TIME MANAGEMENT

Time is a scarce resource that must be managed well if a manager is to be effective. It is not possible to create more time, but most people can make better use of existing time. Time is «wasted» when it is used for things that are less important than other potential uses. The difficult part is not in finding time to do something, but rather in knowing what things are important enough to do. Some things are not important enough to be done at all much less in a careful, precise way; and doing them only steals time from more essential activities. The key to time management is knowing what you want to accomplish. A person with a clear set of objectives and priorities can identify important activities and plan the best way to use time. However, without clear objectives, no amount of planning will improve time management.

Reading and discussion

SOURCES OF PROBLEMS IN TIME MANAGEMENT

Lack of clear objectives and priorities are not the only source of problems in time management. A number of normal human tendencies make it more difficult to manage time well.

· People prefer to do things that are interesting and pleasant before doing things that are tedious and unpleasant.

· People are able to do routine, repetitive activities in less time than they can do unusual, unfamiliar activities.

· People prefer to do easy things before doing things that are extremely difficult.

· People prefer to do things that will be completed and provide closure before doing things that will not.

· People tend to do things that are urgent before doing things that are not.

· Urgent things tend to be initiated by others rather than by ourselves.

· People tend to wait until just before a deadline to do a task.

· People do not have a very good awareness of how their time is used.

· People tend to equate activity with achievement.

Effective time management is also impeded by some basic paradoxes:

· People who are very busy cannot find time for planning that would save more time than it takes.

· People who mostly respond to urgent crises and problems insure that they will occur in the future, because they do not plan how to avoid them.

· People who will not delegate to inexperienced subordinates are unlikely to develop subordinates with adequate experience in activities that should be delegated.

· People who are able to find time to do things for others are likely to be asked to do even more things.

· People who tend to leave things out on their desk so they will not be lost or forgotten create such clutter that things are lost or forgotten.

Improving time management has a variety of benefits. The Pareto Principle says that 80% of effectiveness comes from 20% of what you do. Time management allows you to concentrate on the activities that are most important, thereby increasing your effectiveness. Greater effectiveness is likely to increase work satisfaction and chances for career advancement. Time manage­ment also reduces the frustrations and stress resulting from being overloaded with work.

COMMON TIME WASTERS FOR MANAGERS

Studies of managerial activities find some common time wasters, including the following:

1. Drop-in visitors.

2. Telephone interruptions.

3. Cluttered office.

4. Unessential tasks.

5. Unnecessary or over-long meetings.

The causes of each type of problem and some possible rem­edies are described in this section.

DROP-IN VISITORS

Casual visitors are probably the biggest time wasters for a manager. The nature of managerial work requires many brief contacts with a wide network of people, including subordinates, peers, superiors, clients, and other outsiders. However, the need to interact with many people frequently does not imply that a manager should be available at any time to anybody who wants to see him or her for any reason.

Some managers fail to screen visitors and prevent interruptions because of deep-seated fears and anxieties. Some managers may fear that without an «open door,» visitors will be offended, important information will be missed, and open communication will be discouraged. For some managers, a strong need for affiliation and desire to socialize may be the cause of too much accessibility. In other cases, attributes of the physical environ­ment or the organizational structure discourage privacy. Exam­ples include lack of a separate office and lack of a secretary to screen visitors.

Some common remedies involve a variety of barriers, sched­uling mechanisms, and screening mechanisms. Other remedies involve reducing the need for people to ask for information and advice. Frequent questions suggest a possible failure to clarify role expectations and disseminate relevant information to people. Still other remedies allow you to control the length of a visit and end it quickly.

· Have your secretary screen visitors, and provide enough guidance so that the secretary can make good judgements about who should gain access and who should be put off.

· Make yourself inaccessible during particular times of the week by closing your door or working in a more private location.

· Prepare polite excuses to discourage or shorten visits (such as, «I have to leave for a meeting,» «I am expecting an important call,» «I am in the middle of something that I have to finish right away, can I meet with you later?").

· Set up regular meetings each week with members of your work unit and encourage them to use these meetings for pre­senting appropriate problems, questions, and requests.

· Hold open office periods each week when you are available without an appointment for anybody who needs to see you for a few minutes.

· Clarify role expectations by setting specific goals and dead­lines, giving clear instructions, and reaching agreement on action plans. Develop standard responses for types of crises and dis­turbances that can be handled directly by subordinates, making it unnecessary for them to ask you for instructions.

· Use non-verbal cues to signal that you are busy (for example, don’t give eye contact to people who pass by or peer into your office; rema& standing when an unannounced visitor comes to your door;, hold the telephone in your hand as someone comes in, which ;*hows you are about to make a call; look frequently at your watch to show that a meeting is running too long).

