Have you time to stop the Time Robbers?
A recent survey conducted for the British Institute of Management found that, despite IT and electronic mail, the average manager was spending 36 minutes a day looking for things on or around the desk.? This was wasting up to ￡6000 a year each for some very senior managers.? The same survey revealed that a quarter of the 500 managers questioned, spent eleven hours a week in meetings – equivalent to 13 weeks a year.? Few were satisfied with their investment.
?Research shows that the most common time-stealers are:
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Meetings
Visitors who drop in
Trying to do too much at once
Confused responsibility and authority
Untrained or inadequate staff
Tasks left unfinished
Unmanaged e mails
Telephone interruptions
Emergencies
?It is true of most people that given a five-hour task and eight hours in which to complete it, the task will take eight hours.? Most of us are busy all day long, but often we don’t get as much done as we would like – we fail to make effective use of our time. Doing nothing in particular but doing it very well! Parkinson’s Law!
?Checklist for action this day!
?If you reflect on how well you use your time you may have noticed that the quality of your attention, or concentration, varies at different times during the day.? You may notice that you tend to be more mentally alert or more creative at certain times of the day.?
Most people’s ‘mental peak time’ is around mid-morning.? Others find that they are at their best around mid-afternoon.? Everyone’s different.? The important thing is recognising when you’re at your best, and using that time as productively as you can.
Make the best use of your ‘mental peak’ times of the day by doing the tasks which require your concentration – your ‘important’ work.?
In order to make best use of your time, you need to analyse how you spend your time…?
Ask yourself the following 11 questions:?
1.?????? Am I giving enough time to my key activities?
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2.?????? Could I reduce the amount of time given to some activities?
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3.?????? What else should I be doing?
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4.?????? Where am I wasting time?
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5.?????? Did I do everything I needed to do?
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6.?????? Did I have time to do things I wanted?
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7.?????? Was I often rushed?
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8.?????? When was I most productive?? Least productive?
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9.?????? Where did most of my time go on completing the day’s tasks?? On progressing long term projects?
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10.?? How much time could’ve been used better?
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11.?? Did I accomplish the most important things?
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Get in touch for a complimentary copy of our 26-page Time Management Toolkit with 116 ideas to fight the Time Bandits
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We challenge you to adopt just five of the ideas and to monitor your progress with a colleague or friend -and vice versa.
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