Articles

May 2006: Manage This ... Time Management

You probably don‘t have much time to read this … I barely do. In business one thing that always seems to be lacking is time. That said, here are some facts that will help you save time:

• You will never be able to do everything you have to do. You will never be caught up. You will always be behind in some of your tasks and responsibilities, and probably in many of them. Accept this fact and your life will be less stressful.

• Every minute spent in planning saves as many as ten minutes in execution. It takes only about ten or twelve minutes for you to plan out your day, but this small investment of time will save you at least two hours (100-120 minutes) in wasted time and diffused effort throughout the day. Always work from a list.

• By concentrating single-mindedly on your most important task, you reduce time to completion by 50% or more. One estimate suggests that the tendency to start and stop a task, pick it up, put it down and come back to it can increase the time to complete it by as much as 500 percent. Manage your interruptions.

• The average businessperson spends 3 hours each week looking for things, plus 2 hours being distracted by the stuff lying around. Put it away, file it, delegate it or trash it. The most effective people work from a clean desk and are well-organized. (This is a tough one for me, but I see a huge difference when I follow it.)

• Identify your “time hogs,” those areas of inefficiency. Are you spending eight hours a day in meetings that should each last half as long? Are you receiving e-mails that do not help you do your job better? Are people constantly running in and out of your office, interrupting you? Once you’ve identified these you can focus on specific ways for managing them.

The above truisms are what I call “macro time management.” The “micro time management” tips are specific to reducing time spent on e-mail, meetings and other specifics. I will focus on some of those in upcoming issues.

To get one-on-one coaching or training and learn more specific ways to manage your time, contact Kerrie Halmi at Halmi Performance Consulting:
kerrie@halmiperformance.com
510-336-0654.

Manage This … another useless meeting. The May edition will talk about how to deal with purposeless meetings, along with other tips. More details right here on the second Monday in May.