Of course, the best way to determine where your time is going is to record what’s happening each day. If you find some of these problems are affecting your day-to-day management of your time, think of what could be done to overcome them. Here are some suggestions:

* Work Piling Up – You need to set priorities, and determine the difference between urgent and important. How many times have you gone home from work and realised you’ve been really busy, but not actually accomplished very much? That shows you’ve been working on the urgent at the expense of the important. Set yourself realistic deadlines and see if you can keep to them. And delegate more often!

* Trying to do too much – As stated before, you must set priorities. If it’s impossible to get everything done, ask which deadlines could be changed. Learn to say no, because if you take on more work, everything else will suffer, especially your stress levels.

* Procrastination – Break tasks down into manageable chunks. Approach it from a different angle. If the task will take 3 hours, do 20 minutes now, 30 minutes later, and so on. You need to control it, rather than it controlling you.

* People interrupting you – Make appointments and ask people to stick to them. If people just drop in, tell them you will get back to them when you can give them 100% attention.

* Phone calls interrupting you – Tell them you will call them back. Use voicemail, if practical. Batch phone calls you need to make all together, so you control the timings.

* Too many emails – Divide them into ‘act now, act later’. Have a special file to put the mails you will be dealing with later. Don’t let you inbox pile up, and try not to use it as your ‘pending’ file. Things will drop out of your view and you will forget them. Create rules for emails coming in. Try not to keep your email server open all the time; emails will rule your time. Devote specific times of the day that you control to deal with emails.

* Too many meetings – Ah, the bugbear of many managers! Review all the meetings you attend and eliminate any that are unnecessary. Set limits to the time meetings take and stick to them. Have an agenda and stick to it. Be prepared for each meeting and identify how you can add value to them.

Naturally, there are many other time management situations you will have to deal with, but if you have the correct mindset to how you view time, you will concentrate on the solutions rather than the problems lack of time causes you.

Thanks again

Nick

Nick Hill

Training Director

MTD Management Training Course

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It breaks our momentum and mental focus. It causes us frustration. And it tests our resolve when it comes to sticking to something more important.

Here are some solutions to this never-ending concern that you face every day.

Interruptions from others:

• Explain you’re busy and set a time to meet later
• Accept the interruption and state the time you have available now. At the end of that time period, tell them you really do have to get on
• Don’t have chairs right next to your desk. If you have room, put two or three chairs in another area of your office. This means people can’t just drop in. They have to interrupt your flow and get you to move away physically form your desk. If it really isn’t that important now, people will wait until it is convenient for you
• Set open and closed-door times, and make them known
• Meet in someone else’s office, so you can control your exit time
• If it’s really important for you to work without interruptions, consider working from home, a conference room or a spare office where it’s obvious you are there for a specific purpose and can’t be interrupted.

Email or instant messaging:

• Don’t keep compulsively checking email. Turn off the audio signal that tells you an email has come through. Allocate times in the day where you deal with email, timed so YOU control it.
• Go offline if you have to. If you’re uninterruptable, prove it.

Information Requests:

• Give people who work for you enough authority and information to deal with these matters for you. Don’t be a hoarder of information so that people have to come to you and only you
• Let your team know you are incommunicado for a time period
• If you make promises, keep them. Then people won’t have to chase you up when you don’t want them to

Phone:

• If you’re in the middle of something, don’t take unscheduled calls. Have set times when people can reach you
• Make a list of calls you are going to make and bunch them together, so you control the time it takes
• Call people at lunch time or before closing time, so conversations are short and to the point
• Ask people who call you what specifically you can do for them, and say ‘I only have ten minutes. Can we get this done in that time?’
• Leave your phone off in the evenings. Interruptions while you’re away from work should be seen as interfering with the rest of your life with people who deserve better. If it’s that important, they will leave a message and you can get back to them when you are free. That way, you control your time

Interruptions are a natural part of your working day, but using these ideas should minimise the effects and help build your productivity.

Thanks again

Sean

What we really mean is that we are switching between tasks. When we do that, none of the tasks gets our full attention. In the Journal of Experimental Attention (August 2001), research has shown that multi-tasking actually reduced productivity.

