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The key to successful management is the possession of good
time-management skills. Find out how well you manage your time by responding to the following statements, and mark the options that are closest to your experience. Be as honest as you can : if your answer is “rarely”, mark Option 1; if your answer is “always”, mark Option 4; and so on. Add your scores together, and refer to the Analysis to see how you scored. Use your answers to identify the areas that need most improvement.
OPTIONS
1 Never
2 Occasionally
3 Frequently
4 Always
1. I arrive on time and prepared for meetings.
1 2 3 4
2. I ensure that a clock is visible in the room where meetings are held.
1 2 3 4
3. The meetings I organize achieve their purpose.
1 2 3 4
4. The meetings I organize finish on time.
1 2 3 4
5. I open my mail as soon as it arrives on my desk.
1 2 3 4
6. I “skim-read” any relevant newspaper and magazine articles.
1 2 3 4
7. I cross my name off the circulation list for magazines and journals I do not read.
1 2 3 4
8. I read my faxes on the day on which I receive them.
1 2 3 4
9. I am able to complete tasks without interruptions from colleagues.
1 2 3 4
10. I decide how many times I can be interrupted in a day.
1 2 3 4
11. I reserve certain hours for visits from colleagues.
1 2 3 4
12. I close my office door when I want to think strategically.
1 2 3 4
13. I tell telephone callers that I will return their calls, and do so.
1 2 3 4
14. I limit the duration of my telephone calls.
1 2 3 4
15. I allow a colleague or secretary to screen my telephone calls.
1 2 3 4
16. I decide how may telephone calls I can deal with personally in a day.
1 2 3 4
17. I “skim-read” internal memos as soon as I receive them.
1 2 3 4
18. I read internal memos thoroughly later.
1 2 3 4
19. I keep the contents of my in-tray to a manageable size.
1 2 3 4
20. I clear my desk of all paperwork.
1 2 3 4
21. I delegate tasks to colleagues that I could do myself.
1 2 3 4
22. I follow up on the work I have delegated.
1 2 3 4
23. I encourage subordinates to limit their reports to one side of paper.
1 2 3 4
24. I consider who needs to know the information I am circulating.
1 2 3 4
25. I achieve the right balance between thinking-time and action-time.
1 2 3 4
26. I make a list of things to do each day.
1 2 3 4
27. I keep work to a certain number of hours every day – and no more.
1 2 3 4
28. I make an effort to keep in touch personally with my staff.
1 2 3 4
29. I concentrate on the positive attributes of each of my colleagues.
1 2 3 4
30. I make sure I know about the latest information technology.
1 2 3 4
31. I store e- mail messages in order to read them later on screen.
1 2 3 4
32. I perform housekeeping checks on my computer files.
1 2 3 4
CHARTING YOUR WORKING LIFE
Start first job or apprenticeship
Work in finance or accounts department ------ Take evening classes
Start a family --- Join the company’s biggest customer --- Meet students in other lines of work
Take maternity or paternity leave --- Work in sales and marketing – Take a management course
Broaden horizons --- Gain work experience abroad – Apply for promotion
Cultivate useful contacts – Set up and run own business
MAXIMIZING EFFICIENCY
Your performance levels will fluctuate according to when you feel energetic and alert, and when you feel tired. You need to understand the mental and physical cycles that your body follows each day in order to prioritize and plan your workload effectively. Note down the times at which you feel most tired or alert over a few days, and record the tasks you were performing at these times. If you were performing difficult tasks when you were tired, you were not working efficiently. In future, try to schedule easy C-tasks for these energy dips.
Because individual energy patterns can vary enormously, many companies now operate more flexible working hours. This allows employees greater control over their daily timetables and the opportunity to use time more efficiently by fitting work around their mental and physical cycles.
DOING UNPLEASANT JOBS
Tasks of different types suit different personalities. A job that you find particularly unpleasant, such as dealing with a difficult customer, for example, may be regarded as an enjoyable challenge by a colleague. There is nothing to be gained from performing unpleasant tasks for the sake of it, so if you can delegate appropriately, do so.
When it is unavoidable, try to do a difficult job when you are in a positive frame of mind. Do not put it off until the end of the day, when you may be tired, or wait until just before the deadline.
