Time is a precious, nonrenewable resource. That's why you should
value every moment, hour and day that you have. And just as a
well-run business should carefully develop a strategy for
spending money, an effective business person should carefully
develop a plan for spending time.
To help you use your time as effectively as possible, here are
some time management strategies you can implement to enhance your
efficiency and productivity:
Develop A Time Strategy
The first step in effective time management is not to develop a
schedule, but instead to develop a time strategy. The time
strategy should be based on a short list of time priorities.
Start by identifying the No. 1 way you can most increase profits
by use of your time. Then move onto the No 2 way, the No. 3 way,
etc. This short list of time priorities forms the foundation for
your time planning for every week of the year.
Next, you should focus your efforts. Focus is crucial for
effective time management. And the fewer priorities you focus on
at once, the more productive you will be.
Once you've established your major time priorities for the year,
you should allocate them by week or by month. Like it or not, a
lot of our time each week is going to be eaten up by nonstrategic
items that we have no control over.
Therefore, it is important to limit the number of strategic time
goals we have for each week. So even if you have 10 strategic
time goals for the year, you may want to focus on no more than
one or two of them in any given week.
Set Aside Uninterrupted Time
Every week you should make up a detailed time plan, which you
modify each day as needed. Except in times of crisis, try to make
sure day-to-day issues don't push your strategic time priorities
off your schedule.
Generally, your major strategic time priorities will involve
activities like planning, thinking, and developing ideas. More so
than day-to-day issues, these activities require big blocks of
uninterrupted time.
Constant interruptions can kill any hope of effective time
management. One way to avoid them is to make it clear that when
your door is closed you are not to be disturbed. Another is to
have regular meetings, such as every week, with the people that
you interact with the most and insist on saving non-pressing
issues for these meetings.
Avoid Time Traps
To get the most from your time, be careful to avoid these common
time traps:
* Spending more time in the offices where the most congenial
people are, as opposed to where the most important issues are.
* Wasting too much time getting daily updates on routine
activities, instead of waiting for a more meaningful weekly
summary.
* Jumping too eagerly into the routine, more straightforward
work and putting off the more complex and difficult work.
* Not starting the most important work first thing in the
morning.
* Failing to make up a schedule for each day.
* Scheduling each day so tightly that it is impossible to stay
on track.
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