· Meet with people in their offices instead of yours.

These remedies are usually successful in reducing the number of announced visitors and keeping visits brief. However, these remedies should be used carefully and in a way that does not make you inaccessible to people who need to see you and with whom you need to maintain good relations.

TELEPHONE INTERRUPTIONS

The telephone is an important medium for communication by managers, and, in comparison to visiting someone or writing a memo, it can save time. However, telephones can become a major form of interruption if not controlled carefully.

Reasons for problems with telephone interruptions are prob­ably similar to the reasons for problems with drop-in visitors. Some managers are afraid of offending people or being unavailable.

It is much easier to deal with telephone interruptions than with unannounced visitors. Again, remedies involve a combina­tion of better screening, better communication of role expecta­tions and technical information, and increased alternatives for meeting with you.

· If you receive many calls that are not essential, have your secretary screen all of your calls. Provide enough guidance so that the secretary can make good judgements about who should gain access and who should be put off. For example, give the secretary a list of people who should be put through immediately. Have the secretary politely inquire about the identity of other callers and the nature of their business with you. If the secretary is in doubt about the relevance of a call, he or she should ask you before putting it through.

· Even if most calls you receive are important, you will want to. ask your secretary to take your calls during special meetings or work sessions when you don't want to be interrupted except for an emergency or special person. If no secretary is available to take calls at these times, use an answering machine.

· Delegate responsibility for answering particular types of inquiries to your secretary or a subordinate to whom the call can be switched.

· If it is common to receive misdirected calls, keep handy a list of names and telephone numbers of the appropriate people who can provide information to a caller or deal with the caller’s problem.

· Set aside some time periods each week when people know they can call you and get through.

Prepare polite excuses to shorten calls (such as, «I can only talk for a minute now,» «I have to leave for a meeting,» «I am in the middle of a meeting, can I call you back later?»).

· Clarify role expectations by setting specific goals and dead­lines, giving clear instructions, and reaching agreement on action plans. Develop standard responses for types of crises and distur­bances that can be handled directly by subordinates, making it unnecessary for them to ask you for instructions.

· Have materials and information ready for calls that you expect to receive, so you are prepared for them and do not need to waste time or call back. Being prepared also shortens calls that you initiate.

CLUTTERED OFFICE

Clutter and disorganization in the office waste time. Things become lost, and time is lost searching for them. Items of paperwork are handled several times when they need to be handled only once. There are a number of causes of clutter and disorganization. Some people are afraid of losing or forgetting things, so they leave them on the desk where they can be seen. Some people leave things out because they don’t want to look as if they are not busy. Sometimes clutter is the result of excessive paperwork; the sheer volume of paperwork that must be dealt with creates backlogs. Sometimes paperwork piles up because of indecisiveness; the person puts aside items of paperwork that could be dealt with immediately. Finally, some people are just habitually very messy and disorganized.

Remedies involve a variety of approaches, including better organization of files, decision rules for handling paperwork ef­ficiently, efforts to reduce the amount of necessary paperwork, and better screening of paperwork by others.

· Set priorities on incoming correspondence and paperwork before you begin to deal with any items; correspondence can be sorted into general categories on a daily basis (first class mail and important internal memos that should be looked at today; miscellaneous memos and reports that should be filed or put aside until more time is available; junk mail and correspondence that should be discarded or redirected to others).

· If the flow of correspondence to you is excessive, and you have a very capable secretary or assistant, have the person screen and sort your correspondence for you.

· Try to handle items only once whenever possible; develop a set of decision rules to facilitate decisions about how to handle recurrent types of correspondence.

· Delegate responsibility for handling routine types of corre­spondence to your secretary and/or to subordinates.

· Set up an efficient file system with categories that are easy to remember and files that are easy to find.

· Periodically discard old records and files that are no longer relevant, or store them elsewhere.

· Reduce the amount of required reports and memos from subordinates, clients, and others, or set limits on how long these should be.

· Whenever appropriate, respond to memos or letters when you receive them by writing a short answer on the original document, rather than ever, it is important to understand that time management does not mean doing everything faster and better, which would only increase stress and fatigue. Time management means doing fewer things but doing them well.

UNNECESSARY TASKS

Much time is wasted by some managers on tasks that are not important or that could be done as well by someone else. There are a number of reasons why some managers become overloaded with unnecessary tasks. One reason is the lack of clear objectives and priorities. As noted earlier, it is difficult to determine what tasks are important without a clear understanding of what you want to accomplish. Another reason is failure to delegate some of the work to subordinates. A third reason for being overloaded with unessential tasks is inability to say no to requests. Some people are afraid of offending subordinates, peers, or the boss, and they lack the self-confidence and assertiveness to turn down requests. If the task is done well, the person who requested it is encouraged to ask for even more favors.

