Time Management

Definition: Time management is a set of principles, practices, skills, tools, and systems
that work together to help you get more value out of your time with the aim of
improving the quality of your life.

In arriving at a definition of time management, it is important to note that time

management is a broad subject that covers many different areas from your day-to-day
actions to your long term goals.

definition of time management is a set of skills which allow a person to be more

productive and efficient in completing tasks.

it is the art of budgeting one's time with the goal to achieve work effectiveness and
productivity. The combined system of processes and tools in time management involves a
variety of activities such as planning, organizing, scheduling, delegating, monitoring,
analyzing, and prioritizing.

The techniques of time management allow us to become well-organized in our schedules,

goal-oriented in our plans, and task-conscious in our work. Our complicated and busy
world demands us to maximize our time to its fullest potential so as to become successful
in our endeavors. Time management is then found to be very important for each of us.

It is not only useful for business leaders and corporations, but also significant to students,
teachers, workers, house managers, and other professionals. We can differentiate
primarily the type of time management when managing time of work in the office and of
responsibilities at home.

Being a widely broad concept,

Time management can be categorized into three related topics

Which are project management, attention management, and personal knowledge

management
Project management, sometimes coined with program management, entails planning,
organizing, and managing resources to achieve a particular goal for a project while
recognizing preconceived project constraints such as scope, time, and budget.

Attention management, on the other hand, involves tools that would support the
management of attention at the individual or a group in a short or long period of time.
This concept on time management greatly helps companies to solve problems in their
organization regarding information overload, multi-tasking, people cognitive limitations,
interruptions, and social interaction overload.
Personal knowledge management involves a collection of processes that are needed
in classifying, storing, searching, and retrieving knowledge in one's personal daily
activities. It combines the specific process of managing personal information as
integrated with the management of knowledge.

Time management involves discovery and application of the most efficient method(s) of
completing assignments of any length in the optimum time and with the highest quality.

Time management skills and techniques

time management skills are your abilities to recognize and solve personal time
management problems. The goal of these time management lessons is to show you what
you can do to improve those skills.

with good time management skills you are in control of your time and your life, of your
stress and energy levels.

You make progress at work.

You are able to maintain balance between your work, personal, and family lives.

You have enough flexibility to respond to surprises or new opportunities.

All time management skills are learnable. More than likely you will see much
improvement from simply becoming aware of the essence and causes of common
personal time management problems. With these time management lessons, you can see
better which time management techniques are most relevant for your situation.

Just get started with them. Many of your problems gradually disappear.

If you already know how you should be managing your time, but you still don't do it,
don't give up.

What you may be overlooking is the psychological side of your time management skills,
psychological obstacles hidden behind your personality.

Depending on your personal situation, such obstacles may be the primary reason why you
procrastinate, have difficulties saying no, delegating, or making time management
decisions.
The psychological component of your time management skills can also be dealt with. The
time management skills information below will point at a relevant solution for your
situation.

Eliminate procrastination

The essence of procrastination is very well reflected in this quote by Bernard Meltzer:
"Hard work is often the easy work you did not do at the proper time."

Are you affected?

Have you ever seen your most important tasks being put off until later and then later and
later, while you are getting busy with many not so important activities? Did you hope that
you may have more time and better mood in the future to start the task and do it properly?
Does an approaching deadline mean a crisis for you? Do you keep hesitating every time
you make a decision?

If you often see yourself in such low productivity situations, then there is a big chance
that your life got under control of the procrastination habit. And those situations are only
the most explicit symptoms.

What is it?
A basic definition of procrastination is putting off the things that you should be doing
now. This happens with all of us time after time.

Yet, what makes a big difference for your success is your ability to recognize
procrastination reasons and expressions in their different forms, and to promptly take
them under control, before this bad habit steals your opportunities, damages your career
and pride, or destroys your relationships. So why do not you do it now?

Causes of procrastination

What are typical reasons why you procrastinate? Here are a

few of the most common situations to consider in your anti
procrastination efforts.

It can be as simple as

• Waiting for the right mood

• Waiting for the right time

Then look at the way you organize your work. You may notice other reasons for
procrastination like

• Lack of clear goals

• Underestimating the difficulty of the tasks
 • Underestimating the time required to complete the tasks
• Unclear standards for the task outcomes
• Feeling as the tasks are imposed on you from outside
• Too ambiguous tasks

And there are also many connections with

• Underdeveloped decision making skills

• Fear of failure or fear of success
• Perfectionism

Decision making skills and techniques

We use our decision making skills to solve problems by selecting one course of action
from several possible alternatives. Decision making skills are also a key component of
time management skills.

