Successful Time Management

How to be Organized, Productive and Get Things Done

Patrick Forsyth

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780749486204
• Edition: 5
• Topic: Desarrollo personal
• Subtopic: Gestión del tiempo

Successful Time Management is packed with proven tips, tools and techniques to help you review and assess your time management and adopt new work practices to improve it. It includes great time-saving ideas, practical solutions and checklists, plus advice on: controlling paperwork, organizing your emails, delegating and working with others, prioritizing to focus on key issues, getting and staying organized.Fully updated for 2019, this 5th edition now features even more practical exercises, useful templates, and top tips to help you minimize time-wasting and interruptions, and focus on the priorities that will lead to success in your job and career. Successful Time Management will give you the tools to become more efficient and effective. The Creating Success series of books...
Unlock vital skills, power up your performance and get ahead with the bestselling Creating Success series. Written by experts for new and aspiring managers and leaders, this million-selling collection of accessible and empowering guides will get you up to speed in no time. Packed with clever thinking, smart advice and the kind of winning techniques that really get results, you'll make fast progress, quickly reach your goals and create lasting success in your career.

08

Working with other people

You will encounter people of all sorts in business. Some you will get on with, some you will not; some will help you, inform you or teach you; some will infuriate you; some you will work with, getting things done that would not happen otherwise. But, male or female, young or old, senior or junior – all will waste your time. Some will do so intentionally, others unwittingly, but it will happen.

What is more, because people interactions in business are vital, there is no way of avoiding them, but you have to work with people in a way that anticipates and minimizes the disruptive effect they can have on your time. Here we look at a range of topics, useful in themselves, and as examples of the approach to take, that help. Some will be most appropriate if you manage other people, others are more generally applicable; all will save you time.

Let us look at general people issues first. The intention here is to give the feel of a whole range of ‘people issues’ that can affect the utilization of time either positively or negatively; and which can often do so to a considerable extent.

The socializing organization

An organization is a club. Colleagues are acquaintances or friends and work can be fun (not all the time perhaps, but it is a relevant objective), and this makes for problems as, for example, ‘Good morning’ turns into half the morning disappearing in chatter. It is an area where a time log may provide surprising information.

Now I am not suggesting that all social contact is forbidden, perish the thought. I like a chat as much as anyone; indeed, without some of this to foster relationships, an organization would not only be duller, but a less effective place. There is an indefinable dividing line between the social chat and the business content, and curtailing anything we cannot definitely label ‘business’ will risk throwing the baby out with the bath water. On the other hand, you do need to keep things in proportion, curtail excesses and beware of those moments when the danger is greatest – time will be really wasted. These include:

• first thing in the morning, when greetings tend to turn into an in-depth analysis of the meal, date, TV or movie, sporting event or disaster of the previous evening;
• breaks, when the coffee comes round or people gather around the drinks machine;
• lunch, when even the process of discussing when to go, with whom and where, assumes time-consuming proportions;
• the end of the day when everyone is getting tired and a chat is a welcome excuse to wind down early.

Note: I realise I am in danger of being repetitive, but electronic socializing needs to be born in mind too. There are moments when an email or something like a Facebook posting or Tweet may be both necessary and save time, but frankly these are in the minority. Take care and resolve to form good habits here.

There are places too where you are prone to get caught and conversation runs on. In some companies, Reception acts as a sort of plaza with people coming and going through it in different directions using their meeting as an excuse for a chat.

Because people’s work patterns are different, moments when you have time for a chat may not suit others and vice versa. There needs to be mutual respect for people’s time and concentration around an office, and everyone can play a part in fostering such a culture. For example, an earlier section advocated taking an occasional break to aid concentration. Do not, however, use these to break in on other people. Not only does this waste their time, but what you intended to be a two-minute pause may very easily turn into half an hour, two cups of coffee and, even if some of the conversation is useful, a major disruption of two people’s schedules. So beware and be careful – there is no need to be stand-offish or to screen out useful conversations, but remember that this is a major factor eating away at productivity, and act accordingly.