PLANNING LONG-TERM
Many tasks on your master list will not disappear when they are done. Tasks in the working year often recur in cycles – for example, you may want to aim a certain product at certain customers at the same time every year. To allocate regular time to recurring tasks, you need a long-term back up to your short-term planner, such as a color-coded wall chart. Use bright colors to map out regular events so that you can see how busy you are at a glance, and can plan ahead accordingly.
DEALING WITH PROBLEMS
With a positive attitude to life, it is much easier (and quicker) to manage your time and solve problems at work. Start focusing on feeling good about yourself and your life, and you will be less likely to interpret the problems of others as your own. This will help you to be objective and constructive in coming up with methods of dealing with tight deadlines and budgets, and resolving conflict.
CASE STUDY
Anthony, a sales executive, had been asked to attend a high-pressure meeting, which included staff from other departments among its participants.
A week before the meeting, Anthony realized that he had been convincing himself that it would go badly. He decided it was time to try to change his pattern of negative thinking into positive thinking.
First, he used various prioritizing techniques to ensure his material would be prepared well. Then, he set about positively visualizing the meeting and its outcome. He “saw” himself stand up, clear his throat, and give the report he had prepared. He then imagined himself successfully answering all of the questions that came from the other participants at the meeting. Finally, he visualized the approval on the faces of his colleagues, especially the ones that he usually felt intimidated by.
On the day, the meeting went just as Anthony had imagined- and this boosted his confidence.
PROJECTING AN IMAGE
You can tell a great deal about the occupant of an office from the arrangement of items on the desk, the use of color, and the general level of tidiness. Superiors, colleagues, and subordinates alike will form their first impressions of you from the state of your workspace – so ensure that the impression you give is positive. If you regularly receive visitors at your desk, make sure that the image you are projecting is the one that you want them to see. You will never convince a well-organized outsider than an untidy work space reflects anything other than a disorganized mind.
PROCESSING DOCUMENTS
Think of your desk as an assembly line. Raw materials (mostly in the form of paper) come in at one end to be processed by a machine (your mind) before they are sent off to the next stage. The just-in-time logistics that companies apply to manufacturing processes can also be applied to your desk. This means being aware of how urgent papers are and where they need to go. Glance at documents as soon as they come in : if they are urgent, take action or delegate at once. Place non-urgent papers that are waiting for something else before they can be processed into a pending tray, and put all other non-urgent papers into your in-tray to be processed next time you go through it.
Organizing Paperwork
Set up a system for keeping up to date with all the paperwork that appears on your desk. Deal with urgent items immediately. For non-urgent items, set aside sometime each day to go through your in-tray. If you need to take any action, write it down on your master list of things to do. File away other items to read later (or keep them for reference), and throw away anything that you do not need or have already dealt with.
Organizing work Space
The objects in your workspace (desks, chairs, tables, filing cabinets, lamps) should be organized to suit you. Think about your work patterns and what you use your office for. If you have a lot of visitors, place your desk so that you can see the door and be aware of people approaching. If you regularly hold meetings in your office, arrange the furniture so that visitors can sit comfortably.
If possible, your workspace should contain only those files to which you refer regularly. Keep these near you desk, preferably so that you do not need to stand up frequently to reach them. The files that you look at rarely should be put in a special storage space, or, if this is not available, in an out-of-the-way corner of the office.
ORGANIZING YOUR FILING
A filing system has to work in the same way as a computer’s search function. Key words have to trigger off thought sequences in your brain that lead easily to the place where a paper is filed. Such sequences will be determined by the nature of your work. If you are an exporter with markets in 70 different countries, your basic classification may be along geographic lines, so you might have five big filing cabinets – one for each continent. If you are a sales manager for a small company producing stationery products, you may divide your customers into two filing cabinets – one for domestic customers, the other for overseas. Customers will be allocated their own folder.
Labeling Clearly
It is helpful to have a system that indicates immediately, by means of color or typography, the level or classification of each file. For example, a sales manager could file documents relating to export customers in red files tagged with red labels and those relating to domestic customers in blue files with blue labels. Each label would be annotated with the name of a customer. Whatever system you adopt, it must be easily understood by you and any other users, so keep a printed list of the sections, subsections, and their contents for easy reference.
