Time Management Self Improvement

Estimating Value

To find out the cost of each minute of your time, multiply your annual salary by 1.5- to include overheads- and divide the total by the number of working hours in a year (working hours per week time’s working weeks per year). Divide this total by 60.

1.5 * Annual salary/Working hours per week = Cost per hr

Cost per hour/60 = Cost per minute

Note:

Think through your day while making your way to work

Always delegate tasks which are not time-effective for you to do

C) Keeping A Time Log

Maintaining a daily log of how much time you spend on particular activities is fundamental to managing your time more effectively. You may be surprised at how much time you spend chatting, and how little time you spend working and planning. Your time log provides you with a starting point form which you can assess areas to improve. How long you should keep a time log is dependant on the nature of your work. If you work on a monthly cycle, keep the log for a couple of months. If your work cycle is weekly, a two- or three-week log should suffice.

Timing Tasks

Compile a simple time log by dividing your day into 30-minute chunks and recording exactly how you spend your time. This will help you determine how much time you spend on useful and unnecessary tasks.

D) Reviewing A Time Log

To analyze your time log, allocate all of the 30-minute time chunks that you have recorded into categories according to the nature of each task, such as meetings, reading and replying to mail, helping colleagues, or making phone calls. Now calculate the percentage of your time spent on each task. This will give you a better picture of your working day and will enable you to access how you can allocate your time more affectively.

E) Breaking Down Tasks

Look at the categories into which you have allocated your tasks, and divide them into groups: routine tasks (for example, writing a regular report), ongoing projects (for example, organizing a meeting), and tasks that would further develop your job (for example, making new contacts). Work out the percentage of time spent on each group.

Allocating Time

To be most effective in your job, you should:

Spend about 60 per cent of your time in planning and development

25 per cent of your time in ongoing projects

15 per cent of your time in routine tasks

In fact most people allocate their time in exactly the opposite proportions.

F) Looking For Patterns

Now that you have established how your time is being allocated, ask yourself if the breakdown meets your expectations of your working day. Are you spending too much time on routine tasks, rather than concentration on the important planning and development tasks? Look at the distribution of these tasks throughout your working day. Are there times when you are really busy and others when you are slack? If so, try to find ways to reorganize your working day so that you are able to work more consistently and efficiently, and achieve more.

G) Estimating Efficiency

How close is your work pattern to the idle 60:25:15 time distribution shown on facing page? If you find you are spending too much time on one group of tasks to the detriment of others, work out how you can reorganize your daily schedule so that your time is distributed more sufficiently. For example, if you find you are spending time on tasks that could easily be done by a junior, delegate them. This way you can concentrate your energies on the areas in which you are not spending enough time.

Questions To Ask Yourself

1) Do I do work that should be done by somebody else?

2) Are there patterns that repeat themselves in my time log? Am I always involved in routine tasks in the morning?

3) Do jobs frequently take longer than I expect them too?

4) Do I have enough time to be creative and innovative?

Manik Thapar (MBA)

Visit my site www.careerpath.cc

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I know it’s a radical idea, the death of your to-do list so bear with me while I explain. Think about it, a long to-do list is a giant energy drain and waste of time. Have you ever noticed how the list keeps growing instead of disappearing?

Imagine waking up every morning feeling confident that you have enough time to accomplish the goals you have set for the day. Picture yourself wrapping things up at the end of the day knowing that you have not wasted your time or energy and that the actions you completed are supporting you in creating a profitable business.

Intrigued? The great news is that it is simple to kill your to-do list. Here’s how. First, take a long hard look at your massive to-do list and put a number one next to the actions that are high priority (I know, I hear you shouting they are all high priority, trust me they aren’t). Go through the list again and rank the medium priority actions with a number two and low priority actions with a number three.

Now, get out your calendar and take each high priority action and place it into your schedule. Choose a date that it will be completed as well as a realistic block of time for completion (start and finish time). Continue doing this with the medium priority actions and finish with the low priority actions.