Decision making can be hard. Almost any decision involves some conflicts or
dissatisfaction. The difficult part is to pick one solution where the positive outcome can
outweigh possible losses. Avoiding decisions often seems easier. Yet, making your own
decisions and accepting the consequences are the only way to stay in control of your
time, your success, and your life. If you want to learn more on how to make a decision,
here is some decision making tips to get you started.

A significant part of decision making skills is in knowing and practicing good decision
making techniques. One of the most practical decision making techniques can be
summarized in those simple decision making steps:

1. Identify the purpose of your decision. What is exactly the problem to be solved?
Why it should be solved?
2. Gather information. What factors does the problem involve?
3. Identify the principles to judge the alternatives. What standards and judgement
criteria should the solution meet?
4. Brainstorm and list different possible choices. Generate ideas for possible
solutions. See more on extending your options for your decisions on my
5. Evaluate each choice in terms of its consequences. Use your standards and
judgment criteria to determine the cons and pros of each alternative.
6. Determine the best alternative. This is much easier after you go through the
above preparation steps.
7. Put the decision into action. Transform your decision into specific plan of action
steps. Execute your plan.
8. Evaluate the outcome of your decision and action steps. What lessons can be
learnt? This is an important step for further development of your decision making
skills and judgment.
Final remark. In everyday life we often have to make decisions
fast, without enough time to systematically go through the
above action and thinking steps. In such situations the
most effective decision making strategy is to keep an eye
on your goals and then let your intuition suggest you the
right choice.

Prioritizing effectively

Prioritizing skills are your ability to see what tasks are more important at each moment
and give those tasks more of your attention, energy, and time. You focus on what is
important at the expense of lower value activities. Summarizes: "Prioritizing is the
answer to time management problems - not computers, efficiency experts, or matrix
scheduling.

You do not need to do work faster or to eliminate gaps in productivity to make better use
of your time. You need to spend more time on the right things..."

We all have many things to do, and we never have time

and energy to do them all.

We don't have time and resources to do them equally well

either.

Many things will be left undone, no matter how hard you

try.

Prioritizing is a way to solve that frustrating problem.

One key reason why prioritizing works, and works well, is the 80/20 Rule.

The 80/20 Rule states that 80 percent of our typical activities contribute less than 20
percent to the value of our work.

We all have many things to do, and we never have time

and energy to do them all. We don't have time and
resources to do them equally well either. Many things will
be left undone, no matter how hard you try. Prioritizing is a
way to solve that frustrating problem.
One key reason why prioritizing works, and works well, is the 80/20 Rule. The 80/20
Rule states that 80 percent of our typical activities contribute less than 20 percent to the
value of our work.

So, if you do only the most important 20 percent of your tasks you still get most of the
value. Then, if you focus most of your efforts on those top value activities, you achieve
much more than before, or you will have more time to spend with your family.

Prioritizing is about making choices of what to do and what not to do. To prioritize
effectively you need to be able to recognize what is important, as well as to see the
difference between urgent and important.

The important or high priority, tasks are the tasks that help us achieve our long-term
goals or can have other meaningful and significant long-term consequences.

At first glance, many of the tasks we face during a day seem equally urgent and
important. Yet, if you take a closer look, you will see that many of the urgent activities
we are involved are not really important in the long run. At the same time, things that are
most important for us, like improving ourselves and our skills, getting a better education,
spending time with family, often are not urgent.

With good prioritizing skills, you finish as soon as possible all the important urgent tasks,
the ones that would get you into a crisis or trouble otherwise. Then, you focus your
attention and try to give more and more time to those most important, but not urgent
tasks, the ones that are most rewarding in the long run.

Prioritizing principles can be applied to both planned and unplanned activities.

For planned activities, like the ones included in your to do list, you can mark each of your
tasks with "A", "B", or "C", depending on its importance. The "B" tasks should be done
only after you are finished with all the most important "A" tasks, the ones that just must
be done. If you have time after you are finished with the "B" tasks, you can move on to
the "C" ones.

When you set priorities in to do lists, also keep asking yourself if any of your tasks can be
eliminated or delegated.

When you prioritize unplanned activities, you often need to make quick decisions, and
you don't have time to analyze the situation in full. It is best just to keep in mind your
goals and rely on your instincts. Your effectiveness in such situations depends very much
on the clarity of your goals.

What is planning and why you need to plan

Planning is one of the most important project management and time management
techniques. Planning is preparing a sequence of action steps to achieve some specific
goal. If you do it effectively, you can reduce much the necessary time and effort of
achieving the goal.

A plan is like a map. When following a plan, you can always see how much you have
progressed towards your project goal and how far you are from your destination.
Knowing where you are is essential for making good decisions on where to go or what to
do next.

