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Time Management
Time management can refer to all of
the practices that individuals
follow to make better use of their
time, but such a definition could
range over such diverse areas as the
selection and use of personal
electronic devices, time and motion
study, self-awareness, and indeed a
great deal of self-help. As narrowly
defined, it refers to principles and
systems that individuals use to make
conscious decisions about the
activities that occupy their time.
Personal Time Management
Time management
strategies are often associated with the recommendation to set
goals. These goals are recorded and may be broken down into a
project, an
action plan, or a simple task list.
For individual tasks or for goals, an importance rating may be
established, deadlines may be set, and priorities assigned. This
process results in a plan with a task list or a schedule or calendar
of activities. Authors may recommend a daily, weekly, monthly or
other planning periods, usually fixed, but sometimes variable.
Different planning periods may be associated with different scope of
planning or review. Authors may or may not emphasize reviews of
performance against plan. Routine and recurring tasks may or may not
be integrated into the time management plan and, if integrated, the
integration can be accomplished in various ways.
ABC
analysis
A technique that has been used in
business management for a long time
is the categorization of large data
into groups. These groups are often
marked A, B, and C—hence the name.
Activities are ranked upon these
general criteria:
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A – Tasks that are
perceived as being urgent and important.
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B – Tasks that are
important but not urgent.
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C – Tasks that are neither
urgent or important.
Each group is then rank-ordered in
priority. To further refine priority, some individuals choose to then force-rank
all "B" items as either "A" or "C". ABC analysis can incorporate more than three
groups. ABC analysis is frequently combined with
Pareto analysis.
By some estimates, people waste
about 2 hours per day. Signs of time
wasting:
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Messy desk and cluttered (or no)
files
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can't find things
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miss appointments, need to
reschedule them
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late and/or unprepared for
meetings
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volunteer to do things other
people should do
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tired/unable to concentrate
Questions to Always Ask
Paperwork
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Clutter is death; it leads to
thrashing. Keep desk clear: focus
on 1 thing at a time
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a good file system is essential
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touch each piece of paper once
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correspondence: answer on the
letter itself
Reading
Pile
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only read something if you'll be
fired for not reading it
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note that this refers to
periodicals and routine reading,
which is different than a research
dig
Telephone
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Keep calls short; stand during
call
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Start by announcing goals for the
call
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Don't put your feet up
-
Have something in view that you're
waiting to get to next.
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When done, get off: "I have
students waiting"
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If necessary, hang up while you're
talking
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group outgoing calls: just before
lunch & 5pm
The
Seven Habits
From: The Seven Habits Of Highly
Effective People: Restoring the
Character Ethic, by Stephen R.
Covey, Simon and Schuster, 1989.
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BE PROACTIVE. Between
stimulus and response in human
beings lies the power to choose.
Productivity, then, means that we
are solely responsible for what
happens in our lives. No fair
blaming anyone or anything else.
BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND.
Imagine your funeral and listen to
what you would like the eulogists
to say about you. This should
reveal exactly what matters most
to you in your life. Use this
frame of reference to make all
your day-to-day decisions so that
you are working toward your most
meaningful life goals.
PUT FIRST THINGS FIRST. To
manage our lives effectively, we
must keep our mission in mind,
understand what's important as
well as urgent, and maintain a
balance between what we produce
each day and our ability to
produce in the future. Think of
the former as putting out fires
and the latter as personal
development.
THINK WIN/WIN. Agreements
or solutions among people can be
mutually beneficial if all parties
cooperate and begin with a belief
in the "third alternative": a
better way that hasn't been
thought of yet.
SEEK FIRST TO BE UNDERSTANDING,
THEN TO BE UNDERSTOOD. Most
people don't listen. Not really.
They listen long enough to devise
a solution to the speaker's
problem or a rejoinder to what's
being said. Then they dive into
the conversation. You'll be more
effective in your relationships
with people if you sincerely try
to understand them fully before
you try to make them understand
your point of view.
SYNERGIZE. Just what it
sounds like. The whole is greater
than the sum of its parts. In
practice, this means you must use
"creative cooperation" in social
interactions. Value differences
because it is often the clash
between them that leads to
creative solutions.
SHARPEN THE SAW. This is
the habit of self-renewal, which
has four elements. The first is
mental, which includes reading,
visualizing, planning and writing.
The second is spiritual, which
means value clarification and
commitment, study and meditation.
Third is social/emotional, which
includes service, empathy, synergy
and intrinsic security. Finally,
the physical element includes
exercise, nutrition and stress
management.
Franklin Covey Company
2200 W Parkway Blvd.
Salt Lake City, UT 84119 800-819-1812
www.franklincovery.com
Source: Wikipedia, Univ. of Virginia -- one of the best
talks ever given on time management (by
Randy Pausch),
MyPersonalGrowth research
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