Management

 

 How to Manage Your Time

 

Time is an essential business resource.  It must be used efficiently (getting more done each day = activity) and effectively (getting done whatever is important without getting caught up in the ‘urgency addiction’ = results).

 

To manage time as a resource you must realise that:

 

1. Each of us has exactly the same amount of time as everyone else.

2. Time can’t be stored up to be used in the future.  You must use it as it comes or lose it.

3. Time is totally inelastic – it can’t be expanded or contracted.

4. Time can’t be stopped or reversed.  Time stops for nobody.

5. Time can’t be replaced – an hour or day wasted is gone forever.

 

To improve your use of time at work try the following steps:

 

1. Get serious about breaking old habits.

 

2. Find out how you use your time.  Keep a time log for 3 or 4 ‘normal’ working weeks using 15-minute blocks.  Then summarise how you spent your work time and show the results as percentages.

 

3. Establish a list of work priorities – decide what must be done each day, week or month as a matter of utmost importance for reaching your personal and business goals.  Your list should not exceed about 5 or 6 priority tasks, but these can change over time.

 

One simple way to do this is the ABC priority method:

 

A = the highest value tasks (the most important, not necessarily the most urgent)

B = tasks of medium importance and value

C = jobs of low value (of least importance).

 

If you have trouble ranking your work tasks just ask ‘What is most important for the survival and success of my business?’

 

4. Compare the time log (Step 2) with your work priorities (Step 3).  Don’t be surprised to find you’ve been spending most of your time working on B and even C level tasks.

 

You’ve been using the 80/20 rule – 80% of your time achieves 20% of the results you want – grossly ineffective!!   You are also likely to be addicted to doing whatever is urgent, whether or not it’s important.   This is why setting priorities is so vital.

 

5. Identify your main time wasters.

 

6. Sort out these time wasters into two groups:

 

• delegate those that need to be done but can be done by someone else, and
• eliminate those that do little or nothing to help you reach your goals.

 

7. Repeat this exercise in about six months ? and persevere.

 

Poor use of valuable time is costly and is a factor in business failure.  You need to work on the following major time wasters in small business:

 

1. telephone interruptions.

2. meetings.

3. ’drop-in’ visitors (the ‘open-door’ policy).

4. poor delegation of tasks and accumulating trivial jobs.

5. failing to plan out each day’s activities.

6. the ‘urgency addiction’ – e.g. unable to resist answering the phone.

7. being unable to say ‘No’ – don’t promise then fail to deliver.

8. sloppy communications leading to errors, wasted effort and time.

9. ignoring Murphy’s First, Second and Third Laws.

10. ignoring new technology such as email and computing.