Time Management – It All Starts Now!
February 9th, 2010 by Corporate Wellness
Work Smarter Not Harder and Take The Reigns Of Your Schedule
Wouldn’t you like to achieve more and work fewer hours? Personal time management skills are an absolutely essential part of anyone who wishes to rise above the masses. Those who are experts at time management can adapt quickly to a varying “playing field” and can work with utmost efficiency under stressful conditions.
So… ask yourself the question. Do you control your workload? Or does your workload control you?
If you answered yes to your workload controlling you then it’s time to take responsibility and act NOW!
Concentrate on results!
Many people spend their days in a frenzy of activity, but in actual fact they achieve very little. Quite often they are sidetracked by early morning banter, unnecessary email responses, unrelated phone calls and texting all with the aim of setting up the day. In most cases however, there is very little which is aimed at achieving a result.
So, look at your upcoming day and instead of writing the long list of to do’s with little intent, look at things practically and assess which items are of utmost importance and set a target of completing them come hell or high water by a set time. Then break down the task into sections looking at what is required in incremental steps in order to reach the goal. Who do you need to call? Do you need to delegate menial tasks? Who in management do I need to see to get everything over the line?
The result is the focus, not the enormity of the task. Multitasking is over rated!
The 80:20 Rule
The Pareto Principle, or the ‘80:20 Rule’ is one of simplest yet most relevant principles for all aspects of life. It basically outlines that typically 80% of unfocussed effort generates only 20% of results. This means that the remaining 80% of results are achieved with only 20% of the effort.
When you think about it… How much of your day is spent focused on activities that really are not relevant to achieving big picture results; ie all those emails, calls, filing, meetings etc may be important but may take up at least 80 per cent of your day and achieve only 20 per cent of your ultimate goals. How can you then minimize the peripheral activity and focus only on activities that will deliver maximum payload on that task?
Think about it… when you are given a deadline how quickly do you get down to the task of achieving the best result in the shortest space of time? Like when you know you are going on holidays and you have a million things to do before you go away. You don’t want unfinished tasks bugging your conscious when you are trying to lay on a beach so you knuckle down, turn back the irrelevant calls and focus only on the task to get the job done. So how can you do this everyday?
Create a Time Log
Before you move forward you need to know what you are doing now. Spend a bit of time at the end of each day in the next week to create a time log. Divide up some space in your diary to honestly look at what you do and achieve each day. Write down every task no mater how menial and write how long it took for you to complete it. Include the chat you had at the photocopier or the few minutes you took to read an unrelated email someone had sent. BE HONEST… and straight away you will notice where you can improve.
Next week… we’ll look at time management tools!
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