Let's be clear from the start - good time management is not about being able to work faster, harder or more efficiently. In fact, it is just the opposite. The best time managers find that they operate in calmer environments, they have more free time and they often do NOT finish their 'to-do' lists. Here are three powerful techniques used by the best time managers ...
1) FOCUS ON RESULTS: Instead of being obsessed with getting your 'to-do' list finished - become focused instead on getting better results. The Pareto Principle suggests that about 20% of what we do will deliver around 80% of the key results we need, This means of course that the other 80% of what we do (or so) is relatively worthless! Ever lost the will to live in a meeting? Ever wondered what happens to the report you've slaved over (did anything actually change as a result)? When these things happen, you are probably involved in an activity that is not delivering value against your job purpose. The trick of good time management is to recognise which activities deliver real value - and which do not. Effective time managers can tell the difference - and ruthlessly avoid work that does not deliver. They work hard, but avoid all unnecessary work.
2) TAKE A BREAK: One
implication of the Pareto Principle is that you should never take work home or
work beyond the normal close of your regular office hours. You should never
work in the evening or at weekends. ‘Impossible!’ you cry. ‘If I didn’t put in
all of these extra hours, I’d never be able to cope’. And of course it does
seem that way. However, the Pareto Principle is quite clear on this. You will
do your best work in the 20% or so of your time when you are fresh, alert, and
focused. For the rest of the day, you will get a diminishing scale of returns
as you become more tired. Trying to finish work over the weekend simply means
that you will be less effective on Monday morning, because you have not spent
the time relaxing, recharging and refreshing yourself. Taking work home in the
evening simply means that you will be tired tomorrow. And that means you’ll be
less effective, make more mistakes and work more slowly. So you’ll end up
taking work home again. And so on
and so forth. To break this cycle, simply stop. By using your spare time to
recover from the challenges of a busy life; by recharging your batteries
properly, you will find that you get more from your day. This simple reality,
combined with the other techniques in this book designed to make you more
effective will mean that burning the midnight oil becomes a thing of the past.
Use your time to work on your goals and personal projects and
your employer will see a marked improvement in the thing they pay you to
produce - quality.
3) TAKE ACTION: If
you are twenty years old tomorrow, you may look forward, all things being
equal, to another sixty years of life. So there’s loads of time to achieve
everything you want, right? Hang on.
Sixty years sounds like an age. But ask any thirty year old how quick
the ten years pass between twenty and thirty and they are likely to answer -
‘in a twinkling’. Ask a forty year old and they will tell you that time
accelerates as you get older (Einstein missed that one). And anyway, it’s not
actually sixty years you’ve got left. You can take off 33% of that for
sleeping; about another 10% each for watching the telly and eating and 5% for
grooming, sitting on the loo and bathing. I’m not even going to begin to
calculate how much time you will waste waiting for colleagues to turn up late
for meetings, trains to arrive and your children to tidy up after themselves.
Actually I do know the answer to the last one - it’s forever. The future is
travelling towards you at 3,600 second per hour. There’s less time left than
you think! So stop thinking about
it! Do it!
Here are just a few ways to avoid procrastination.
BANJO
Technique: This acronym stands for Bang A Nasty Job Off. The idea is that when you
arrive at work with an unpleasant task hanging over your head, you have a
simple choice. Let it lie and get on with other stuff - in which case it will
gnaw at the back of your mind. Or do it first. In which case you get it done,
out of the way and you get to feel the relief that this brings. If you use the
BANJO method, even the most unpleasant days just get better and better as they
go on.
Cold Plunge: A whole range
of work challenges, from difficult conversations with colleagues to the
production of the annual report are sometimes best tackled just by diving in.
Putting it off while still worrying about it can simply serve to blow the whole
thing out of proportion.
Anticipation of the unpleasantness can be far worse than the real thing.
So dive right in - more times than not you’ll find it’s not as bad as you
think.
Avoid deactivation
words and phrases: These are words and phrases which allow you to put off
taking action, and include ‘tomorrow’, ‘later’, ‘next week’, ‘when I’m ready’,
‘some other time’. More often than not they really mean ‘never’. If it really
needs doing, do it now!
Take action: We can plan,
think, ponder, reflect and learn until the cows come home - but unless it is
followed up with action, nothing will change. This ability to take daily
action, and to persevere is recognised as an important attribute in the search
for success by even the most brilliant minds. Thomas Edison undertook more than
50,000 experiments to perfect the storage cell battery. He is reputed to have
argued that none of the failed experiments were really failures, because each
one brought him a step closer to finding the correct solution!
Get the habit:
Taking action is a habit. It is a frame of mind. The more actions you
take, the more likely you are to take successful action. Get into the habit
now. Think about something you plan to do but haven’t done yet. Put down this article,
and take that action, now!
In summary – focus on results not activities; look after yourself and
keep your batteries charged; and get stuck in! Remember the words of Will Rogers: ‘Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just
sit there.’
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