Time Management at Work
- Every body has to manage their time whether they be at home or place of work.
- The sequence in which you perform task on everyday basis has a profound effect.
- Proper time management will help manage both work time and leisure time better.
- What is "Time Management?"
- "Time management" refers to the way that you organize and plan how long you spend on specific activities.
Benefits of Time Management are enormous:
- Greater efficiency and productivity.
- A better professional reputation.
- Less stress.
- Increased opportunities for advancement.
- Greater opportunities to achieve important life and career goals.
- Failing to manage your time effectively can have some very undesirable consequences:
- Missed deadlines.
- Inefficient work flow.
- Poor work quality.
- A poor professional reputation and a stalled career.
- Higher stress levels.
- Analyzing Use Of Time- If you want to use your time efficiently to accomplish all that you need to do at work and at home, you need to be aware of the current habits and attitudes that shape your use of time.
- Few of us really admit that large parts of our working day are wasted. The only way for you to analyze how you use it now and then to consider ways in which you can reallocate it in a more effective way.
- Using Time Wisely- Everybody is increasingly aware of the cost of time. Now individuals and Depts. are held accountable for their use of time.
- Company culture have important influence on how you use your time.
- In many companies working long hours is equated to hard work.
- In contrast long hours often decreases efficiency and productivity.
Managing Queries-
Costing Your Time
- A manager who is constantly interrupted has little time for important tasks, while staff who always consult their managers for decision and information are held up.
- Use planning and delegation to minimize time waste at all levels.
- Costing your time: It is a sobering exercise to calculate exactly how much your time costs and then realize how much of it is not being spent effectively.
- 1.5( includes overheads)* Annual salary/No of Working hours in one year= cost per hour.
- Suppose your annual salary=6,00,000/-
- 1.5*600000/300*8=900000/2400=375(cost per hour)
Keeping a time log
Time Management at Work
Work Smarter
Time Management For Leaders to set as example.
Time Management In Everyday Life.
- Compile a simple time log by dividing your day into 30 min chunks and recording exactly how much time you spend on each type of work. E.g.: meetings, reading and replying to mails, helping colleagues, writing regular report, making new contacts, making phone calls,
- Look at the categories into which you have allocated your tasks. Work out the % of time you have allocated to each group.
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- Now that you have established how your time is being allocated, ask yourself these questions:
- Do I work that should be done by somebody else?
- Am I involved in Group 1 tasks in the morning?
- Do jobs frequently take longer than I expect them to do?
- Do I have enough time to be creative and innovative?
- Find answers to these questions how close is your work pattern to the ideal 60:25:15 time distribution ratio.
- If you find out that you are spending too much time on one group of tasks, work out how you can reorganize your daily schedule so that your time is distributed more efficiently.
- Good time management requires an important shift in focus from activities to results:being busy isn't the same as being effective. (Ironically, the opposite is often closer to truth.)
- Spending your day in a frenzy of activity often achieves less, because you're dividing your attention between so many different tasks. Good time management lets you work smarter-not just longer-so you get more done in less time.
- The fact is your time is every bit as important as your money, probably more so.
- Most of the time people realize that they are spending a great deal of their time on matters that by any reasonable measure are not critical to the performance of their job and the success of their enterprise.
- Time Management- Diagnosing the Mismatch- The cost of saying yes.
- We all know that life as a leader is chaotic. Events happen on their own schedule, and you are forced to respond. Someone comes announced into your office with a problem and wants you to get involved.
- you see a situation developing that worries you and even though you delegated the responsibility, you decide to get directly involved and begin to nose around and ask questions.
- Even as you are undertaking this unscheduled assignment, the phone rings and a colleague in another division is seeking your views on a given situation. He doesn't know who else to call, and he's hoping you'll get involved.
- Unfortunately, there is a cost to saying yes to calls on your time. If the task at hand is something that others could have done it, or if it takes you away from things that you need to be spending time on, the cost is probably very high. It comes at the expense of things the organization really needs to do.
- If you delegate at least some portion of this responsibility, one could reallocate or save a lot of time to become a more effective leader, husband and father.