Switching takes time, even if we aren’t aware of what our minds need to do. It was interesting that when experiments were done with people who were carrying out multiple tasks, it was found that performance was detrimentally affected. When people in their twenties were talking on their mobile phones, they had reactions of 70-year-olds. And they were using hands-free phones! In fact, the studies showed their reactions were worse than drunk drivers who exceeded the drink limit by one-and-a-half times! (Human Factors, Winter 2005)

If your job entails you doing lots of different things, concentrate fully on each one as it comes up. This technique is known as ‘spotlighting’. Give whatever you are doing 100% attention, even if it’s for a brief time.

If you remember something you need to get done while you are doing something else, make a note of it, and come back to it later.

Think results, not activity. Focusing on the outcome you want means saying ‘I’ll finish two sections of this report by lunch’ rather than ‘I’ll work on this report for a while’.

Giving yourself deadlines also encourages you to stay focused.Having too much time to accomplish something means you may become wavering and demotivated to complete it.

Make plans but don’t try to make everything perfect. If something isn’t working, try something else. As the Chinese proverb goes “No matter how far down the wrong road you have gone, stop!”

Doing one thing at a time is a good starting point to cut down on stress. Focus and see what happens to your productivity.

So, how good are your multi-tasking skills? That might not be the right question. Instead, ask ‘What should I do to be the most productive?’ Focusing on one task at a time may well be the answer.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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The truth is that anyone can be a great time manager, if we choose to go from potential to performance.

So, how do we do this? Here is a simple process we can follow that will allow us to see performance building quickly and effectively:

• Determine exactly where our time is going at the moment. Too many managers confuse busy with effective. If we continually work on the urgent, we won’t have time for the important. Make time to identify where your time goes every day, as this awareness will help you see what is really happening

• Determine what your values are – what do you view as important and what do you want to accomplish? You simply cannot do everything that’s expected of you, so you have to apply the four levels of productivity: With a task, either decide to Do it now, Delegate it, Delay it or Dump it. There really isn’t much else you can do with it.

• Set time priorities that will move you toward living out your values. Now’s the time to plan and prioritise. If you are continually taken away from your plan, become aware of how this is happening. Are you saying ‘yes’ too often? Is the important at the mercy of the urgent? Are you shunning importnat stuff because urgency is getting a grip on you? You simply can’t afford to let your values slip by because of poor prioritisation.

• Develop a system of scheduling that works best for you; don’t be led by a time management guru. There are many ideas out there on how to manage your time. Find a system that works for you, personally. Don’t try to fit in with things that cause more work for you. A system should help you, not add pressure and take more time than it’s worth.

• Stick to your schedule. If you find yourself changing things continuously, the environment might be too blame. See if you are working efficiently and effectively.

These simple steps, if you apply them, will take you from having the potential to be a good time manager to true time management performance. Will you be able to make it work and get the results? Only time will tell!

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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One of the most important areas in a manager’s life that often gets neglected because of the urgent items getting priority is that of strategic thinking. You may feel that you don’t have time to devote to something that is a nice to do rather than a need to do.

The challenge is that if you don’t proactively deal with thinking things through strategically, you will find your vision deminishes and your direction starts to waver. So how do you find time to put strategy at the top of your list? Here are some ideas:

1.Decide what you actually want to think about. When you’re on the way to work, or at your weekend, decide which areas of your job or projects are the most important. Choose an item that is most important to you.

2.Decide on the materials you’ll need to work with. If you’ve got several (hundred) emails to get through, plan your time in the day when they will be covered, then determine that the materials you’ll need for your strategic thinking time.

3.Plan your time. You have to be proactive. Close the door if you can. Plan a day at home if you can. Go to an empty conference room. Turn your phone off. Be unavailable to everyone, except in emergencies. You need this time to yourself, even if it’s just 15 minutes.

4.Be very specific with what you want to achieve. Specificity is the key to results in this area. If you allow your mind to wander, you will not get the results you potentially could achieve. Concentrate for as much time as you can without wavering. You need to get results and they can’t be achieved without full concentration.

5.Plan to do this regularly. If possible, 15-20 minutes a day. You’ll find that if you do this regularly, it will become a habit that you look forward to and won’t be a chore. If you can’t manage every day, plan for 30 minutes, 3 days a week. The point is regularity and specificity. Without this, it will become hard work, you won’t look forward to it, and you’ll find excuses to miss it.

Strategic thinking should become a necessary part of your working week. Plan to achieve these goals and you’ll reap the rewards big time.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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So, one of the best qualities you can develop as a manager is the ability to make the best possible choices with the time you have available.

