Time Management

This section is designed to give advice on how to manage your time efficiently and therefore help you become reliable and effective by showing you how to identify and focus on the activities that will be of greatest benefit to you.

Activity Logs

To begin managing your time properly you first need a clear idea of how you use your time. An activity log will help you to estimate how much time you currently spend doing typical activities. To get an accurate estimate, keep track of how you spend your time for 5 days or a week. This will help you get a better idea of how much time you need to prepare for each subject and help you identify your time wasters. You should record what you actually do, not what you should be doing. For example, if you spend the morning writing a report, you should also record the time taken up by making drinks, answering the phone or chatting. You might also want to include the hours in the day where you are most active and therefore more likely to be productive. There is an example log at the end of this article which you can print off.

Prioritising Your Tasks

While you are recording your activity log, or as a quick help, an activity you can try to help manage your time is prioritising you work. To be effective in your job you must allocate as much time as possible to achieving the important things. This means spending less time on what is less important. To do this you must establish your priorities so that you remember to carry out all necessary tasks, tackle the most important jobs first, and do not waste time on trivial tasks.

First you need to list all the tasks you need to carry out. Mark the importance of the task next to it, with a priority from A (very important) to F (unimportant). Redraft the list into this order of importance.

Now carry out the jobs at the top of the list first. These are the most important, most beneficial tasks to complete.

If you are unsure of what your priorities are, you could ask your employer what the specifications of your job are. You should ask your employer and yourself the following questions:

What is the purpose of the job?
If possible, express this in a single sentence starting with the word 'To' - for example 'To ensure effective distribution in the South East...'

What are the measures of success?
Work out how your employer will decide whether you are good at your job or not. Find out what the key targets to be achieved are, and how achievement will be measured.

What are the priorities and deadlines?
You need to know this so that when you are overloaded with work, you know what to focus on.

If you have answers to these questions, you will know how to do your job in precisely the right way. If you know what exceptional performance is, you can plan to achieve it using all the resources you have available.

Review of Activity Logs

The information in the activity logs can now be used to look at how much time you have spent on your priorities and who or what are your main time wasters. To do this, work out the total amount of time spent on each activity; you could then work it out as a percentage of the total hours you logged. List these activities in order of how much time they take up and compare it to your list of priorities. Check if the activities you spent the most time on have the highest positions on your priority list; also identify the main time wasters and try to eliminate them, or at least cut down on them. The practical advice below may help.

Practical Advice

• Organise yourself:
• Break projects down into doable tasks. Update project plans as necessary
• For all identified tasks, set priorities and estimate the time required so that you're aware of what's important and when things are scheduled
• Have a daily/weekly planner in which you write down appointments, jobs, and meetings on a chronological log book or chart. First thing in the morning, check what's ahead for the day
• Also have a long term month/year planner so that you can plan ahead. They will also serve as a reminder to constructively plan time for yourself
• Allow time for distractions and interruptions when planning your day
• Balance the urgent and important tasks so that you can get the urgent tasks out of the way and concentrate on the important ones
• Don’t put off till tomorrow what can be done today
• Organise your work area:
• Remove all clutter but keep work materials close to hand
• Place your desk in a place where you will avoid unnecessary distractions
• Organise paperwork:
• Telephone someone rather than writing to them
• Limit the amount of photocopying you and your department do
• Try to get things right the first time and resist the tendency to alter something just because you can on computers
• Don’t allow paper to accumulate by establishing a filing system you will stick to
• Make use of secretarial support if it is available to you
• Organise Others:
• If you have staff under you make sure they are sufficiently stimulated and given opportunities to develop and use their initiative.
• Praise staff when they deserve it and make sure they know their contribution is worthwhile. This is when they will make the best contribution to the work of the department.

Costing Your Time

Another way of helping you see if you are spending your time profitably is to work out how much your time costs. If you work for an organization, calculate how much you cost it each year. Include your salary, payroll taxes, the cost of office space you occupy, equipment and facilities you use, expenses, administrative support, etc. If you are self-employed, work the annual running costs of your business.

If you work office hours, you will have approximately 200 productive days each year. If you work 7½ hours each day, this equates to 1,500 hours in a year. From these figures, calculate an hourly rate by dividing the total cost by the number of hours you work in a year. This should give a reasonable estimate of how much your time is worth. You can also divide this number by 60 to get your cost per minute. When you are deciding whether or not to take a task on, think about this value and whether or not it is worth your time.

Long Term Goals

As a long term solution to time management setting an explicit statement of long term goals which can be reviewed every few months or so. This will allow you to set shorter range goals and to prioritize specific activities according to how much they contribute to your goals. Setting these long term goals may be more difficult than you imagine. The process can force you to confront decisions that you have been putting off, or value issues that you don't want to handle. Clarify and write down long and short-term goals, keeping the objectives current.