Best Practices: Time Management

John Hoover

• Verlag: HarperCollins e-books
• Jahr: 2009
• ISBN:
  9780061738968
• Thema: Betriebswirtschaft
• Thema: Personalmanagement

There are only twenty-four hours in a day, but you can make them count. Time Management, a comprehensive and essential resource for any manager on the run, shows you how.

Learn to:

• Set and prioritize goals, objectives, and tasks
• Create an effective schedule
• Avoid distractions and interruptions
• Respect other people's time
• Build a time-conscious organization

The Collins Best Practices guides offer new and seasoned managers the essential information they need to achieve more, both personally and professionally. Designed to provide tried-and-true advice from the world's most influential business minds, they feature practical strategies and tips to help you get ahead.

PRIORITIZE YOUR TIME

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“Time is the scarcest resource of the manager; if it is not managed, nothing else can be managed.”

—Peter Drucker, management guru and author
(1909–2005)

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The 86,400 seconds in a day may sound like a lot, but they go fast. No matter how quickly time seems to fly by for you, even the most skilled time manager’s hours, minutes, and seconds tick by at exactly the same rate.

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Self-Assessment Quiz

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HOW DO YOU PERCEIVE TIME?

Read each of the following statements and indicate whether you agree, somewhat agree, or disagree. Then check your score and study the analysis at the end.

1. Most of the things I do all day at work are mechanical and not personally gratifying.
   • Agree
   • Somewhat agree
   • Disagree
2. Most of the things I do all day are important to my employer but not to me.
   • Agree
   • Somewhat agree
   • Disagree
3. Most of the things I do all day are routine, and my employer doesn’t really benefit from them either.
   • Agree
   • Somewhat agree
   • Disagree
4. At home, most of the things I do are routine and don’t really benefit me or anybody else.
   • Agree
   • Somewhat agree
   • Disagree
5. At home, most of the things I do are important to other people but not to me.
   • Agree
   • Somewhat agree
   • Disagree
6. At home, most of the things I do are mechanical and not personally gratifying.
   • Agree
   • Somewhat agree
   • Disagree
7. My priorities are set by others at work.
   • Agree
   • Somewhat agree
   • Disagree
8. My priorities are set by others at home.
   • Agree
   • Somewhat agree
   • Disagree
9. If I had the choice, I would use my professional time much differently.
   • Agree
   • Somewhat agree
   • Disagree
10. If I had the choice, I would use my personal time much differently.
    • Agree
    • Somewhat agree
    • Disagree

SCORING

Give yourself 3 points for every question you answered “Agree,” 2 points for every question you answered “Somewhat agree,” and 1 point for every question you answered “Disagree.”

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ANALYSIS

23–30	You see yourself as a victim who has been robbed of control over your time. You don’t feel empowered to set your own priorities or to determine how your time is used. As a result, much, if not most, of your time feels wasted.
17–22	You might be ambivalent about the demands on your time. You accept the fact that life is about compromise and have compromised yours out of necessity and apathy.
10–16	You have a healthy outlook on how to use time and keep your priorities straight. In your life, you maintain a healthy balance between work and play.

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Some people seem to get so much more done. It’s not because they have more time, however, it’s because of their skill at time management. Managing your time will positively affect your daily output, your career and financial goals, and, ultimately, your success.

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Behind the Numbers

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THE WASTED HOUR

A manager earning $75,000 per year who squanders just one hour a day due to lack of organization costs an employer some $9,000 per year. Using the same formula, here’s what other comparable time-wasters cost their companies:

Salary	Lost annual profit
$45,000	$5,625
$55,000	$6,874
$65,000	$8,125
$85,000	$10,625
$95,000	$11,875
$105,000	$13,125
$200,000	$25,000

If all of these managers worked for the same firm, they would drain $81,294 from the company’s bottom line each year.

SOURCE: The Organized Executive by Stephanie Winston (Warner Books, 2001).

