Time Management

Learning Objectives
When you have completed this module you
will be able to define the key concepts
associated with Time Management and you
will be able to:
Identify the main obstacles to effective Time
Management in your daily role
Understand the nature of Time Management
2

Learning Objectives
Understand a range of tools, techniques and
concepts for Time Management
Use these techniques to build an effective
Time Management process that will enhance
your productivity and lower your stress
Explain the benefits of having an effective
Time Management process

Introduction

Time Management & The Organization

Looking at time management from the perspective of
the organization what are the benefits:
Improved productivity through improved use of time by the
personnel
Better performance in terms of on time delivery to customers
Increased profitability through better use of the human and
non-human resources

Time Management & The Organization

Improved planning and control of business
systems through time based management
Better alignment of activities by incorporating
a time bound system for co-ordination of
tasks and projects in the business
Reduction of stress that arises due to crisis
management by reducing the incidence of
crises by better planning
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Introduction
What
What is
isTime
Time
Management?
Management?
Time
Timeas
as aa
Commodity
Commodity
Essential
Essential Habits
Habits
Types
Types of
ofTime
Time
Over
Over &&Under
Under
Estimation
Estimationof
ofTime
Time
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What is Time Management?

Time management has five main aspects:

Planning & Goal Setting

Managing Yourself
Dealing with Other People
Your Time
Getting Results

The first 4 all interconnect and interact to generate

the fifth - results

Time as a Commodity
Time is the most precious thing we have
Time is ultimately the most valuable resource
Time and how we spend it within the organization
must be managed effectively
Time is totally perishable
Time cannot be stored up for use later
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Essential Habits
Essential habits for good time management are:

Know where the hours are going

Keep focused on the end result
Work to defined priorities
Schedule time for important issues
Delegate routine tasks and responsibility for them
Confront your own indecision and delay
Take the stress out of work
Keep applying the essential habits!

10

Types of Time
Time can be categorized into two types:
Fast time
when absorbed in, or enjoying an activity

Slow time
when bored with an activity or having a bad time
when scared

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Over- & Under-estimating Time

Time for tasks or activities can be overor under-estimated due to
Intensity of activity
Level of brain function
Length of gaps between enjoyments
Fear or ecstasy

12

Effects of Estimating Time Incorrectly

Under-estimation of time
Stress due to committing to too many tasks
Poor quality output
Deadlines may be missed

Over-estimation of time
Stress due to people pressing to have activities
completed
Poor quality output
Deadlines set may not match requirements

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Time Management Principles

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Time Management Principles

Time
TimeManagement
ManagementPrinciples
Principles
Spent
SpentTime
TimeMatrix
Matrix
Quadrant
Quadrant22
Time-Based
Time-Based
Management
Management

15

Time Management
Covey identified 4 waves in time management
1 Notes and Checklists
Recognition of the demands on energy & time

2 Calendars and appointment books

Scheduling with some focus on the future

3 Prioritization
Comparison of the relative worth of activities

4 Self management
Realization that time cannot be managed - it is ourselves
that we have to manage!

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Covey,1989

16

Spent Time Matrix

Urgent
Q1
Important

Not
Important

Q3

Crises
Deadlines

Interruptions
Some Meetings
Popular Activities

Not Urgent
Q2

Q4

Prevention
Relationship Building
Planning
Recreation
Pleasant Activities
Busy Work
Time Wasters
Trivia

17

Quadrant 1
Being in Quadrant 1 brings
Stress
Burnout
Crises management
Firefighting
Focus on the immediate

18

Quadrant 3
Being in Quadrant 3 brings
Short term focus
Crises management
Low value on goals
Feeling of victimization / lack of control
Shallow relationships

19

Quadrants 3 & 4
Cycling between Quadrants 3 & 4
brings:
Total irresponsibility
High dependency on others for basics
Short career path in the organization
20

Quadrant 2
Being in Quadrant 2 brings:
Vision
Perspective
Balance
Discipline
Control
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Covey,1989

21

Characteristics of a Quadrant 2 Person

There are six basic criteria to allow a

person to function in Quadrant 2:
Coherence
Balance
Focus
An ability to get on with people
Flexibility
Portability
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Quadrant 2 Requirements
The basic requirements to reach Quadrant 2 are:
Clear definition of organizational roles and specifically
your own role
Selection of and focus on SMART goals
Development and utilization of schedules
The practice of daily adapting in work role

23

Saying No and Quadrant 2

To stay within Quadrant 2, there is a
requirement that you must say no:
In a professional manner
When items are associated with Quadrant 3 or
Quadrant 4 activities
Not important not urgent
Not important but urgent
Will not deliver competitive advantage

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Time-Based Management
Fundamentals:
Focus is on time and resources
Pre-analysis of performance
Analysis of goals and objectives
Systemization of processes
25

Focus on Time & Resources

For effective management of time there needs to be a reasonable
attempt made to look at the time and resources required to complete a
task:

Quality

Resources

Time

The quality of the outcome is directly influenced by the resources and

time constraints involved

26

Pre-Analysis Of Performance
The ability to learn from past experience allows time
management to improve performance
The discipline of reviewing past performance allows
the organization to:
Debug projects before initiation and subsequent waste of
resources
Define critical points in processes which need to have
particular attention paid to them
Improve the overall utilization of resources by capturing and
implementing best practice

27

Analysis of Goals & Objectives

By setting goals that relate to business
performance and conform to SMART criteria
the organization will improve productivity:
S -- specific and well defined objectives
M -- measurable outputs and inputs
A -- achievable in terms of resources available
and expectations
R -- relevant to the overall business strategy
T -- time bound with an operational schedule

28

Systemization of Processes
The ability to design and implement processes
that allow consistency of
Input
Output
Training and skill transfer
Consistency allows for time to be gauged accurately
for activities which assists in the scheduling aspect
of capacity planning in the organization

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Time-based Management
Need to look at
Is the allotted time for completion of plans realistic
for the person / team?
In the effort to achieve results, is efficient use
made of the available time?
For teams - how can the time available be used to
generate the optimal results?
Is task-related time management appropriate and
realistic in the situation?
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Productive Work

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Productive Work
Busy
BusyVs
VsProductive
Productive
Indecision
Indecision &&Delay
Delay
Overwork
Overwork
Urgency
UrgencyVVImportance
Importance
Prioritization
Prioritization
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Busy Work
Just because you are busy does not
mean that you are productive
Differentiate between
Effectiveness -- doing the right things
Efficiency -- doing the right things correctly
33

Busy v Productive Work

Problem No 1: Procrastination
Putting off doing the things that you should be
doing at this point!
Solution

List all tasks that you are currently putting off

Remove two from the list by doing them now!
Plan and set a schedule for dealing with the rest
Reward when tasks are completed
Punish when tasks are not completed on schedule

34

Dealing with Indecision or Delay

When faced with a task - decide to deal with it
according to one of the following actions:
Do it
Delegate it
Dump it
Deadline it
Dissect it

35

Busy v Productive Work

Problem No 2: Paralyzing perfectionism
This is a failure to recognize the difference between
excellence and perfection

Excellence

Achievable
Healthy
Satisfying
Realistic

Perfection
Unattainable
Frustrating
Unrealistic

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Busy v Productive Work

Problem No 3: Setting unchallenging objectives
Objectives need to be set that challenge you in a realistic
manner and take heed of resource availability Otherwise
you are busy without any possibility of success

Use SMARTS criteria where the objectives are:

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Time-bound
Supported by the organization

37

Overwork
Overwork can have effects that may be
classified as
Psychological
Physiological

People are overloaded for two main reasons

The person or team does too much
The person or team have too much to do
38

Overwork
To deal with over-work, try the following
Understand your pressures
Dont get worked up or panicked
Dont blame everything on yourself
Walk away
Estimate time as well as possible
Agree priorities and keep them
Remind yourself that there is a limited amount
of time available to you
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Urgency V Importance
Differentiating between
Urgent tasks
assume importance as they demand immediate attention

Important tasks
May become urgent if left undone
Usually have a long term effect

To judge importance v urgency, gauge tasks in

terms of
Impact of doing them
Effect of not doing them

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Prioritization Grid
Importance
Priority 2

Priority 1

Priority 4

Priority 3
Urgency

41

Prioritization
The main aim of prioritization is to avoid a crisis
To do this then you must

Schedule your Priorities

as opposed to
Prioritizing your Schedule
42

Crisis Management

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Crisis Management

Proactive
ProactiveVVReactive
Reactive
Why
WhyCrises
CrisesOccur
Occur
Anticipating
Anticipating&&Preventing
Preventing
Crises
Crises

44

Proactive v Reactive Work

Reactive work - concentrates on getting things
done
Handling daily routines
Dealing with urgency
Resolving crises
Handling interruptions
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Proactive v Reactive Work

Proactive work - concentrates on making things
happen
Developing plans and schedules
Focusing on key tasks
Achieving deadlines & targets
Managing projects

46

Why Crises Occur

Checklist of reasons:
Failure to recognize the crisis
Underestimation of time required
No contingency plan is ready
No follow-up on delegated tasks
47

Anticipating & Preventing Crises

The most effective way to anticipate and
prevent crises is to:
Set deadlines and stick with them
Use interim targets and milestones to break
the task or project into manageable chunks
Build the schedule so that it is realistic
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Planning

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Planning
What
Whatis
isaaPlan?
Plan?
Information
Information&&Planning
Planning
Time
TimeManagement
Management Systems
Systems
Goals
Goals&&Time
TimeSpans
Spans
Cascading
Cascading
The
TheDaily
DailyPlan
Plan

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Planning in Time Management

Rule No 1
Failing to Plan
is Planning to Fail
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What is a Plan?