This will work for you no matter what kind of calendar you use. Choose a system that works for you. The concept of integrating your actions into your planning is much more important than the type of calendar you use.

New opportunities do come up and you can update and adjust your planning as needed. The difference is that now the things you have planned are already prioritized so if something new comes up, you will be able to consider its importance in relation to existing priorities. This is much more effective than simply adding another action to the bottom of a list.

Also, make sure you schedule in some free time each day for unplanned things that come up. If you can’t find a place for some of the low priority actions don’t worry, I have a solution for you below (see benefit number three).

Let me confess something, I know to-do lists don’t work because I am a former owner of a long to-do list (that never got done). Since I killed my to-do list and consciously thought about what I really want to get done, I am much more productive and feel confident about the direction of my business.

Benefits for you:

1. Doing this forces you to reconsider what you are doing with your time and this allows you to get clear about what your real priorities are.

2. You will have a realistic picture of what you can really accomplish in a certain time period (each day, week, month, etc.).

3. There will probably be some things that won’t fit into your schedule and this gives you a chance to consider dropping them or delegating them. I like to call this your “to-don’t” list. If you are a solopreneur and don’t have employees who can pick up the slack, you can always outsource.

4. You will reduce overwhelm and stress because you will no longer be confronted daily with a giant list of things you know you won’t get done that day. This way you will get more accomplished, stay on track, and remain focused.

5. You will feel great about the actions you plan to take each day because you know they are aligned with your long term goals and that doing them will move you forward toward reaching them.

Anyone who is serious about building a sustainable and profitable business needs to be sure they are spending their time and energy on the right things. Are you are beginning to see that a long to-do list that isn’t prioritized with actions that aren’t connected to a actual dates for completion isn’t efficient?

It can be scary to integrate your to-do list into your calendar and I promise, it is worth it. What do you have to lose? Try it and if it doesn’t work you can always go back to the never-ending list of things that never get done. Stop living in denial about what you can realistically get done and choose to plan and execute profitable actions that will grow your business!

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Are you one of those people who is overwhelmed by the number of items on your to-do list? Unwieldy to-do lists often have a mix of daily tasks, projects and long-term goals, and can sometimes look so overwhelming, we procrastinate even the simplest of tasks. An easy solution is to create more than one list.

Are there some things on your list that you transfer from week-to-week and never complete? Ask yourself the reason for the procrastination. Perhaps it makes more sense to transfer some to a project list. If that is the case, break the project into steps and put only the first one or two steps on your daily to-do list. And if you still procrastinate a particular task, it may mean that the task is not so important. Be honest. If you’ve been able to put it off for so long, perhaps it can be removed altogether. A deeper way to probe the procrastination is to ask yourself if it simply is out of sync with who you are at this time in your life or out of sync with what you would truly like to be doing.

Is another task causing you to feel confused and overwhelmed? Maybe you need more information in order to do it? Getting that information or support is task number 1. Look closely. Can you ask someone else to do something for you that you really don’t enjoy? If not, plan to reward yourself when you’ve done the task.

In short:

- Break to-do lists into manageable, comfortable steps with comfortable deadlines.
- Split the big to-do list into separate categories (daily, projects, long-term).
- Look closely at why you procrastinate, then move or delete the task accordingly.
- Always get the information you need to decide if a task is worth keeping.
- Delegate what you can’t or don’t like doing.
- Reward yourself whenever you complete any task.

Dr. Dorene Lehavi, Ph.D. is principal of Next Level Business and Professional Coaching. She coaches Professionals and Business Partners. You can purchase her ebook or soft cover editions of Stop Doing What You HateStart Doing What You Love at http://www.StartDoingWhatYouLove.com. Contact Dr. Lehavi at Dorene@CoachingforYourNextLevel.com or on the web at http://www.CoachingforYourNextLevel.com and sign up for her free newsletter, Mastering Your Next Level.

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