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“Time is the substance of our lives,” writes Alexandra Stoddard in her book, Time Alive. She explains that we don’t create time in our lives but instead “create our lives in time.” But people too often feel that, in their personal and professional lives, time is running them. They feel they only have time for one life—personal or professional—but not both. The difference in giving your time more meaning or making it more productive is not found in trying to speed up or slow down your days. It is what you choose to do within the time frames that constrain us all that makes the difference. Are you taking advantage of the time that’s available to you?

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“One cannot even think of managing one’s time unless one first knows where it goes.”

—Peter Drucker

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Some people seem to have been born with a natural understanding of time management. Fortunately for the rest of us, it’s a skill that can be learned and developed. Leading organization expert and best-selling author Stephanie Winston claims that senior executives and CEOs seem to possess unique time management and organization skills that enable them to dramatically increase their productivity. Indeed, people who are good at managing their time have strong skills in several key areas. They have a clear vision of their big-picture goals at work and in life—long-term, yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals. They are skillful at breaking these goals down into smaller units, and they know how to translate these small units into action-oriented to-do lists filled with tasks. Finally, they understand that achieving long-and medium-range goals means crossing off every task they can on their to-do list, every day.

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The BIG Picture

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PRIORITIES IN GOAL SETTING

Michael Gerber, the best-selling business author, explains that professional priorities are an essential element of a successful business. He believes that managers should set appropriate goals and then specifically choose to spend time on productive tasks that will help achieve those goals.

His bottom line: Don’t waste time on things that don’t bring more life to your business.

SOURCE: The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. Gerber (Collins, 2005).

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Ultimately, how well you manage time boils down to your level of personal motivation. How willing are you to learn from the mistakes you’ve made about using time in the past? How willing are you to go after the things you know are important to do for the future? Most people know what needs to be done; they even know how to do it. They just don’t have their priorities straight at the moment they make decisions about how to spend their time. Being more efficient in the present will help you achieve the future of your dreams. First, however, you need to motivate yourself to change some of your thinking and your habits.

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POWER POINTS

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THE ELEMENTS OF GOAL MANAGEMENT

Managing your time is predicated on setting and accomplishing your goals. These are the three elements of goal management:

• Long-term goals– These are the purposes toward which you direct your efforts. Typically, long-term goals are completed in a year or more.
• Objectives– These are the steps needed to achieve a long-term goal. Objectives are typically completed in a month or more.
• Tasks– These are the series of daily and weekly actions required to meet your objectives.

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MANAGING TIME AND GOALS

In one sense, time management is about managing your goals. If you know what you want to achieve in the future, you can figure out how to use your time in order to get there. To help you get the right things done—that is, get where you want to go at work and in life—it’s important to line up your daily actions and your long-term goals. Thus, the first step is setting the right long-term goals and then making sure your objectives and daily actions support those goals.

Goals

A goal is a purpose toward which you direct your endeavors. For example, your goal could be to increase your company’s sales revenue by 15 percent. A soccer team’s goal might be to win the annual championship. Another goal might be to earn an MBA degree.

There’s an art to setting goals. The most effective goals are specific and measurable and should be motivating. If a goal is too vague—for example, the resolution to make your firm the “best company in the world”—you will not be able to monitor your progress toward that goal, or even know whether or not you have achieved it. Does the “best company in the world” mean “greater sales than any other” or “a greater return on sales than any other company”? Does it mean that your employee retention rate is the highest of the firms in your field? If the goal you articulate can’t be measured, take another stab at defining it.

An effective goal is also ambitious but not impossible to achieve. For instance, a goal of earning an MBA within 6 months is not realistic; getting the degree within 2 or 3 years is reasonable. Assigning a reasonable amount of time for the completion of your goals is essential. Only if you’ve established a clear and realistic deadline will you be able to determine how to best accomplish that goal. How you define a long-term goal is, to some degree, up to you: Is it a goal you want to achieve in 5 years, 1 year, 6 months, or 3 months?

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Dos & Don’ts

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KEEPING YOURSELF MOTIVATED

It’s important to keep your energy and motivation high when you’re trying to improve your time-management skills. To avoid losing momentum, consider the following:

• Do write down your goals and post them in a prominent spot where you’ll see them regularly.
• Do remember what you ultimately hope to achi...