Avoiding Interruptions
Sometimes interruptions are welcome, but everyone needs to work undisturbed at certain times. Make your working day as productive as possible by discouraging interruptions by colleagues, and reorganizing your office so that you are less visible.
Listing Interrupters
To reduce the number of unnecessary interruptions you receive, first draw up the following lists :
- People who may interrupt you at any time, such as your boss or important customers;
- People who may interrupt you when you are not particularly busy, such as colleagues;
- People who may not interrupt you at all.
Keep these lists in mind, and give copies to your support staff and relevant colleagues. Ask them to follow these lists as much as possible.
MAKING PHONE CALLS
There is hardly a business in existence that does not depend on the phone and, increasingly, voice mail for rapid and direct communications. Their effective and appropriate use can dramatically improve your efficiency and performance.
CHOOSING WHEN TO CALL
Set aside a specific time of day for making phone calls, and list all the calls that you need to make every day. Be clear about the purpose of each call, and draw up a brief agenda for each as if the call was a meeting. Then make sure that you cover all the items on the agenda during the conversation. Prioritize your calls in order of importance, to ensure that you concentrate your time and resources on the most important and urgent calls.
KEEPING ON TRACK
Do not let a phone conversation stray too far from your agenda unless there is a good reason, such as dealing with an unexpected problem. Take notes, and tick off items on your agenda as they are covered. You may find it easier to lead your conversation if you stand up or walk about.
It is easy to lose track of time when speaking to someone whose conversation you enjoy, but try to keep this in check. Assess the purpose of the call – for example, can you be brief or do you need to spend time building up a rapport or placating an angry customer ? As an exercise, use a timer for a week to monitor the length of time you spend on each call. This can be sobering, both because of both the cost of the call itself and the cost in terms of your time.
USING A VOICE MAIL SYSTEM
Corporate answering machines, also known as voice mail, are becoming commonplace. Some people dislike the impersonal nature of voice mail, but you need to understand how the system works and how to make efficient use of it. It is an ideal tool for arranging internal meetings or eliciting a response from a busy colleague. Avoid bargaining or making deals by means of a seemingly endless series of voice-mail messages, since you need to speak directly to customers or suppliers to gauge reactions and find areas of compromise and agreement.
TAKING PHONE CALLS
Receiving phone calls is very different from making calls. Incoming calls can take you by surprise and interrupt you when you are unprepared. Develop techniques to reduce the time wasted and enable you to deal with callers when you choose to do so.
MAKING TIME FOR CALLS
Phone callers have the upper hand in deciding when they want to make a call, but modern technology is shifting the balance of power between caller and called. To some extent you can now dictate the time when you receive calls, enabling you to arrange your working day, as you prefer. If you have an answer machine or voice-mail system, leave a short message on it saying when you will be in your office, and that callers should ring back at that time. If you have a secretary, route all your calls via him or her, with instructions regarding to whom you wish to speak and when it would be most convenient.
DEALING WITH COLD CALLERS
If you have secretarial staff, brief them not to transfer cold callers through to you. If a persistent caller does succeed in getting through, politely but firmly inform him or her that you are not interested in what they are offering. Remember that, however annoying it may be to have interruptions from cold callers, they are only doing their job and you should always treat them courteously.
HOLDING MEETINGS
Meetings consume a large proportion of the average working week. Typically, a manager spends up to half of each week in meetings. Making sure that meetings run smoothly and achieve their purpose is an essential ingredient of time management.
MEETING ONE TO ONE
One-to-one meetings are more flexible than large, formal gatherings, and their duration is more easily controlled. Nevertheless, you need to achieve a delicate balance between cutting a meeting too short, leaving the other person feeling frustrated, and allowing it to go on so long that both parties feel their time is being wasted.
TIMING SMALL MEETINGS
Some one-to-one meetings have a very specific purpose, such as recruitment or staff assessment, and in these cases there usually tends to be a well-understood format and duration. Less formal one-to-one meetings tend to be either short and focused, in response to a particular situation (such as a reprimand), or more general and of indefinite duration. In these latter cases, avoid unnecessary time wasting for both parties by deciding informally on an agenda and time frame for the meeting beforehand. Be disciplined in adhering to it. This way, both parties’ expectations of the meeting’s purpose will be clarified, minimizing the need to spend time resolving misunderstandings afterwards.
