Time Management

Time management starts with the commitment to change. Time management is easy as long as you commit to action. You can train others and improve your own time management through better planning; prioritising; delegating; controlling your environment; understanding yourself and identifying what you will change about your habits, routines and attitude. The key to successful time management is planning and then protecting the planned time.


People who say that they have no time do not plan, or fail to protect planned time. If you plan what to do and when, and then stick to it, then you will have time. This involves conditioning, or re-conditioning your environment. For people who have demands placed on them by others, particularly other departments, managers, customers, etc, time management requires diplomatically managing the expectations of others.


Time management is chiefly about conditioning your environment, rather than allowing your environment to condition you. If you tolerate, and accept without question, the interruptions and demands of others then you effectively encourage these time management pressures to continue.


You can show precise timings if you wish. It's not necessary to know exactly what will fill each time-slot, especially if you are subject to unpredictable demands, as most people are; the important thing is to schedule the time to deal with what arises, and activities that you can predict need to be done at certain times.


You'll know what sport of time you need for these unforeseen activities, so plan time-slots to accommodate them. Plan time-slots to check emails and post, but not to deal with each one fully there and then - desperate emergencies are rarely communicated by email or post - mostly they'd be by phone, so think about the originators realistic expectations. Most emails you'll need simply to acknowledge and give an indication of when you will respond in full, which can be scheduled later, when it suits you, depending on the level of importance and urgency.


Plan time slots for returning and making phone calls - don't just do them when you feel like it or when you happen to remember. Plan and schedule things sensibly and logically - try to kill several birds with one stone. Think about how best to use lunchtimes - and don't work through every one - you need to unwind and take a break now and then. Once you've produced your first weekly activity schedule it's easy to keep it going; many of the slots will repeat. You'll also notice monthly patterns too. The more senior your role, the further ahead you need to plan.