Informal contact

You do need to see and talk to people. But, like so much else, how and when this is organized should be a conscious plan, one conditioned not least by the time that will be taken up. How do you approach this? This has become a technique in its own right, with its own abbreviation: MBWA. These initials stand for ‘management by walking about’, and it describes the need for management, perhaps especially senior management, to keep in touch at a direct and personal level with the other departments and people with whom they work. However good the management control systems in an organization, there is no substitute for going and seeing and hearing for yourself what is going on, and what problems and opportunities exist.

Management can very often become protected and cloistered to the point that they have no genuine feel for how other parts of the organization work. So not only is this sound advice, but it is a real aid to communication, and it can save time. At its most dramatic, one fact-finding walkabout can negate the need for several meetings and a report as the evidence of your own eyes and ears jumps you ahead in the decision-making process. Being in touch makes a real difference to your ability to operate, so the balance of time here – taken and saved – is likely to be productive. This is especially true if you can find ways of creating opportunities for this that serve more than one purpose.

I was given a good example of this recently when I was conducting a short course for a client company. The managing director both introduced the programme and came back to round things off at the end. This is, I believe, good practice, demonstrating a senior management commitment to what others are being asked to give up time for and generally supporting a training culture. At the end of the second day, drinks were available and at one moment as everyone was chatting, the managing director interrupted his discussion with one of his people to make notes – they had stumbled on a useful point and he noted it for later follow-up. This happened quite naturally as the chat mixed with more serious comment.

The point here was that the managing director, doubtless a busy man, consciously saw such a gathering as serving a double purpose: he was happy to support training, but more ready to do so if it provided an opportunity for some of the ‘walking about’ he felt was necessary anyway. He might have considered that giving just an introduction was not time well spent, but the addition of drinks and discussion – in fact taking longer – made it serve two purposes and become well worthwhile. Interesting.

Making a working lunch work

An army, it is said, marches on its stomach. In business too, we all have to pause now and then to refuel. What has this to do with time management? Consider the following phrases. First, ‘business lunch’. For most people this conjures up something expensive, lengthy and substantial. If you add in the time taken to get to such an event, then the total time involved is something to be considered very carefully. You need to think about whether to accept such invitations, or how often to do so. You may need to meet with the person concerned, but there may be other ways to achieve this. And you certainly need to think twice before you issue such invitations yourself. Again, the first question is whether a meeting is necessary, then whether it needs to be at lunch. Entertaining is, without a doubt, important. Some contacts (customers, suppliers and others) will not rate the business relationship so highly if you appear to take it for granted. Yet time is finite and you cannot do this every time you think of it. Each occasion should result from a considered decision and be worthwhile in its own right. Also consider simpler options. A meal out in a good restaurant or hotel may be too time-consuming for your contact (they are in all probability busy people too). What simpler options are there? Something in the office perhaps? It must be done well, but it does not need to be a gigantic meal or a time-consuming occasion to meet its objectives. You may well find this option is welcomed by some of your contacts.

Second, ‘working lunch’. This is more often internal, and can be very simple – an urgent meeting scheduled for an appropriate hour with just coffee and sandwiches provided makes for productivity. Similarly, you may opt to go out for a simple snack with a colleague and do so to discuss a particular matter, often one that has previously escaped fitting into your schedule. All this is useful. Sometimes lunchtime needs to be something of a pause, but remember with around 220 working days in the year, an hour for lunch on each would add up to more than 25 working days! So, it is certainly an area to think about extremely carefully. A final, cautionary, note: watch what you drink at lunchtime. Alcohol may help relaxation but falling asleep at your desk later will certainly not improve productivity!

Consider a day out

Entertaining was just referred to, but it can take many forms and some of them are a good deal more time-consuming than lunch. Corporate entertaining (and I am not thinking so much of major group occasions such as sponsorship events) can include a wide variety of things from a night at the opera, to an evening in a karaoke bar; from a day at the races to a golf afternoon. Because they involve a very real cost, such things certainly need thinking about, but so too do the time considerations.

Take a golf outing as an example. Much business may really be conducted on the golf course, and I am not suggesting that such activity is never useful and should be entirely rejected, but its real merits do need assessing. It is not enough that you or your contact will enjoy whatever it is. Ask:

• What will come of it?
• Will it genuinely move the relationship forward?
• Is there another way of achieving the same effect with less time expenditure?
• Can anyone else do it?