Our studies of great managers has revealed a list of techniques they use when deciding how to get the best out of their time. Here are just five:

1) They carry out ‘audits’ of their time to ensure they are spending the right amount on priorities. They decide what their broad goals are, based on their manager’s expectations. They know what barriers and obstacles come up regularly to stop them achieving those goals. And they recognise what tasks will get them the best results in the long-term as well as short-term

2) They initiate action and facilitate action in others. They work within the ‘important’ framework every day, and are not driven by the ‘urgent’ at the expense of the ‘important’. Their to-do lists are manageable, they dump things that are unnecessary, and concentrate on delegating those things that will develop others’ skills, as well as freeling up time to do things only they can do.

3) They work to the 80/20 principle. Managers who master their time recognise that, of all the tasks they need to complete, only 20% are criticakl to the success of the business. They make sure these items get top priority.

4) They use 5 or 10 minute ‘blocks’ of time to get things done. Imagine you have a meeting in ten minute’s time. How would you spend those minutes? What you do in that time could make the meeting valuable or a distraction. Rather than thinking there’s too little time before the meeting to get anything done, time-masters recognise that these ‘blocks’ of time add up during the day and offer great opportunities for ticking off small items on their to-do lists. If you think that you might have four or five of these ‘blocks’ of time during the day, you could get nearly an hour’s work done, when others are just letting that time slip through their fingers.

5) Great time managers really plan effectively. They actually make plans to plan. Either just before they leave for the day, or at the beginning of each day, they plan the best way to spend their time. They have weekly plans that give them a good overview of what they need to accomplish in that period and they have long-term (montly, quarterly, annual) plans that help them think strategically, instead of being side tracked by the ‘urgency’ of tasks.

I suggest you analyse your time-wasters and time-stealers, and see if some of these tips can help you achieve great results as you master time.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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1. Plan an hour per day for time for yourself. That still gives 23 hours to everything and everyone else. During this hour, add a new dimension to your life that is not there because you haven’t felt you have the time for it. Learn a hobby or foreign language, develop computer skills, start a business, spend time on health development, etc. By taking one hour per day of focused study, any of us can become a world-class expert in a topic of our choice. How would your future look if you became an expert in the subject of your choice?

2. Establish a regular reading program. It can be just 15 minutes a day. Even with that small investment, the average person will read 15 books in a year. Also, consider taking a speed-reading course. All leaders are readers, so get a reading habit going, and listen to CDs or MP3s on your commute.

3. Complete a ‘Will-do’ list from your ‘To-Do’ list. What this means is you create a definite list of items you absolutely, positively will do today. Don’t fill your day with ‘will-do’s'; make sure you leave some time for items that are out of your control. You can then fill quiet time with items of your choice, having prioritised your ‘to-do’ list.

4. Have the right mental attitude. When you are in a negative mood, you tend to repel the positive people who don’t want to be strained and drained and brought down by your negativity. And when you are in a negative mood, you naturally attract other negative people who want to share their stories of misery. Positive people bring us up. Negative people bring us down. You can decide and choose which one you will be. Time reflected on is better when you choose the positive option.

So take time to consider how you can be proactive with your most precious asset…your time.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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But when we see surveys of how these managers actually use their time, we often find that the biggest culprit is the allowing of interruptions to fill their otherwise important time schedule.

Do you find this to be the case? Are you often interrupted by things or people that take you off track, and then find it difficult to get back on track again?

Here are some ideas that might help if you find yourself in this position:

* Allocate specific time to specific jobs and say that you are going to do this job excellently. It will keep you focused and concentrated. If an interruption occurs (the phone rings, a person knocks on your door or approaches your desk), spend a few seconds finishing off your key point, then give full attention to the phone call or person. If you find that the interruption is not as important as what your were concentrating on before, say that you will call back in xx minutes, or you will see the person in xx minutes, and go back to the specific thing that was more important.

When you have finished the important item, you can them proactively make that call or speak to that person on your terms.

* If part of your job involves frequent consultations with your colleagues, schedule a specific time on your calendar or in Outlook for those meetings. Then let it be known that you’re always available, say, from 11:00 to 12:30, or 3:30 to 4:30 in the afternoon. An open-door policy then becomes a time-saver instead of a time waster.

