Overview - Time Management
This paper was part of a Leadership college course; its layout was mandated by the assignment.Issues of time management plague a wide range of individuals, from the stay at home mom trying to juggle her family’s extracurricular activities to the busy manager’s stress over getting ten employee reviews done by the stated deadline. Modern life has provided most people with a wealth of options to choose from - more ways to work from home, more leisure activities to choose from, and more social relationships to juggle. This increase in ‘possible things to do’ has not come with a corresponding increase in the number of hours available in a given day. It therefore is critical that each person learns how to work smarter, not harder, as they go about their chosen daily activities.
Before any time management can be done, an individual needs to sit down and map out their long term priorities and goals. This helps ensure that any tasks done short term are in service of one of those goals (Schwarz, 2008). If a worker performs a task very efficiently - but in the long run the worker or employer has no interest in that path’s results, it is wasted time. An example would be a secretary who diligently pours 40 hours into a report which nobody reads or uses.
Once goals and priorities are set, a key first step in managing tasks and implementing time management is to get a handle on what the currently done tasks actually are. Stephen R. Covey recommends breaking tasks into four groups (Covey, 1994):
| Quadrant I Urgent, important | Quadrant II Not urgent, important |
| Quadrant III Urgent, not important | Quadrant IV Not urgent, not important |
The word "important" in this chart refers to how the tasks relate to the larger goals and priorities. The idea here is to winnow out the items which are simply not important based on overall priorities. The individual should then focus on a balance of urgent items and non-urgent items so that the non-urgent items do not soon become urgent.
Once the task list has been reduced to those which actually should be worked on, a next step is to break those tasks into manageable steps. According to David Allen, "It's possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a positive sense of relaxed control (Allen, 2002)." The key is focusing on short steps. Take on just the next task, and celebrate the victory when it is complete. Those small steps add up over time.
A key part of this process is to adjust and tweak each day. Neil Fiore, PhD, relates that the Apollo mission was technically off-course 90% of the time! The reason the project succeeded was that small corrections were continually being made to its progress (Fiore, 2007). It is fine to veer left or right, as long as the overall goal is kept in sight and adjustments are made to focus on it. A person should pay attention to what they are doing, reevaluate themselves at least weekly in terms of their goals, and adjust their course.
To help with that reevaluation process and forward momentum, it is critical to have mentors who help a person plan his goals and rally him to reach them. Jeff Davidson explains that having cheerleaders to encourage and to help a person stay on track can be critical (Davidson, 2009). Not only that, but Kevin Hall expands on the idea and recommends having a variety of mentors, each a specialist in one area (Hall, 2010). One mentor might be perfect for finding solutions to challenges, while another mentor excels in enthusing his protégés with energy when they’re feeling low. With the support of this community, every task can be improved and tweaked, if time and attention are paid to it.
Elizabeth’s Time Management
In my role of sole owner of BellaOnline I am faced with immense time management issues. Within the 24 hour period I have available in a given day I attempt to handle hundreds of email messages, prioritize numerous editor tasks, resolve coding issues, negotiate advertising and charity promotion arrangements, and respond to member questions. Even reducing the number of hours that I sleep, this still leaves me in a situation where I wake up, come down to my computer, get right to work, and only call it quits when I am ready to head to sleep. Time management is absolutely necessary to make this work without an ever-increasing backlog.
An important key has been to invest time in reading a wide variety of books, including the ones listed in this paper, and paying serious attention to their message. A few times a month, for example, I will keep an Excel spreadsheet of all messages I receive in a day and break them out into categories. I look for ways to automate some areas, or to provide on-site information to answer questions so that editors or members do not need to email me for that data. I make sure I take care of issues before they reach the urgent, emergency stage. I proactively help train my editors in time management skills so that they do not develop emergencies which then become mine. I work on priority charts to ensure the tasks I am working on are in service of our long term goals.
I invest time in honing my skills and learning new ones. This helps ensure that I work as intelligently as I can, managing the work that I need to do in as efficient a manner as I can.
Part of this process is accepting the status of tasks I have relegated to a lower priority. For example, I do not go for long walks every day. It is a nice thought that I could have daily walks, but I accept that the time invested in that would be taking away from other tasks I feel are more important. Rather than be upset about this loss, I realize that each person has only 24 hours in their day and has to make similar decisions. We all have to decide where to invest our time, and this choice is ours freely to make based on our needs in life. If I wanted to work a straight 9-5 job and have all my evenings and weekends free, I could easily do that. I have chosen to work a life which is all-involving. I love what I do, and I accept that choice.
Time Management Recommendations
The first step for any person serious about getting a handle on their use of time is to lay out their priorities and goals in an overall, long term manner. They should make sure they know where they want to be in five years. It does no good working on short term goals which do not lead to the desired long term destination. Once a person has those long term goals, they next work backwards to the short term goals, breaking them out into short, easy to digest steps. The individual should focus on those short steps to ensure progress is being made.
Separately, the person should map out the items that they actually do in a given week. They should break those out into the four quadrants as described above. The person needs to make sure everything they are working on is in service of their desired long term goals, and also work on eliminating any unimportant activities. These time sinks only draw them away from their destination.
Every week the individual should review the progress of the previous week and see where improvements can be made. There are always opportunities for tweaks and updates to be made for things to run more smoothly. They should fix just one issue each week and the overall progress will be fairly substantial.
An important step is to enlist a team of mentors and cheerleaders. Different people have different strengths, so an individual should not rely on just one mentor. They might have one person who is logical and calm, who can see the way out of any troublesome hurdle. Another mentor might excel at high-energy enthusiasm, helping them pick up their spirits when they’re feeling discouraged. A third mentor might be a brilliant marketer, knowing everyone who has anything to do with a topic. They could help the individual make the connections they need to get to the next stage of their progress.
Above all, each person should keep learning, growing, and building skills. By maintaining an open, “beginner’s mind” they can absorb new techniques, create new systems that help manage their tasks and optimize their daily workload.
Summary
Time management is an issue which affects every person. All people on the planet work within the same 24 hour day. All have different, competing interests which vie for that time and attention. By ensuring they know what their overall priorities are in life, and finding a way to focus on them and match the time spent to the chosen goals in life, each individual can reach their long term destination in as stress-free and calm a manner as possible.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allen, David. (2002). Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. New York, NY: Penguin.
Covey, Stephen R. (1994). First Things First. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.
Davidson, Jeff. (2009). The 60 Second Innovator: Sixty Solid Techniques for Creative and Profitable Ideas at Work. Avon, MA: Adams Media.
Fiore, Neil, PhD. (2007). The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play. New York, NY: Tarcher.
Hall, Kevin. (2010). Aspire: Discovering Your Purpose Through the Power of Words. New York, NY: William Morrow.
Schwarz, Joyce. (2008). The Vision Board: The Secret to an Extraordinary Life. New York, NY: Collins Design.
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