Possible remedies for this problem are directed at the causes:

Prepare tactful ways to say no and use them. For example, say that you are very busy and would not be able to do a task until a time that you know is too late to be of any use to the person who requested it. Suggest other people who could do the task faster or better. Say that you could only do the task if the person does some of your work for you. Point out that an important task will be delayed or jeopardized if you do what the person requests. In the case of a request by your boss, you can ask the boss to decide which task is more important to him or her.

Identify unessential tasks that can be eliminated. If necessary, get them removed from your list of required duties and respon­sibilities. To persuade your boss, show how resources will be saved or other benefits attained.

Whenever feasible, delegate less important tasks to subordi­nates and your secretary.

Put off any unessential tasks that cannot be delegated or eliminated, and do them in slack times, at times when you are too tired to do something important, or at odd times when you are waiting for someone.

Procrastinate on routine but unnecessary tasks done for others such as peers. Sometimes when these things are not done, people will discover that they do not need them and stop asking for them.

Use political power to get unessential tasks transferred to someone else or to another unit in the organization.

UNNECESSARY OR OVER-LONG MEETINGS

Meetings are an unavoidable part of the managerial job, but many of them waste time because they are unnecessary or take too long. Unproductive meetings occur due to a variety of causes, including lack of clear purpose, absence of key people, late participants, unprepared participants, unnecessary socializing, deviations from the agenda, interruptions, and lack of skilled leadership. Some possible remedies are the following:

Determine who needs to be present for the meeting to be successful. Invite relevant people, but keep the group as small as possible.

· Prepare a clear agenda and distribute it in advance of the meeting.

· Inform people about what they need to do to prepare for a meeting, and make sure they receive any necessary information.

· Save time in meetings by assigning some preliminary tasks to be done by individuals outside of the meetings, such as preparing reports, analyses, and proposals, or gathering materials.

· Let people know that meetings will start on time, and be consistent about doing so. Set a good example by arriving at the meeting site on time.

· Arrange to hold meetings in a quiet location with adequate space and ventilation, and take steps to prevent unnecessary interruptions.

· Before ending a meeting, decide if and when a followup meeting should be scheduled. Assign clear responsibility to in­dividuals for implementing decisions and/or making preparations for the next meeting.

· Prepare and distribute a summary after the meeting of what was discussed and decided, who was assigned which responsibil­ities, and the date, time, and location of the next scheduled meeting.

· Other Causes of Poor Time Management

· Time management is improved by dealing with common time wasters, but poor time management usually involves other deficiencies as well, such as inadequate planning, procrastination, and perfectionism. Ways to improve planning and avoid procras­tination will be discussed next.

PLANNING DAILY ACTIVITIES

It was noted earlier effective time management requires clear objectives, strategies, and priorities, which are determined through a process of long-term planning. Equally important are short-term plans to identify the action steps necessary to implement strategies and accomplish objectives. Formal time management systems focus on short-term planning, and they usually include weekly and daily planning forms for managers to schedule their appointments, meetings, and activities.

When planning daily activities, the first step is to make a «to-do list» for the day and assign priorities to each activity. Managers are instructed to use the prioritized activity list together with their calendar of required meetings and predetermined appointments to plan their day. If there is insufficient time to do urgent activities with immediate deadlines, the manager should attempt to reschedule some activities that are less important, such as routine meetings. The task of juggling the various activities and deciding which to do is a difficult but essential component of managerial work.

Planning one's daily activities does not imply that a manager determines exactly what to do each minute of the day. Except for a few blocks of time set aside for longer cognitive tasks that require concentration (such as writing a report or preparing a budget or work schedule), most managerial work win involve interaction with other people. Sometimes structured interactions, such as pre-planned meetings or appointments with the key people, will be necessary. Related activities involving the same people can be grouped together. For example, a manager may meet with a subordinate to handle one item, then call in another subordinate or a peer to deal with another matter that involves all three people. Other activities on the manager's list or «mental agenda» can be attended to as opportunities arise. For example, a chance encounter with a peer may provide the opportunity to inquire about something the person is doing for you.

The planning of daily activities should take into account natural energy cycles and bio-rythms. Peak alertness and efficien­cy occur at different times of the day for different people. Some people function best in the morning, whereas others function best in the afternoon or are «night people.» Peak periods should be used for difficult tasks and ones that require creativity. Simple, boring tasks should be scheduled for times of low mental and physical energy. Unimportant tasks, even if difficult, can be scheduled for times when a person is likely to be tired or at a low point in the energy cycle.

Unit VI

Date: 2014-12-21; view: 3067