Time management giving you a hard time?

“Manage my time at work better.” Let’s be honest, how many people picked this as a resolution for 2020? Without a doubt, time management comes up as one of the most desired skills but also among the hardest to master. This is critical when lines on the to-do lists keep growing, deadlines are looming and there is no lifeline in sight to help accomplish everything we need to. So how does one get organized to better manage time?

Three elements outlined in this recent HBR article are typically considered critical for effective time management: Awareness: thinking realistically about time as a limited resource. Arrangement: organizing to effectively use time. Adaptation: monitoring use of time including adjusting to changing priorities. It’s certainly a hot topic and came up at a recent group mentoring session at 3M, and I got the opportunity to share my strategies for the same. In examining my own system that has evolved over time, I can see that the three elements outlined here yield positive outcome when applied in concert with my evolving role, personal philosophy and customized to my working style.

During the session, I explained the key elements of my current time management philosophy at work as, everything, something, one thing and nothing! I have settled on a weekly rhythm where I do everything I can on my priority projects, something on the next tier priority, at least one thing to move along what I consider as a priority for future, and finally, always reserve blocks of 'nothing' time. This is important not just to serve as a buffer but also held to carve out time for critical and creative thinking. My time management techniques have evolved to match my strategy for setting goals. I have previously described it in the article Move over SMART goals, I’m SUPER smart!

To keep the discipline, I commit to a status update with team and/or stakeholders to be issued at a predetermined cadence. Call it old-school, but the mode that works the best for me is a written communication. Compared with a casual oral summary, it can be difficult and feel time consuming, but I have found that formulating thoughts and putting them in writing forces one to crystallize what has happened, conclude what the progress means and commit to what needs to be done next as a result - saving time in the long run. Besides being a great way to raise awareness, gain consensus and solicit opinion from the team it also helps in continually building and steering the strategic narrative with key stakeholders.

For the top priorities, I follow a weekly cadence and for some of my additional roles and responsibilities, I follow a biweekly or monthly reporting rhythm. This led to much discussion at this mentoring session around control of our time! How does one make time to do the work and write about it? It is indeed true that before we even start populating the calendar, we are pressed for time with the various meetings already on it which demand our attention. These may be corporate, functional, organizational, 1:1s, reviews, updates, external speakers, committee meetings, mentoring, networking, to name a few. One has to be judicious with planning attendance.

I have a few simple tactics I try to follow, and, they work most of the time:

Prime time – These are the most important meetings given the primary goals, objectives and priorities of the role. These are must-attend. If a meeting, or work trip associated with top priorities, is likely to require a lot of preparation, I try to block additional time ahead of these for preparation and pre-meetings as well as a post-meeting analysis.

Face time – I take a hard look at which other meetings do I really need to attend, and, need to attend in person. Can I review the recording later? Can I delegate? Can I send an email update ahead of time and not attend? Can I read the minutes to get caught up? It’s surprising how many times a quick 5 min phone-call/chat or email/text can eliminate a 30 min meeting!

Crunch time – Urgent meetings that are needed to resolve issues or make critical decisions and require your presence are bound to happen. These are also likely to throw the calendar in a tizzy- is there a way to work them in early, late or during lunch hour. I have often taken urgent calls from mentees while eating, driving or at home.

Flex time – Save blocks of time for uninterrupted work. An important lesson from Computer Science is to avoid costs of context switching. I zealously guard this time and it has become ever so important with the need for flexibility in my calendar to accommodate external engagements and creative writing assignments that need me to stay focused on a single task for longer times.

These strategies give me flexibility to make sure I can carve out what I call the ever-important Tea(m) time with mentees, committees and peers. There are a myriad of tools and a multitude of techniques out there claiming to help people better manage their time. But just like having a good pen doesn’t make one a good writer, the handy hacks may not help to yield the desired results till they are personalized and internalized to match one’s roles and goals at the time. In this age of ‘24/7 connectivity’, time management becomes extremely important, otherwise it encroaches deeply into family-time, spare time and much needed downtime. This is where hacks can also come in handy – I have recently listened-in to a meeting, while walking, which allowed me to get my exercise in as well!

There is no one size fits all formula, but there is no time like the present to get started on different strategies and tactics…and give them some time.

I look forward to hearing some key time management strategies that have stood the test of time for you?