This document provides guidance on effective time management. It discusses understanding one's primary purpose, prioritizing tasks based on importance, urgency, and people factors, and developing a time management strategy. Some key tips include focusing on high-priority tasks during prime energy periods, using a calendar effectively, batching similar tasks, and giving oneself shorter deadlines to improve productivity and focus. It also addresses myths around multi-tasking, to-do lists, and deadlines.
2. What are your BIGGEST challenges in your time?
Where do you think you need to IMPROVE?
3.
4. “The bad news is time flies. The
good news is you're the pilot."
Michael Altshuler
5. CONTENT
• Understanding your ‘primary purpose’
• Effective prioritisation
• Developing a strategy
• Do the figures
• Six fundamentals of time management
• Time stealers and how to deal with them
• Action planning swiftly and effectively
7. DEFINE YOUR PURPOSE
• The reason your job exists
• What has to be achieved?
• What would you like to achieve?
• The overall aims and objectives
• The BIG picture?
8.
9. PRIORITISING
There are three main factors we consider
(consciously or not) when prioritising
• Importance
• People
• Urgency
11. PEOPLE FACTORS
• Who asked for it?
• How enjoyable is that task (let’s be honest!)
• How long is it?
• How difficult is it?
• Can I delegate it?
12. URGENCY FACTORS
• When does it need to be done?
• How does this relate to other factors
• People
• Importance
13.
14. STRATEGY TO TIME MANAGEMENT
• Define your Primary Purpose
• Prioritise your tasks and activities and keep your
Primary Purpose in mind
• Eliminate and manage time stealers
16. Quick guide to saying ‘No’
Show interest, listen, question and understand
what’s being asked
Show empathy
Explore the alternatives
Clearly explain (at the right level) why you
can’t do this
Approach the situation positively, don’t want
to be seen as the person who always says ‘no’
Turn down the request, not the person
21. PRIME TIME
• Know when you’re at your “prime”
• Are you a morning person? evening person?
• Plan your day around your strengths, e.g. most
productive and energetic
• It won’t always be possible, but when you can, use your
own knowledge about yourself to your advantage
22.
23. Quick guide to diary management
Make sure your diary is up to date
Make your diary available to the appropriate people
Keep a paper diary? Make sure major meetings and
times of non-availability are shown in your outlook
calendar so others know
Plan time for preparing for meetings, it may not
happen otherwise
When planning meetings, ensure you allocate time
for travel and anything TFL may throw at you
Put in regular meetings in your diary in advance so
you know to keep them free
24.
25. PRODUCTIVITY MISUNDERSTANDINGS
We have all been told about productivity techniques
• To do lists
• Deadlines
• Multi-tasking
Researchers have found recently that there are some issues with
these techniques. Here are a few things we know now which may
help you.
26. MULTI-TASKING
Here’s what you may have heard:
“You can hold up to 7 items of information in your brain at
any one time”
“women are better at multi-tasking than men”
“multi-tasking is efficient”
27. MULTI-TASKING – MYTH?
Multi-tasking is not as efficient as focusing on a single task at a time
• Research shows that the magic number 7 is probably wrong
• Research indicates that for concepts and larger pieces of information, the number
falls to 1
• Recent research from Stamford University showed that people who “toggle” tasks on
average took longer to complete each task than those who worked on a task one at a
time.
28. DEADLINES
What you may have heard
“If we give ourselves plenty of time, we will complete the
tasks.”
“Longer lead time will mean more tasks are completed.”
29. LONG DEADLINES – MYTH?
Research shows that the more time you give yourself to finish
something, the less likely it is that you will finish it in that timeframe.
Here’s what you can do to improve:
• Deadlines do work - always give yourself deadlines to complete
key tasks. Ideally, get your manager to impose the deadline.
• Give yourself a shorter time to complete tasks – shorter
deadlines mean you’re far more likely to complete the task (and
perform to a higher standard)
30. TO DO LISTS
What you may have heard:
“If there are unmet goals and uncompleted tasks, having them written
on the to do list will motivate us to complete them.”
“If we write down everything on the list, we’ll know what needs to get
done, that will enable us to assign time and resources to each task.”
“People who keep a to do list are more productive”
31. TO-DO LIST - PERHAPS NOT THE HOLY GRAIL
Most to-do lists are not particularly motivating or effective.
However, good to-do list management does help productivity
significantly.