One more reason why you need planning is again the 80/20 Rule. It is well established
that for unstructured activities 80 percent of the effort give less than 20 percent of the
valuable outcome. You either spend much time on deciding what to do next, or you are
taking many unnecessary, unfocused, and inefficient steps.

Planning is also crucial for meeting your needs during each action step with your time,
money, or other resources. With careful planning you often can see if at some point you
are likely to face a problem. It is much easier to adjust your plan to avoid or smoothen a
coming crisis, rather than to deal with the crisis when it comes unexpected.

How to write an action plan

When writing an action plan to achieve a particular goal or outcome, you can get much
help from the following steps.

• Clarify your goal. Can you get a visual picture of the expected outcome? How
can you see if you have reached your destination? What does make your goal
measurable? What constraints do you have, like the limits on time, money, or
other resources.
• Write a list of actions. Write down all actions you may need to take to achieve
your goal. At this step focus on generating and writing as many different options
and ideas as possible. Take a sheet of paper and write more and more ideas, just
as they come to your mind. While you are doing this, try not to judge or analyze.
• Analyze, prioritize, and prune. Look at your list of actions. What are the
absolutely necessary and effective steps to achieve your goal? Mark them
somehow. After that, what action items can be dropped from in the plan without
significant consequences for the outcome. Cross them out.
• Organize your list into a plan. Decide on the order of your action steps. Start
from looking at your marked key actions. For each action, what other steps should
be completed before that action? Rearrange your actions and ideas into a sequence
of ordered action steps. Finally, look at your plan once again. Are there any ways
to simplify it even more?
• Monitor the execution of your plan and review the plan regularly. How much
have you progressed towards your goal by now? What new information you have
got? Use this information to further adjust and optimize your plan.
Effective delegation skill
Delegation skill is the ability to effectively assign task responsibility and
authority to others. Or, in other words, delegation skill is your ability to get things done
by using work and time of other people.

Effective delegation is a critical survival skill for managers and supervisors, and this is
what many delegation training resources are about. Yet, what is less often emphasized is
that understanding delegation skill and knowing how to use it right is an important
personal time management skill. No matter if you have subordinates or bosses, if it is at
work or at home.

Do you have to do everything yourself?

The delegation process normally starts from asking yourself if you are the right person to
do the task, and then who is the right person for this task. A common trap here is
thinking like "If you want anything done right, you have to do it yourself". Such thinking
is a sure way to stay overloaded with the same kind of work. It is a severe limit on how
far you can go and how much you can grow in your job, business, or personal life.

Who should do it then?

The first important component of the delegation skill is choosing the right person to
delegate the task to (delegatee).

You can use the following simple strategies. First, if you have subordinates, can any of
them do the task at lower cost than you? If you are concerned with that they do it worse
than you, can they do it at least 80 percent as good as you would, or could you train them
to do it so?

If the task requires making decisions you are not authorized to make, when it is very right
to delegate it to your boss.

Find a win-win deal

Outside the standard boss-subordinate situation, a key component of the delegation skill
is the ability to find a win-win deal, and still delegate the task to someone.

A common win-win situation is when delegating the task saves your time and gives a
valuable learning experience, skill training, or an interesting opportunity for the
delegatee.

One more situation is task or service exchange, when someone does a task for you in
exchange for that you do another task for her/him. Finally, it may be more effective just
to buy some particular service from outside, or delegate the task to technologies, for
example, to some special software.
You still have responsibilities
For your delegation skill to work, make sure that you will be able to monitor the progress
of task execution and know if the task is actually completed. When you delegate,
normally you are still responsible for that the task is completed. Avoid delegation
when you are unable to monitor the completion status.

Yet, delegate the whole task

What you live to the delegatee is the responsibility for how the task is executed, the
method of execution. When you do this, for the delegation to be effective it is important
that you delegate the whole task. You need to effectively and clearly communicate to
the delegatee what outcome is expected and what requirement are for the task results.

This is very important for the delegatee's motivation and

performance, as well as for your satisfaction with the task
results. Time log techniques

Time tracking with a time log is much more than a boring exercise in book keeping. If
you approach it right, it will become a very effective time management learning tool. A
few minutes of writing and analyzing your time and activity logs will eliminate many
hours of wasted time.

Embrace the reality of your personal time

Unless this has already happen to you before, your time log is more than likely to surprise
you. You will see how much time is wasted in many unexpected ways. Often it appears
that the busier you feel the more time is wasted.

