work for you. And if it involves things that they are working with every day—for example, a credit decision on a customer that they know better than you do—they might do that work better and more quickly than you could.

IRE Set up proper systems and make sure people know them. If your staff have to ask you to do things that should be automatic—like discounts for a certain level of business—then you should make them aware of the right procedure, gigIf you find your time is taken up with continual "firefighting", ask why. Find out the reason, and see whether you can avoid such firefighting in future.

litFind some strategies for cutting short phone calls and meetings. Get a colleague or secretary to ring you at the time the meeting ought to finish.

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