What Is It?

Time management is a set of related common sense (but sometimes difficult) skills that will help you be effective and productive. Many people spend their time in a whirlwind of activity that has been penciled into little squares in their date books, or in their palm organizers. Everything seems urgent - tasks, responsibilities, the to-do list! The root of good time management is the shift of focus of concentration to results, not just on being busy. Stephen R. Covey states in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People , "The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities."

How Do I Do It?

Time management is a simple process:

• Know what you need to do
• Schedule it
• Do it

Know what you need to do

Do you know how you spend your day? Chances are, you are doing much more than you realize. So start by creating an activity log. An activity log is a list of all your activities that you did over a set period of time. Track your activities for a two-week period. This one-time chore will help you see just where your time is spent. Make sure you look at:

1. Recurring vs. one time events
2. Project Me - Do you spend 2-4 hours a week improving your skills?

Once you know how your time is being spent, determine how your time should be spent. This is the challenging part! You should know what the most important activities of your job are. If you don't, sit down with your manager and work it through together. This is a useful exercise to do on a regular basis because your priorities may change from quarter to quarter.

When defining your priorities, be aware of the 80/20 rule:

Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) was an Italian economist who, in 1906, observed that twenty percent of the Italian people owned eighty percent of their country's accumulated wealth. Over time and through application in a variety of environments, this analysis has come to be called Pareto's Principle, the 80-20 Rule, and the "Vital Few and Trivial Many Rule."

Called by whatever name, this mix of 80%-20% reminds us that the relationship between input and output is not balanced. Expressed in a management context, 20% of your effort generates 80% of your results. To manage your time effectively and produce the desired results, you must distinguish the right 20% from the trivial many.

Schedule It

Now comes the fun part - schedule your work! Once you put something on a to do list, you have a better chance of getting it done. Here are some tips:

• Create a To-do List - Write down everything you want to accomplish within a given amount of time, and to achieve a given goal. List your priorities, and then schedule them.
  
  
• Control Your Calendar - Block out time for you to complete your work. Don't just let everyone schedule your time with meetings. If you don't make the time, you won't have the time!
  
  
• High Energy Time - Do important work, such as work sessions and important meetings, during high energy time. With intelligent eating and adequate breaks you may find that you can extend the amount of quality time available to you in a day quite significantly.
  
  
• Handle Phone Calls and E-mail Effectively - Phone calls can be distracting. When you are in the middle of a thought or are in a state of flow on a task, telephone calls can completely disrupt these valuable states of mind. Time is spent not only in taking the call, but also in taking whatever action is decided, and then in recapturing the mental position before the interruption. Taking frequent calls while trying to concentrate can therefore by very stressful. Use the "do not disturb" feature on your phone when concentration is required, or when you are meeting with someone. Read and answer e-mail during a low energy time of day. If you feel tired after lunch, that would be a good time to read e-mails.

Do It!

• Don't Procrastinate - We all seem to do fine with things we want to do or enjoy doing for fun. But, when we perceive tasks as difficult, inconvenient, or scary, we may shift into our procrastination mode. We have very clever ways of fooling ourselves. See how many of the following excuses hit home for you:
  • I'll wait until I'm in the mood to do it.
  • It's not that bad a problem. Time will take care of it.
  • There's plenty of time to get it done.
  • Why does the boss give us so much to do? It's not fair.
  • It's too hard to talk about. I don't know where to begin.
  • I work better under pressure so I don't need to do it right now.
  • I've got too many other things to do first.
  • This really isn't my job.
    
    
• Be Positive - Positive Self-statements can help you beat the procrastination monster! Incorporate a list of self-motivating statements into your repertoire of thoughts. Consider ...
  • "There's no time like the present."
  • "The sooner I get done, the sooner I can play."
  • "There's no such thing as perfectionism. It's an illusion that keeps me from doing what I have to do right now."

• Reschedule If Necessary

• Keep Yourself In Good Shape

1. Eat Properly - Having a good breakfast with plenty of carbohydrates will keep your brain supplied with sugars for the early part of the day. You may find that these sugars fade sharply by midmorning as your body reacts to the high levels of sugar by burning it faster, and then finds the supplies running down. A midmorning snack will help this. Protein such as eggs for breakfast seem to slow this dip in energy.
   
   
2. Rest Effectively - You may also find that energy levels are dependent on whether you take rest periods. If you work through the day with no breaks, you may find that you fade completely by afternoon. A lunch break will allow you to start the afternoon refreshed for quality work. Don't eat your lunch at your desk, or meet through lunch.

Summary

Time Management is about winning the "Eff" words: effective, efficient, and effortless. It is about making them apply to you and your daily routines. It is about controlling the use of your most valuable (and undervalued) resource. The absence of Time Management is characterized by last minute rushes to meet deadlines, meetings which are either double booked or achieve nothing, days which seem somehow to slip unproductively by, crises which loom unexpected from nowhere.

One thing you can't recycle is wasted time. Using the tips listed above, you can manage your time and be more successful. Remember to analyze your schedule, set priorities, manage your calendar, keep yourself in good shape, and don't procrastinate! If you are a miMentor subscriber, log in to read more about:

• Personal Motivation Worksheet
• Managing Expectations
• Prioritization Techniques
• Facilitation Techniques
• Defining Business Goals
• Assessing Feasibility
• Motivating Through Leadership
• The Project Management Process
• Understanding Resource Availability

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