Another important discovery is how much time things really take. One of the most
common problems in personal time management is underestimating the time needed
for each specific activity. First this is one of the reasons why planning and scheduling do
not seem work well for some people. If you always expect much more than you can fit in
your time, than writing plans and to do lists just gets you more stressed.

Get a realistic picture of your time and you will feel much more in control. In fact, you
will move much faster with less stress.

A personal digital assistant ( PDA ) allows you to efficiently access, organize, collect,
store, and process various kinds of information, and work with it on the run. It is small in
size, like a pocket calculator or a pocket address book. Being a hand-held electronic
device, it is designed to fit your palm as easily as your pocket. Unlike an ordinary
computer, it is always with you.

Yet, a handheld PDA is much smarter than most pocket electronic devices
and time management tools. It is a computer with a powerful processor and quite a large
chunk of memory, like 8-128 Mb. A PDA allows you to run any of thousands of various
kinds of software applications currently available for it.

You can easily communicate with a PDA via its oversized interactive screen area, its
special pen (the stylus) for touching that screen, and support of a few extra buttons at its
bottom. A PDA often can recognize your hand writing.

Basic functionality of a PDA is to store and retrieve phone numbers and addresses,
maintain a to do list and a calendar. It is also a memo pad for taking notes at meetings, as
well as for capturing ideas, observations, and personal comments.

There are two main features that put a hand-held PDA much above a basic personal
organizer. One is its ability to be connected and communicate with many other electronic
devices, like a PC or digital camera. The other is the extensive abilities of the pda
software. Together with the third, the "always with you" feature, all this combines into a
powerful and versatile personal assistant.

So, the first important point is that you can connect a PDA to other electronic devices,
though sometimes it may require additional PDA accessories. That allows you to work
with a larger variety of data, much beyond of what you can just type in into a basic
personal organizer. In particular, many PDAs can be connected to your PC for a data or
file exchange. You can add the information you've collected with a PDA to some central
database or to a report that you do on your PC. You can also get more information into
your PDA from your PC, for example, from internet downloads (e-books or newspaper
files) or other files. Another common situation is to get into your PDA images from your
digital camera.

It is also important that two PDAs can talk directly to each other via infrared signals
("beaming"), which allows an easy exchange of information, for example, exchange of
business cards, without typing anything in. This is particularly convenient when working
in a team. For example, if one of the team members has collected certain important data
and made updates for himself or herself, those updates can be distributed among all team
members via beaming. This is one of the reasons why many business owners buy PDAs
for their employees.

As for PDA software applications, they include word processing, spreadsheets, games,
money management, weight or fitness monitoring, electronic book reading programs,
street map PDA software, bible software, a Power Point presenter and many more.
Some for general users, some for more specialized professional groups, like car
salespeople, real estate agents, medical doctors, or lawyers. Some PDAs allow e-mail
and internet access, while on many others you can prepare e-mails on a PDA but send
them later, when you connect to your PC. Some of that software may already be installed
on your PDA when you by it. Often you need to buy or download it from the internet,
sometimes for free.
Note that, in combination, all those possibilities of exchanging information and keeping
electronic files and software on your PDA greatly reduce the amount of paper
(document and reference printouts, various notes) you need to shuffle and carry around.

What about security concerns? With a PDA you can do a regular backup of your PDA
held data onto your PC. So, security-wise, a PDA still beats paper systems.

Preparing and writing your time log

You don't need to keep writing a time log permanently. It is sufficient to do it for 3-7
days, and repeat this procedure time after time. Yet, when you write a time log, make
sure you don't miss any even minor activity. Don't let your time wasters to hide there. So
that not to waste much time on writing time tracking records, take a little preparation
step. Take a sheet of paper and divide it into columns named like

• Time
• Activities
• Scheduled
• Interrupted
• Urgent
• People (involved)

Then continue with activities you would normally do that day. On the way, update your
time log. Do it either every time you switch to new activity or at some short time
intervals, like 10-20 minutes. Add entries to your "Time" and "Activities" column, and
try to put marks like "Yes" or "No" in the "Scheduled", "Interrupted", and "Urgent"
columns. Where relevant, make short notes on what people you spend time with too.

What does your time log tell you?

When you have your time log written, you can move to the most important part, the
analysis. Review your records and try to get answers to the following questions.

• What percentage of your time is spent in each of different areas of your life? How
is it divided between Work, Business, Family, Recreational, Spiritual, Health?
• What percentage of your activities are important?
• Are urgent?
• What people you spend more time with?
• What percentage of your activities go as planned?
• What are main interruptions?

Then think of possible adjustments and action steps. For example:

• Are there any activities you can cut back on?
• Is there anything you can delegate or simplify?
• Can you save time by grouping related tasks, like shopping?