Time Management 101
Submitted by SharpMan Editorial Team on Saturday 16th October 2010- How to manage your time.
- How to curb interruptions.
- How to make your workday more productive.
You're on a tight deadline for a project proposal, but arrive at work to find a pile of messages that require return calls or e-mails. A colleague carrying a mug of coffee stops by to chat and several coworkers rush into your office to discuss the details of their latest assignments. Your phone rings all morning long. Skipping lunch in favor of eating a sandwich at your desk, you're soon off to a couple of afternoon meetings that run longer than planned. Finally back at your desk, you look up at the clock and notice that it's 4:15 PM. You've been at work all day, yet you’ve accomplished nothing on the project proposal due nine o'clock tomorrow morning. Yes, SharpMan, it's gonna be another late night…
If this daily routine sounds familiar, then it's time to take the Sharp approach to time management. Check out these tips:
Step One: Prioritize.
By examining your daily routine and prioritizing your activities, you can take control of your schedule, make your workday more productive and cut out extra hours and late nights at the office. While it's true that every workday cannot run according to a tight schedule, you can still maintain control of activities and events as they occur.
Important and urgent. Begin by identifying what's important to address, and among these important items, what's urgent. Some important issues, phone calls and e-mails are not urgent. Likewise, some seemingly "urgent" items are neither urgent nor important. The bottom line is, if it's both important and urgent, then handle the matter right away. If it's not, don't allow it to interrupt your work flow.
How can you tell? How can you distinguish urgent and important items from others? Here are a few examples:
- A phone call from the president of your company requesting the latest sales figures is urgent, even if the request is not all that important. You can’t keep the boss waiting and maintain the "can-do" image.
- A phone call informing you that there's a problem with the printing service and the new four-color glossy brochures may not be ready for next week's trade show (unless you take time to talk to the printer right away) is both urgent and important. Printing is a process that takes time, and a week’s lead time is not unusual. Handle this one right away.
- A phone call from your company's chief designer wanting to discuss the details of the upcoming release of your company's newest, most innovative product line is important, but it's not urgent. Deal with this one later.
Step Two: Establish specific times for specific tasks.
Set a specific part of the day aside to handle routine issues and messages. Allocate your first hour of work to sift through phone and e-mail messages and distinguish between important/urgent and others. Deal with important and urgent first, then set a separate time to deal with the balance. For example, you may choose the hour from four to five p.m. to return all non-urgent, non-important phone messages and e-mails received throughout the day. If any of these messages generates additional work activity, the new task can then be factored into the schedule without interrupting your current work activities.
Step Three: Delegate.
Delegate tasks whenever possible in order to free yourself up for other duties that cannot be handled by others. If there's an issue to be dealt with, a meeting to be attended or a phone or e-mail message that can be returned by your "staff" (if you’re lucky enough to have one!) or a department set up to handle the matter, then hand the job over to them. Delegating is not shirking your responsibilities or "dumping." It is using your resources wisely and productively.
Step Four: Manage interruptions.
Curb the traffic of coffee-wielding loafers who stop by to shoot the breeze. Sure, it's important to maintain good relations with office colleagues and keep up with the latest office politics, but regular chatter about last night's sports scores or the morning's news headlines takes up valuable time and can easily cause you to lose your focus on the task at hand.
Be polite. Politely excuse yourself from idle conversation after a designated amount of time (i.e., two to five minutes) and don't allow coffee break chums to get between you and your work. It's as easy as saying, "You know what, Dan, can I catch up with you after work? If I don’t get my tail in gear I won’t meet the four p.m. deadline on that project proposal George wants." Coworkers may not like losing your company, but their own workload will remind them that your request is not unreasonable.
Being polite to coworkers to whom you delegate. It’s always a good SharpWork policy to make yourself available to the people to whom you delegate. Unfortunately, workload and time constraints require you to use your "important/urgent" distinction with coworker questions, as well.
To maximize efficiency during deadline times and other hectic periods at work, inform your staff that you cannot accommodate impromptu meetings of a general or non-pressing nature, but are always available to sit down with employees at the end of the work day. This way, time-sensitive questions are answered (thereby keeping the ball rolling), but non-important or non-urgent matters are addressed before coworkers leave for home. If a conversation requires more time, schedule a lunch or other meeting time for the following day.
Other reasons why this makes sense. While an open-door policy is good for employee morale, some staff members tend to take advantage of an open door by wandering in with every issue they encounter, whether or not it truly warrants your immediate attention. Relegating non-urgent queries to the end of the day requires staff members to learn how to fulfill their tasks, rather than turning to you for the answers.
Additionally, most SharpMen are ill-prepared, and therefore less efficient, during impromptu meetings that are not urgent. Pertinent issues and concerns regarding a matter or project can be left out during a casual encounter. Having a few hours of advance warning will dictate whether a concern requires more than you have — thereby necessitating another meeting time which may include other staff and management figures.
To maximize efficiency, encourage staff members to develop a written agenda and come prepared to discuss details on more complicated matters. Putting a halt to impromptu staff meetings will make your (and their!) days more productive.
Step Five: Take breaks.
Make time for a lunch break. Even the busiest of SharpMen need time out to re-group and re-fuel. While sometimes it's necessary to work through lunch, chaining yourself to your desk on a daily basis tends to stifle creativity and foster burnout.
Plan to take at least a half hour to leave your office, grab a cup of coffee and something to eat. If you bring your lunch from home and choose to eat it at your desk, get away from your office to take a walk or run an errand. Alternatively, schedule lunch with a friend or business colleague. The brief time away from your hectic schedule will help to refresh your thinking and reinvigorate your attitude.
By proactively managing daily events and activities, you can effectively manage your office time and control how your workday flows. Putting distinct strategies in place to ward off unnecessary interruptions is the Sharp way to stay focused on work priorities and achieve your goals.
This article last updated on Saturday 16th October 2010