Many people spend their days in a frenzy of activity, but achieve very little because they are not concentrating on the right things.
If you work for an organization, calculate how much you cost it each year. Include your salary, payroll taxes, the cost of office space you occupy, equipment and facilities you use, expenses, administrative support, etc. If you are self-employed, work the annual running costs of your business.
To this figure add a ‘guesstimate’ of the amount of profit you should generate by your activity.
If you work normal hours, you will have something like 200 productive days each year. If you work 7½ hours each day, this equates to 1,500 hours in a year.
From these figures, calculate an hourly rate. This should give a reasonable estimate of how much your time is worth—this may be a surprisingly large amount!
When you are deciding whether or not to take a task on, think about this value—are you wasting your or your organization’s resources on a low yield task
Calculating how much your time is worth helps you to work out how whether it is worth doing particular jobs. If you have to spend much of your time doing low-yield jobs, then you can make a good case for employing an assistant.
Activity logs help you to analyze how you actually spend your time. The first time you use an activity log you may be shocked to see the amount of time that you waste! Memory is a very poor guide when it comes to this, as it can be too easy to forget time spent reading junk mail, talking to colleagues, making coffee, eating lunch, etc.
You may also be unaware that your energy levels may vary through the day. In fact, most people function at different levels of effectiveness at different times. Your effectiveness may vary depending on the amount of sugar in your blood, the length of time since you last took a break, routine distractions, stress, discomfort, or a range of other factors. There is also some good evidence that you have daily rhythms of alertness and energy.
Keeping an Activity Log for several days helps you to understand how you spend your time, and when you perform at your best. Without modifying your behaviour any further than you have to, note down the things you do as you do them. Every time you change activities, whether opening mail, working, making coffee, gossiping with colleagues or whatever, note down the time of the change.
As well as recording activities, note how you feel, whether alert, flat, tired, energetic, etc. Do this periodically throughout the day. You may decide to integrate your activity log with a stress diary.
Once you have logged your time for a few days, analyze the log. You may be alarmed to see the length of time you spend doing low value jobs!
You may also see that you are energetic in some parts of the day, and flat in other parts. A lot of this can depend on the rest breaks you take, the times and amounts you eat, and quality of your nutrition. The activity log gives you some basis for experimenting with these variables.
Activity logs are useful tools for auditing the way that you use your time. They can also help you to track changes in your energy, alertness and effectiveness throughout the day.
By analyzing your activity log you will be able to identify and eliminate time-wasting or low-yield jobs. You will also know the times of day at which you are most effective, so that you can carry out your most important tasks during these times.
Scheduling is the process by which you look at the time available to you, and plan how you will use it to achieve the goals you have identified. By using a schedule properly, you can:
• Understand what you can realisticaly achieve with your time.
• Plan to make the best use of the time available.
• Leave enough time for things you absolutely must do.
• Preserve contingency time to handle ‘the unexpected.
• Minimize stress by avoiding over-commitment to yourself and others.
Scheduling is best done on a regular basis, for example at the start of every week or month. Go through the following steps in preparing your schedule:
- Start by identifying the time you want to make available for your work. This will depend on the design of your job and on your personal goals in life.
- Next, block in the actions you absolutely must take to do a good job. These will often be the things you are assessed against.
For example, if you manage people, then you must make time available for dealing with issues that arise, coaching, and supervision. Similarly, you must allow time to communicate with your boss and key people around you. While people may let you get away with ‘neglecting them’ in the short-term, your best time management efforts will surely be derailed if you do not set aside time for those who are important in your life. - Review your To Do List, and schedule in the high-priority urgent activities, as well as the essential maintenance tasks that cannot be delegated and cannot be avoided.
- Next, block in appropriate contingency time. You will learn how much of this you need by experience. Normally, the more unpredictable your job, the more contingency time you need. The reality of many people’s work is of constant interruption.
Obviously, you cannot tell when interruptions will occur. However, by leaving space in your schedule, you give yourself the flexibility to rearrange your schedule to react effectively to issues as they arise.
One of the most important ways people learn to achieve success is by maximizing the ‘leverage’ they can achieve with their time. They increase the amount of work they can manage by delegating work to other people, spend money outsourcing key tasks, or use technology to automate as much of their work as possible. This frees them up to achieve their goals.
Also, use this as an opportunity to review your To Do List and Personal Goals. Have you set goals that just aren’t achievable with the time you have available? Are you taking on too many additional duties? Or are you treating things as being more important than they really are?
If your discretionary time is still limited, then you may need to renegotiate your workload. With a well-thought through schedule as evidence, you may find this surprisingly easy.
Scheduling is the process by which you plan your use of time. By scheduling effectively, you can both reduce stress and maximize your effectiveness.
Before you can schedule efficiently, you need an effective scheduling system. This can be a diary, calendar, paper-based organizer, PDA or a software package like MS Outlook. The best solution depends entirely on your circumstances.