Here are some things to try
• Make your to-do lists more specific actionable plans rather
than large vague items e.g. write paper for exec might be research
and do an outline for the paper for exec by X date
• Don’t micromanage your tasks so that you feel you’re locked in,
allow yourself to be responsive.
32. MAKING TO-DO LISTS EFFECTIVE
• Review your list regularly to ensure it reflects what’s going on –
if things have moved on, modify the task
• Make sure you include the ‘how’ in your planning – and the ‘if
this, then that’ so your brain knows you have options
• Make key tasks ‘living’ by scheduling them in your calendar
rather than just noting them on the list. That will give you more
sense of the time the task should take and more commitment to
the task
• Batch similar items together – emails, mundane tasks, paperwork,
filing etc.
33. SUMMARY
• Give yourself specific action plans
• Batch similar tasks together so you can make better use of your time
• Schedule in key tasks in the calendar to give yourself more commitment
• Make sure there’s some flexibility in your planning to account for
interruptions
• Don’t list every single thing you need to do (it’s too depressing!)
• Review your list regularly
• Ensure you have deadlines for key tasks and make those deadlines earlier
• If you’re a manager – ensure the tasks you agree with your team have time
limits
34. QUICK GUIDE TO WILLPOWER
Do your biggest tasks first thing in the morning
• Research shows that willpower is at its highest in the
morning.
• If you think of self control as a muscle, as you keep
using it, fatigue sets in.
• Researchers showed in self-control tasks there were
significant performance differences in self control,
perceived effort, perceived difficulty, negative affect
and subjective fatigue.
35. “For the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror
every morning and asked myself “If today were the
last day of my life, would I want to do what I am
about to do today?”
And whenever the answer has been “No” for too
many days in a row, I know I need to change
something"
Steve Jobs
36. EXERCISE
• List all the people or teams that you rely on to do your job
effectively
• List all the people or teams who rely on you
• Consider your relationships listed. Using a scale of
‘High/Medium/Low’, how dependant are you on each
relationship?
• Now, using a scale of 1 to 10 (10 = high), how effective are
those relationships?
37. QUICK GUIDE TEAM WORK
Make sure your colleagues are updated with relevant
information
Be punctual – be there when you say you will
Treat your colleagues as customers
Put an appropriate out of office on so others know when
they can expect a response from you
Be known for being a person of your word
38.
39. MEETING STRATEGIES
1. Ensure all meetings have an agenda
2. All attendees should be able to have concrete next steps
or action items
3. The meeting should have an end time (and stick to it)
4. Invite as few people as possible
5. All meetings should have a clear decision maker
6. Be prepared to challenge and be challenged respectfully
The most democratic resource
Can you manage time?
Can you be more effective?
Is it ‘time management’ or the management of you!
The reason your job exists, its objectives and metrics
What has to be achieved
What would you like to achieve?
Your overall aims and goals
The bigger picture – your life in general?
I think this was where you were going with your grid, feel free to change if you don’t like this one. I just thought it might be simpler for my guys but if you had a different idea with your grid feel free change this.
Or you can have a slightly more humorous picture if you like?!
Note “likely to say” not “want to say”! There’s a difference
Circadium cycle
Note “likely to say” not “want to say”! There’s a difference
The 7 number only relates to small items like letters and numbers, does not relate to larger pieces of information like dates, names, places and certainly doesn’t relate to larger things like concepts
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11035055
Research – Dan Ariely and Laus Wertenbrock
http://people.duke.edu/~dandan/Papers/PI/deadlines.pdf
Studies of students who had long lead times vs self imposed shorter timeframes or externally imposed shorter timeframes a) completed the papers and b) got higher test scores
Research – Dan Ariely and Laus Wertenbrock
http://people.duke.edu/~dandan/Papers/PI/deadlines.pdf
Studies of students who had long lead times vs self imposed shorter timeframes or externally imposed shorter timeframes a) completed the papers and b) got higher test scores
You can’t do this for everything but you can do this for some key tasks.
Productivity company iDoneThis, reported that of all its users:
41% of to do items were never completed
50% of completed items were done within a day
18% of completed to do items were done within an hour
10% of completed items were done within a minute
15% of done items started out as a ‘to do’
I think this is a dupe – not sure which slide is better
https://open.bufferapp.com/morning-routines-of-successful-people/
Note: I am NOT a morning person. I wrote this slide as a hater of mornings but I can’t argue with science! First thing in the morning for you might be ‘middle of the day’ for a morning person, but the takeaway here is – do it first and get it done.