All these questions need answering. Other factors come in here too. A golf outing on a Saturday morning, rather than on a weekday, may make good use of time, though too many may begin to eat into family time. If three contacts accompany you one day, then the time may be viewed differently from when there is only one.

Like so much discussed in this book, one more golf outing does not seem vastly significant, but it adds up. Two golf outings a month might use up the equivalent of a whole day, 5 per cent of your working time. You need to keep this in mind. Maybe a larger group of people once a month would work equally well. Whatever things of this nature form part of your working life, think about them not as an automatic part of the way things are – unchangeable – but as time that needs to be utilized carefully just like any other. Then you can make the right decisions and know that time is not being wasted.

However and wherever contact occurs with other people, the nature of it will affect the duration of it. Being aware of this, especially in terms of the negative aspects of contact – and avoiding it – will save time.

No conflict – no wasted time

Now listen, pay attention. It is no good just sitting there lazily scanning the pages, you have to read this properly and… Not a good start. Sometimes an approach that is designed to get straight to the point and therefore not waste time has the reverse effect. It rubs people up the wrong way, and can produce misunderstanding, dissent or argument that in turn take time to resolve and the original intention goes out the window. Conflict is not, in fact, entirely bad. It can act as a catalyst to debate, it can help promote creativity and prompt a drive for the results necessary in business. But there is a real difference between this and allowing unnecessary conflict to disrupt the smooth running of things and your time being affected along with it. I am not suggesting here that the wrong ...

Table of contents

• Successful Time Management
• Creating Success Series
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• First thoughts
• Discipline, discipline!
• 01 Time: a key resource – opportunities and difficulties
• Making it work
• A personal approach
• The productivity gain
• Speculate to accumulate
• Perfect time
• 02 First steps towards effective time management
• Your work mix
• Assessing your current working practice
• Plan the work and work the plan
• What kind of system?
• Setting clear objectives
• Thinking ahead
• Spend time to save time
• Taking time to think
• Be prepared to say ‘no’
• To be, or not to be (perfect)
• Work smarter not longer
• Reward yourself
• Maintaining good intentions
• 03 Getting (and staying) organized
• Work the plan
• Time at home
• Batch your tasks
• Use your diary effectively
• Schedule appointments with care
• Clear your desk
• Avoid ‘cherry picking’
• The internet
• Highlight key facts
• Insist on quality
• Action or investment
• Working with a secretary or PA
• Use a ‘document parking’ system
• Make use of checklists
• Directing the techniques at particular result areas
• Intermission… take a break
• 04 Combating the time wasters
• The greatest time waster?
• Why uncomfortable is good
• When performance is inadequate
• Recognizing reality
• Identifying opportunities
• Handling personal interruptions
• Handling telephone interruptions
• Save time getting through
• Make messages accurate
• Email
• On the move
• 05 Emails: shortcut or time black hole?
• Email versus snail mail
• Email: possible disadvantages
• Basic guidelines
• Systematic sorting
• Digital signatures and other security devices
• Jargon and acronyms
• Attachments
• Hyperlinks
• Potential problems
• 06 First things first
• Pareto’s law
• Make the miscellaneous a priority
• Schedule – backwards
• Be honest about deadlines
• Review task methodology
• Eliminate the unnecessary
• Danger – keep your distance
• Be confident of your priorities
• 07 Controlling the paperwork
• Aim to minimize paperwork
• Make a habit of brevity
• Minimize your paper handling
• Do not let files and filing waste time
• Keep papers neat
• Computerize it – but carefully
• Do not duplicate information unnecessarily
• Do not proliferate information unnecessarily
• Do not put it in writing
• Write faster
• WPB – the most time-saving object in your office
• 08 Working with other people
• The socializing organization
• Informal contact
• Making a working lunch work
• Consider a day out
• No conflict – no wasted time
• The right people
• The need for clear instructions
• Don’t do it – delegate
• Swap tasks to save time
• Develop your people
• Simply the most time-saving phrase in the language
• Do not hover
• Motivate your people
• Provide specific time management help for staff
• Make and keep some firm rules
• Meetings – danger or opportunity?
• 09 Final words
• Is it worthwhile?
• A final, final word
• Copyright