A plan is a road map set in

real time to reach an
objective or set of objectives
through the use of defined
resources
52

Information & Planning

Essential information:
You need to know what you have to plan
Once this is established
Break the task into manageable chunks
Gauge the time required for each chunk
Schedule each chunk into a logical sequence

53

Time Management Systems

There are certain key criteria that need to be
applied to a time management system:
Functional
Portable
Intelligible

54

Time Management Systems

Pitfalls
Totally dis-organized system
Nothing can be located when required

Perfectly maintained system

Too much time is spent keeping the system in
perfect condition as opposed to actioning the
items contained within it
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Time Management Systems

Key components

Appointments
Dated deadlines
Tasks - to do and work in progress
Ideas and notes
Key task identification
Personal information
Financial planning records
Crises log
Project log
Contact list

56

Goals & Time-spans

A time management system is ineffective if defined
goals are not available to work towards
Strategic Goals - long term goals, perhaps out to five years
Tactical Goals - medium term goals, from 3 - 12 months
ahead
Operational Goals - short term goals defining the exact
action to be taken The schedule may cover hours or days

57

Checklist for Goals

Checklist for Goals
Are they realistic and challenging?
Have they been agreed with the manager and linked
to the performance appraisal system?
Do you know what it will look like when you have
achieved the goal (visualization)?
Are the goals important to you?
Is there a time bound aspect to the goals?
Are the goals SMART?
What will the reward be once the goals have been
achieved?

58

Cascading
Planning levels should cascade as follows:
Yearly overview plan
Monthly Plan
Weekly Plan
Daily Plan
Note that in the cascade, the time span decreases whereas the
level of complexity increases

59

The Daily Plan

The Daily Plan should cover three main areas:
Scheduled activities for the day showing time
allocated to each
Identification of key tasks for the day to allow them
to be prioritized
Indication of who you need to contact during the
day to allow you to complete tasks

60

The Daily Plan

When setting out the daily plan pay
attention to the following points:
When do you perform best, suit your bio-rhythm
Build in planning time at the start and end of the
day
Prioritize actions into musts, shoulds and
coulds and focus on the musts

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The Daily Plan

Guidelines continued
Leave room for unexpecteds
Dont stack meetings back to back
Batch telephone calls
Build in quality time

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Tips & Techniques

63

Tips & Techniques

Time
TimeLogs
Logs
Quality
QualityTime
Time
Managing
Managing Documents
Documents
Managing
ManagingInterruptions
Interruptions
Managing
ManagingWorkspace
Workspace
Managing
Managing your
your Phone
Phone
64

Time-logs
A time-log is an effective way to see where your time
actually goes to during the working day Record the
information for about 2 weeks to get a representative
picture of time spent
By logging activities and the time taken to complete
them, the time-log provides useful information that
can identify

Accuracy of estimating time for tasks

Time stealing activities
Level of interruption
Loading during the day
Crises points / tasks

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Quality Time
Quality time is where you can plan to do the
most important high priority tasks
It allows for deep concentration through
eliminating interruptions
It imposes a structure on work
It allows you to move away from reactive work
to proactive work
66

Dealing with Documents

Document handling can steal a vast quantity
of time from our working day
Improve your document handling by:
Handling documents only once by :
Act on what is required by the document
File the document for reference later
Dump the document

67

Dealing with Documents

Have a good system for handling your documents
that allows you to:
Define what you need to keep and for how long
Allows you to file materials easily and logically
Facilitates access to materials
Purge the files on a regular basis

68

Managing Interruptions
Try to reduce the number of interruptions by
applying the following techniques:
Create a visual barrier at your workspace to reduce the
incidence of drop-in visits
Dont have extra chairs in your workspace - people do
not hang around as long if they must stand
For important work - move to another space so the
potential interruptors cant find you!
Tell people that you are busy, explain why and arrange to
contact them at a more suitable time

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Managing Your Workspace

How our workspace is organized has an impact on
how efficient we are - try the following to improve
efficiency
De-clutter your desk by clearing it at the end of each
working day
File documents once they have been used
Purge files regularly
Organize a work flow system in your space

70

Managing Your Phone

The telephone can be responsible for eating vast quantities
of time - control the phone by using:
Batch your outward calls
Delegate calls that you dont have to make personally to one of your
team
Terminate calls once the business has been done
Set up a rota in your team for handling incoming calls

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Summary

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Summary

Have a great planning system and use it

Take on realistic goals an schedule accurately

Do not over-commit

Set and agree priorities to distinguish between urgent and

important tasks

Build in some flexibility to cope with anything unexpected

Control your documents, workspace and phone

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Summary
Dont procrastinate Manage Your Time Today
Define and use periods of quality time in your schedule
Learn to say No in a professional manner
Stay away from perfectionism and aim for excellence
Build in time for personal development

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