- When time and work management is a mismatch, it is obvious, the leader is not as effective as he should be in driving critical priorities. Leaders are not supposed to serve as a role model for the organization If they don't spend time on the overriding priorities, it sends a strong signal that they really don't believe in those priorities.
- Are you usually punctual or late?
- Do you finish things within the time you stipulate?
- Do you hand in your reports/work on time?
- Are you able to accomplish what you want to do before deadlines?
- Are you a good time manager?
- If your answer is "no" to any of the questions above, that means you're not managing your time as well as you want.
- Create a daily plan.Plan your day before it unfolds. Do it in the morning or even better, the night before you sleep. The plan gives you a good overview of how the day will be utilized. That way, you don't get caught off guard. Your job for the day is to stick to the plan as best as possible.
- Peg a time limit to each task. Be clear that you need to finish X task by 10am, Y task by 3pm, and Z item by 5:30pm. This prevents your work from dragging on and eating into time reserved for other activities.
- Use a calendar.Having a calendar is the most fundamental step to managing your daily activities. If you use outlook or lotus notes, calendar come as part of your mailing software.Google Calendaris great-I use it. It's even better if you can sync it to your mobile phone and other hardware's you use-that way, you can access your schedule no matter where you are.
- Use an organizer. The organizer helps you to be on top of everything in your life. It's your central tool to organize information, to-do lists, projects, and other miscellaneous items.
- Know your deadlines.When do you need to finish your tasks? Mark the deadlines out clearly in your calendar and organizer so you know when you need to finish them.
- Learn to say "No". Don't take on more than you can handle. For the distractions that come in when you're doing other things, give a firm no. Or defer it to a later period.
- Target to be early. When you target to be on time, you'll either be on time or late. Most of the times you'll be late. However, if you target to be early, you'll most likely be on time. For appointments, strive to be early. For your deadlines, submit them earlier than required.
- Have a clock visibly placed before you. Sometimes we are so engrossed in our work that we lose track of time. Having a huge clock in front of you will keep you aware of the time at the moment.
- Set reminders 15 minutes before. Most calendars have a reminder function. If you've an important meeting to attend, set that alarm 15 minutes before.
- Focus.Are you multi-tasking so much that you're just not getting anything done? If so, focus on just one key task at one time. Close off all the applications you aren't using. Close off the tabs in your browser that are taking away your attention. Focus solely on what you're doing. You'll be more efficient that way.
- Block out distractions.What's distracting you in your work? Instant messages? Phone ringing? Text messages popping in? The only times when I log on is when I'm not intending to do any work. Otherwise it gets very distracting. When I'm doing important work, I also switch off my phone. Calls during this time are recorded and I contact them afterward if it's something important. This helps me concentrate better.
- Track your time spent.Egg Timeris a simple online countdown timer. You key in the amount of time you want it to track (example: "30 minutes", "1 hour") and it'll count down in the background. When the time is up, the timer will beep. Great way to be aware of your time spent.
- Don't fuss about unimportant details You're never get everything done inexactlythe way you want. Trying to do so is being ineffective.
- Prioritize.Since you can't do everything, learn to prioritize the important and let go of the rest.
- Delegate.If there are things that can be better done by others or things that are not so important, consider delegating. This takes a load off and you can focus on the important tasks.
- Batch similar tasks togetherFor related work, batch them together. Batching all the related tasks together helps to develop synergy. If I need to make calls, I allocate a time slot to make all my calls. It really streamlines the process.
- Eliminate your time wasters.What takes your time away your work? Facebook? Twitter? Email checking? Stop checking them so often. One thing you can do is make it hard to check them-remove them from your browser quick links / bookmarks and stuff them in a hard to access bookmarks folder. Replace your browser bookmarks with important work-related sites. While you'll still check FB/Twitter no doubt, you'll find it's a lower frequency than before.
- Cut off when you need to. The main reason why things overrun is because you don't cut off when you have to. Don't be afraid to intercept in meetings or draw a line to cut-off. Otherwise, there's never going to be an end and you'll just eat into the time for later.
- Leave buffer time in-between. Don't pack everything closely together. Leave a 5-10 minute buffer time in between each tasks. This helps you wrap up the previous task and start off on the next one.