* When someone comes into your office uninvited, stand up to talk. If you let your visitor arrange himself comfortably in a chair, you’re in for a long interruption. If you control the length of the interruption, you can get back to your more important things more quickly.

* If your visitor has something really important to talk about, ask him to give you a few minutes to complete what you’re doing, and then go to his office. That way you can control the length of the conversation.

* Check if you can schedule quick, short meetings with team members instead of enduring ad-hoc interruptions. That way, you maintain control.

* Schedule specific times when you will devote complete concentrated effort in dealing with emails. If, like me, you receive hundreds of emails a day, that will assist you in getting rid of meaningless interruptions during your busy day.

Remember, the interrupter will not know they are causing you problems. It is up to you to gain that time back so you can control the nature of your work. It’s impossible to manage or control time, as it does what it wants to do. But you can manage yourself and the tasks you have to accomplish. Be aware of how much time interruptions take in your day and see if you can at least reduce the time they waste for you.

That way, you start to maintain control and become less stressed.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

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Simons looked at the evidence that demonstrates multitasking is not all it’s cracked up to be. He quotes that every productivity study in every industry published in the last 100 years has come to the same conclusion: after about 40 hours of work in a week, the quality of your work starts to go down. You start making mistakes.

That’s why working 60 hours may not save you time or money: you’ll spend too much of that time fixing the mistakes you shouldn’t have made in the first place. That may be the reason why software companies that limit work to 35 hours a week need to employ fewer QA engineers: there isn’t as much mess to clean up.

In today’s economy, where management thinking and creativity are seen as the main differentiators in business, brains are assets. They need to be looked after. Managers need to take the evidence seriously that too much work doesn’t make us all productive; it actually causes undue stress and downtime.

Problems are best dealt with when we spend some time away from them and let our brains simmer before solving them. Also, the only thing that happens when people are asked to work in ways that interfere with other parts of their lives is burnout.

As I mentioned in the blog on multi-tasking, it doesn’t make us more productive. Simons mentioned that checking emails while in a meeting does not enhance our efficiency. He was asked whether there was anything we could do to enlarge the capacity of our minds. The answer was simple; “no.” There are hard limits to what our brains will do. Practice, Simons says, will improve specific skills but not general abilities. Carrying out crossword puzzles will enable you to be better at crossword puzzles; it won’t improve your IQ.

Is there anything that managers can do that can help themselves? Yes, says Simons: exercise. His colleague Arthur Kramer showed that walking for a few hours a week led to large improvements on cognitive tasks. Stretching and toning exercises had no cognitive benefits, but aerobic exercise, which increases blood flow to the brain, did.

Older managers who walked for just 45 minutes a day for three days a week showed better preservation of their brains in MRI scans, says Kramer. Exercise, Simons concludes, improves cognition broadly by increasing the fitness of your brain.

That’s an interesting thought for this week. If you want to improve your emotional intelligence or feel better at doing your job, maybe take that 45 minute break at lunch time and actually do some walking or more strenuous exercise.

Build it up during the next few months and see what effect it has. And if you want to get the best out of your team, remember that overwork will not add much benefit to the company. In fact, it will just cause more problems. So avoid burnout at work; your team members are your greatest asset!

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

Remember, procrastination is an end result, so you might want to diagnose what’s causing it first, before you dive into these tips and techniques:

Break any projects you’re working on down into more manageable chunks

Time management guru Alan Lakein suggests using the Swiss cheese method. By knocking holes into projects (doing small tasks associated with it) you don’t see it as a massive mountain, just small journeys to the next base camp.

Aim for a short period of interrupted, quality time that you can devote to the task. Even 20 minutes of focused effort can break the back of many big tasks. At the end of this time, make sure you give yourself a quick reward…a cup of coffee, a walk in the fresh air, a piece of fruit…anything that tells the brain it gets rewarded for completing that bit of the task. It then looks forward to the next 20 minute slot!

Remember your own needs…plan for and carry out some recreation time…but only when you have kept your promise of doing what you said you would with the task.

Use appropriate self-talk to keep momentum going. Words like ‘I choose to’ and ‘I want to’ are better than ‘I must’ or ‘I should’.

Don’t aim for perfection. Excellence is usually good enough for 99% of your stakeholders.

Reward those small wins and share successes with others.

Remember, procrastination is just a matter of thought processes. By concentrating on the benefits of finishing the task instead of the pain of doing it, you should soon see a change in your motivation to overcome procrastination.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”