Time management

Prepared by
Ahmed Hamza Al-juhani

Facts about time
 Time equals money, waste time waste money
 Bad time management equals stress
 Time is priceless but it is free
 You can’t own the time but you can use it
 You can spend time but you can’t keep it
 Once you lost it, you can never get it back

Objectives of time management
 To be more effective & efficient
 Save your time
 To be more smart not harder (to do your activities more in less
time with less efforts)
 To help you to reduce your work overload, this will lead to
reduce your stress for more focus & prolong your energy

Objectives
 Maximize the return of your time by setting priorities
 To avoid time wasters, Handle interruption in effective manner
 Reflect of active listening on time saving

Time wasters
 Unclear objectives or priorities
 Lack of planning
 Overworking (involvement in details)
 Wrong expectations & estimations
 Poor listening & communication
 Others e.g. socialization

Signs of time wasting
 Messy desk & cluttered files
 Late or unprepared for meetings
 Volunteer to do tasks of others
 Tired & unable to concentrate
 Miss appointments

Pareto principle
 80% of results achieved with 20% of the efforts & vice versa
 20% of results from unfocused efforts

Myths about time management
 The longer or harder you work the more you accomplish
 You are not supposed to enjoy work
 We should take pride in working hard
 Should try to do the most in the least amount of time
 Technology will help to do your tasks better & faster
 Do one thing at a time

Obstacles of effective time management
 Unclear objective
 Disorganization
 Inability to say “no”
 Interruptions
 Periods of inactivity
 Too many things at once
 Stress & fatigue
 All work & no play

Types of interruptions
 Interruptions (e.g. phone, email alert)
 Wrong colleagues
 Visitors dropping
 Junk emails
 Crisis & emergencies
 Family & friends

Types of interruptions
 Procrastination
 Dis organization
 Inability to say “no”
 Fatigue
 To be effective, identify these obstacles affecting your ability to
manage your time

Facts about interruptions
 Interruptions take…….6-9 minute
 Recovery………..……..4-5 minute
 5 interruptions, shoots an hour

Handling interruptions
 Turn off email alert
 Answer phone calls at schedule time
 Turn off phone calls into e mails
 Schedule time for meeting visitors
 Close your office door to reduce incidence of drop in visitors

Handling interruptions
 Be assertive:
- “I am in middle of something know”
- “excuse me I have only 5 minutes”
- Hand watch or clock watching on wall behind them

3 Ps of effective time management
1. Planning
2. Prioritize
3. Procrastinations

planning
 Failing to plan is planning to fail
 Plan:
 Daily, Weekly, Annually, Monthly, Process, Functions

Notes about daily plan
 Daily plan should cover 3 main points:
 Scheduled activities for the day showing time allocated to each
 Identify key tasks for that day to be prioritize
 Indication of who you need to contact during the day
 Document everything (short pencil is better than long memory)

Effective planning
 Set long range objectives
 Set specific daily goals
 Set a task for each goal
 Prioritize your task
 Set time limit for each task
 Anticipate obstacles & take corrective action
 Implement

Goals, priorities & planning
 Why am I doing this?
 What is the goal?
 Why will I succeed?
 What happens if I choose to do it?

Managing your workplace
 Reorganize 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

Office logistics
 Make your office comfortable for you
 Optionally comfortable for others

Managing your phone
 Control phone by:
 Batch your outward calls
 Delegate calls you have not do it administrative
assistant
 Terminate the calls once the business has done
 Set up a rota in your team for handling incoming calls

Effective time management strategies
 Set a goal (SMART)
S………Specific
M……....Measurable
A………Achievable
R……...Realistic
T………Time frame
 Make sure that your efforts are always directed towards your efforts

Achieving goals
 When you achieve a goal, take time to celebrate
 Observe the progress you have made towards your goals &
absorb implications of goal achievement
 If you failed to achieve a goal, consider it feedback and learn
from it

Achieving goals
 Remember that your goals will change as time goes on
 So, adjust them regularly to reflect growth in your knowledge
& experience
 If goals become no value, let them go

Prioritize
 Sales person has many tasks to do
 So, sales person can’t make everything
 Logically, to make a list with tasks confront you

Prioritize
 Do
 Delay
 Delegate
 Delete
Prioritization helps you to allocate your time, where it is mostly
needed & most wisely spent

Notes about delegation
 No one can live in an isolated island
 You can accomplish a lot with help
 Grant authority with responsibility
 Concentrate on goal, deadlines & deadlines
 Treat well, appreciate & reward your delegated subordinate
after accomplishing an objective

Simple prioritize
 Prioritize according to:
 Profitability or benefit of the task you are facing
 Pressure you are under to complete a job
 Commonly, prioritize based on profitability & project value

Prioritization tools
 Importance:
 Outcome of your activities lead to achievement of your goals
 Urgent:
 Activities that we are concentrate on
 Activities demand attention
 Mainly, urgency due to something unexpected you must deal with
at once

Why do we procrastinate?
 If you don’t know from where to start
 To avoid unpleasant task
 Afraid to fail
 Waiting for more information
 You are over committed

Overcoming procrastination
 List things you have been avoiding
 Prioritize them
 Do task list according to priority