PLANNING LARGE MEETINGS
Make sure that everybody attending a meeting knows, in advance, its purpose and their role. Circulate an agenda well beforehand to tell participants which subjects are to be discussed. This will allow them to prepare any necessary information and gain an idea of the duration of the meeting. It will be easier for the chairperson to control time-wasting tactics if everybody is aware that the agenda must be covered within the set time limit. Your agenda will also help to define the amount of time allocated to individual items.
PREPARING AN AGENDA
The order in which items appear on an agenda can have a powerful effect on a meeting’s timing. Avoid heading an agenda with a contentious subject, since the participants in the meeting may spend too much time discussing it instead of moving on to the next item. Instead, being with routine and straightforward business, which offers easy decisions. This gives the meeting a feeling of achievement and the impetus to progress rapidly.
AVOIDING TIME-WASTING
Time wasting in meetings costs more than just the participants’ time; the monetary cost of a meeting may be considerable when the combined salaries of those present are taken into account. So it is imperative that time is not lost by people attending unnecessary meetings, by meetings being disrupted, or by meetings failing to achieve their objectives. Do not tolerate tactics such as lengthy, irrelevant speeches by fellow participants, or to endless revising of points. If you are the chairperson, it will be your role to recognize such tactics and ensure that the meeting is kept moving.
KEEPING TO SCHEDULE
Meetings should start punctually; being without latecomers, and do not waste time recapping for them when they arrive. Keep a careful track of time throughout a meeting to ensure the agenda is covered in the allotted time. In general, defer overrunning items until the end of the meeting so that other items can be dealt with on schedule.
ASSESSING NEED
Before making plans to travel, ask yourself a number of questions about the trip. Am I making the best use of my time by going on this trip ? Will a phone call or letter suffice instead ? Can I send someone else ? Can I persuade the people I need to see to come to me ? Can I meet them half way ? If the answer to any of these is yes, seriously question the time-effectiveness of your trip.
PACKING EFFICIENTLY
Effective packing requires you to make an accurate assessment of your needs based on the duration of your trip. For a short trip, take just enough clothing and accessories with you to cover the number of days you anticipate being away. This way you do not have to spend money on laundry services. However, if you are going to be away for more than a few days, it may be better to take only one or two changes of clothes and have them cleaned on the trip, rather than burdening yourself with heavy suitcases.
UPDATING YOUR NOTES
Most of your time on business trips will be spent attending meetings; the longer the trip the more meetings you will attend. It is crucial to update your notes every day, otherwise all your meetings will have merged into each other by the time you return to your office; you will not be able to recall who agreed to what and when. Allow time each day to write up the day’s meetings, noting any decisions made and action to be taken.
TAKING DAILY BREAKS
Some business leaders include a regular period in their day when they briefly take time off. Similar to the siesta, it is often taken after lunch. Their doors are shut to interruptions, allowing them to take a short period of semi-sleep (only about 10 minutes), which has a recuperative effect on the body. Schedule a set time each day to switch off; pick a quiet period that fits in with your personal energy rhythm and work obligations. With practice, you will be able to reduce this rest time.
It can be difficult to find a suitable place to take such a break. Open plan offices lack privacy and are noisy, making it difficult to relax. Try to find a vacant room or office away from all disturbances.
TAKING TIME FOR YOURSELF
Do not rush straight back to work after a hectic meeting – take a break in a café, or go for a walk. Time out will allow you to clear your head and restore your energy.
PLANNING AHEAD
Good time management means planning ahead. Scheduling holidays in advance allows you to organize your workload around your breaks. At the start of each year, take the time and effort to organize your diary. Work out when you are likely to be busy and when your workload will be lightest. Look ahead at the year as a whole, and plan your holidays accordingly. Ask everybody in your office to do the same with their own schedules, and you will soon be able to see if any conflicts of time are going to arise.
Time Management (Part 1)
The 24-hour schedule (Part - 2)
MANAGING LEISURE TIME (Part - 3)
TIME USE SCHEDULE (Part 4)
ASSESSING YOUR ABILITY (Part 5)
SHARING YOUR TIME-MANAGEMENT SKILLS (Part 6 - last)
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