Top Ten Time Management Tips

I’ve decided to follow up the previous article with my top 10 tips on time-management taken from “The 25 best time management tools and techniques” (Pamela Dodd and Doug Sundheim)

These tips will not only save you time but will also increase your productivity and your personal and business development. There are also a few management tips throughout.

Although some of these tips may have been covered in the previous article I think that this is useful as it describes other useful techniques whilst having a different perspective on Covey’s advice.

These aren’t in order of importance; more a step-by-step guide of what needs to be done to get the most out of the limited amount of time we have.

1 ) Create a mission statement

This is about asking some pretty deep questions which can be difficult to answer. However, if you don’t have a purpose or personal mission then how can you measure your success? The main questions to ask yourself is what you want from life and what type of person you want to be. Covey tells his readers to imagine it’s their funeral and to think about what they would like to be said in their eulogy. He also believes that your mission statement should be written in terms of the important roles of your life. This will help give it balance and ensures that you review your roles regularly to ensure that you’re not absorbed by one role at the expense of others.

Once you have your mission statement you need to write this in the front of your planner/diary. This way it will be at forefront of your mind which will help you fall into the habit of planning everything with it in mind. Dodd and Sundheim believe that it acts as a compass and motivates you to reach beyond your past performance to accomplish bigger things.

2 ) Use a Personal Planner

This serves as your main productivity tool. I think that weekly or monthly plans are the most effective as you can set short-term goals but also have the long-term in mind and measure up against your mission statement. Often people like to have daily to-do lists as they gain a certain fulfilment when they tick an item off their list. Although these can be useful, the items on the list are not prioritised and it lacks a long-term goal. If you are going to use daily to-do lists ensure that each item has a priority. You might number them or list them in order of importance – this can help as people generally start at the top of the list.

On a Monday morning determine your objectives for the following week and list these in your planner. This way you can plan around these objectives as you will see them on a regular basis.

The key to successful use of a personal planner is to get into the habit of entering things into the correct place rather than on scraps of paper or keeping it in your head. You might have columns within your planner each headed with your objectives for that particular week. You can then enter any activities that will help accomplish these objectives listed in order of importance.

3 ) Set goals

Defining SMART goals is key to ensuring time is being used on the correct activities. Once these have been defined they should be written down somewhere that you will see often. They should also be fixed around your mission statement with a view to achieve it. Your goals will then offer direction.

Setting goals isn’t a difficult task but most people don’t do it because they are afraid of committing themselves through fear of failure. This is because we have all been brought up to think in lose/win. This is where we think that if someone is successful then we can’t be successful as success is limited. Covey is strongly against this and believes that we should shift our mindset to win/win as success is unlimited.

4 ) Prioritise (Another Covey favourite)

Priorities should be interlinked to your goals. Your goals are what you want to achieve in order to fulfil your mission statement. Your priorities are the most important tasks which must be done to achieve these goals. Use Covey’s Quadrant as discussed in the previous article to prioritise tasks in Quadrant 2. Make a list of these main activities – don’t include lots of little tasks which you do on a daily basis. Prioritise these priorities by numbering them or placing them in order of importance.

5 ) Organise

Two main points here – have a place for everything and keep a tidy desk.

Having a place for everything reduces stress and time wasted looking for things. Apparently most of us spend about 75 hours a year searching for lost papers. One of the keys to having a place for everything is the ability to let things go i.e. throwing out unneeded things.

This also helps keep a tidy desk – something which will reduce the stress levels as you feel in control and are able to find everything. Being organised will increase your productivity and stop time being wasted.

6 ) Be punctual

Is an obvious one, but I feel it needs a mention. If you fail to respect and value other people’s time then they are unlikely to respect or value your time. Being late is at best going to cause bad-feeling and at worse could lose you a customer or future referrals. Dan Kennedy places such a high value on punctuality that he says, “people who can’t be punctual, can’t be trusted.” This might come across a bit strong but some people do value punctuality very highly – if you arrive late to see a new client you are on the back foot straight away as you can only give one first impression.

7 ) Do one thing at a time

A lot of people believe that multi-tasking increases their productivity and efficiency, when in fact they are only giving each task a small percentage of their attention. This can lead to mistakes which will mean time will be lost in the long-run as these mistakes then need rectifying.

8 ) Delegate

Successful delegation can lead to a win/win situation. Although you may have reservations about trusting others with jobs you usually do yourself, the benefits of delegation far outweigh these. If you delegate you can concentrate on your highest priorities and therefore achieve your goals. Training the delegate to do the job can help them to develop to their full potential. It also gives them a feeling of responsibility and makes them feel needed within the business. Regular appraisals for good work will make the delegate feel appreciated. You might think that you can do the job better than the delegate but if you have higher priorities then training the delegate for a week would be more time efficient in the long-run. You must explain why the job needs doing and what the consequences will be if the job is done incorrectly. Also, give them a sense of accountability so they will want to perform well for you.

9 ) Experiment

The best way to learn is from your own mistakes. Try different systems until you find which suits you the best. Observe yourself closely for a week, and then tailor your system to how you work. For example, you might be the most productive in a morning so do your most important tasks then or you might be the least productive on a Friday afternoon so do the mind-numbing jobs then.

Don’t dwell on past decisions – these decisions were made with the best tools you had to hand at that time – hindsight is a wonderful thing.

10 ) Measure your results

If you have SMART goals then measuring your results should be easy. Being able to measure your results makes you accountable. Dodd and Sundheim point to an “accountability conspiracy” where people let themselves and others off for not producing results. They say that this leads to mediocrity, whereas holding people and yourself accountable ensures that we strive to produce the results.

Dodd and Sundheim believe that we should look at life as a game. Every game needs a scorecard.

The most important point to take from this is to delegate. Making people accountable will ensure that they perform to your standards. It then leaves you to concentrate on your priorities and achieve more.