Effectiveness Vs. efficiency
The best for time management is to be effective & efficient
 Effectiveness:
 Achieving things you want to achieve
 Spending your time on important things but urgent
 Efficiency:
 Produce more work in a given period of time

Urgency vs. importance
 Urgency:
 Things require immediate attention & fast reaction
 Important:
 Can be postponed but must be done
 May become urgent if let undone
 Usually have long term effect

Time management matrix
Focus on
Manage
Delegate Dump

N.B
 Urgent & important; require immediate attention & action
 Not urgent & important; involves long term vision, it improves us
 Effective time management lies in spending considerable time in
important but not urgent

Factors to be considered
 Take care of things with short term consequences as soon as
possible
 Accomplish what you can early(e.g. reports, registration,
requests can be done)
 Attach deadlines to things you delay

Factors to be considered
 When you decide that something can be wait you may
postpone it again & again
 Make schedule:
 determine when to begin working on it
 establish deadline for that task to finish

Organize
 For effective time management, you need to organize
 Use planner or calendar with plenty of space to make notes, daily
activities & contact information (it is indispensible tool for time
management)
 You can use computer & software programs including calendars,
reminders & contact information (also mobiles, ipad, ipod)

Learn when to say “NO”
 You can’t do everything
 Don’t undertake things you can’t complete
 Remain consistent to your goals

Use your waiting time
(make your time more productive)
 On public transportation
 At prospect workplace
 When you are early
Make sure that you have something with you that you can
accomplish in the event when you are kept waiting

Methods
 Reading correspondence:
E.g. Reading your mails, writing reports, make important
business call
 Write notes or memos
 Reading:
Carry a book or magazines to read & learn new things
specially those related to your business

Concentrate at the task at hand
 You have not always to do many tasks
 Concentrate completely on current task
 For more effective time spending

1- Focus on your goal
 You will accomplish better if you focus on one task you are
performing at the moment

2- Tune out interruptions
 Set time during the day to not answer phone or schedule visitors
 You can’t isolate yourself all the time but avoid interruptions for
specific period of time
 When you must respond to phone calls, be assertive in minimizing
interruptions by asking if you can call back at another time or meet
another day

3- Achieving more with focus
 Goals setting techniques are used by:
 Top level athletes
 Successful business people
 Achievers in all fields
 They give you long term vision & long term motivation.
 Setting goals rise your confidence
 Organize your efforts & your resources

Consider your personal prime time
 Determine the time of the day you function at the best
 Schedule your most difficult task for your peak performance
hours
 Most research shows that tasks take mental concentration are
most effectively accomplished early morning
 But even these studies acknowledge that this is not always true

Celebrate your success
 Celebrate achievement of your goals to maintain healthy
balance in life between work & day
 Reward yourself when complete a task or finish a project
 If you work in a team delegate some tasks reward the efforts of
all involved

Time management tools
1. Actions plans
2. To do list
3. Time log

Time management tools
1- action plan
 It simple list of all of the tasks that you need to carry out
 It differ from “TO DO” list in that it focuses on achievement of
a single goal
 It helps you to think about what you need to do to achieve that
thing & monitor your progress

How to make an action plan
 List the tasks that you need to carry out to achieve your goals
 Keep your action as you carry out your work
 Update your action plan as you go a long with any additional
activities that come up

2- “TO DO” List
 “TO DO” list is a list of all tasks you need to carry out
 It contains all tasks you have to do, top to bottom according to
the importance
 Keep doing “TO DO” list to be successful sales person or
manager

What if not keeping proper “to do” list?
 May overwhelmed by large amount of work to do
 May face a constant barrage of deadlines
 Sometimes you forget to do something important

Preparing a “to do” list
1. Write down tasks
2. If a task is large, break down it into smaller component.
3. Do the task
4. Prioritize tasks from very important to unimportant
5. If there are many tasks with high priority
- At first, determine less important tasks
- Then, rewrite list in priority order

Using your “to do” list
 Motivate yourself by keeping it relatively short & aim to
complete it everyday
 Low priority tasks can be postponed for several months if these
tasks are running up against a deadline, raise there priority

3- Time log
 It is effective way to see where your time consumed during the
working days
 Record information for about 2 weeks to get a full picture
about time spent in accomplishing tasks
 Log activities & record time acquired to accomplish them

3- Time log
 Time log provide useful information about:
 Accuracy of estimating time for tasks
 Time wasters
 Level of interruptions
 Loading during the day
 Crisis points / tasks

4- Dealing with documents
 Documents can consume a huge amount of time from our working day
 Improve your document handling:
 Act on what is required by the document
 File the document for reference later
 Get rid of the useless document
 Technology can make handling documents faster & easier.(e.g. software,
computers)

Key points
 To do list made for efficient work
 Ensure that:
 Carry out all necessary tasks
 Do most important jobs at first
 Do not waste time on trivial tasks
 Not becoming stressed by a large number of un important jobs

Summary
 Decide you first step of plan
 Keep processes going by reviewing & updating your “TO DO”
list on a daily basis
 Periodically review the longer term plans & modify them to
reflect your changing priorities & experience

Time management

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