Time management anyflip book pp v4

TIME MANAGEMENT
QUICK WINS

Sandra Grey

Hints and Tips for working smarter…not harder

• Structuring for efficiency Contents

• Controlling your email inbox

• Maximise your calendar

• Delegation…helps to develop others and…helps
you too

• PTCB

Structuring for efficiency

TIME SPENT

Thinking

About Doing Something

Takes Away

The Time You Have

To actually do it…

Common symptoms of not structuring your working day

• You often feel overwhelmed by the amount of work you have to do
• You find yourself missing deadlines
• You sometimes just forget to do something important

Use a “To-Do List”

A great way to structure your day and resolve the above from happening is by creating your own to do
list each and every day.

*A handy tip*
Prepare your list at the end of each day so that you can plan your day in advance.

HOW?

• Start by listing all the tasks you need to carry out during the following day
• Then simply highlight which of those tasks require your attention as a priority
• When completed draw a line through the task
• Take any task left at the end of the day and add to the next day’s to do list

*Handy tip*
Prioritise your tasks for the day

By keeping such a list, you make sure that your tasks are written down all in one place so you don't
forget anything important. And by prioritising tasks, you plan the order in which you'll do them, so
that you can tell what needs your immediate attention, and what you can leave until later.

*Handy tip*

Create your own to do lists like this or use one of the many free templates on the
Internet click here for a sample

Controlling your email inbox

It's Monday morning and as Diane sits down at her desk she feeling that ever familiar sinking feeling
in her stomach... She's not dreading the day ahead of her – she's dreading her email inbox!

Diane leads a large team, and she regularly receives in excess of 30 emails every day. Reading and
responding to all of this mail takes up much of her time, and most of her work takes back seat due to
this one task. The effect of this is that Diane is often late submitting work notoriously and she's
started staying late, just so as she can to catch up and keep up.

Emails are great though – aren't they?

When we use it appropriately, email is a fantastically useful communication tool. Sadly, like Diane,
many of us feel overwhelmed by the amount of mail that we receive and need to respond to if it is not
controlled.
However, there are ways to you can manage your email so that you're more productive and we'll
explore some strategies for doing this, so that you can get on with the most important tasks.

Note:
Please keep in mind that these strategies may not work for everyone, use your own judgment when
you think about how best to manage your email traffic and inbox.

Try switching off your email
WHAT??? – this is most peoples’ reaction…

“But what if I miss “How can I keep on
an important top of my emails?”
update?”

Switching off your email doesn’t mean for hours, but for specified times that work best for you.

Here is an example of how you could divide your email work times during a
standard 09:00 to 17:30 day

09:00 to 10:30 10:30 to 13:00
Email on mail off work through important

answer, file, or delete tasks
as appropriate
13:00 to 13:45
Lunch

13:45 to 15:15
Email on answer, file, or

delete as appropriate

15:15 to 16:45 **This type of Time
Email off work through Management strategy may
take a few days to get used
important tasks to.

16:45 to 17:30 If it’s working keep up the
Email off review to do list and “control” of your inbox.
prepare new one for next day
If this one isn't working for
you try another**

Use Rules to control your inbox

Most email programs, such as Outlook and Gmail, allow you to establish "Rules" that sort email into
a particular folder as soon as it comes in.

For instance, you might get several emails per day that notify you of sales, external companies sales
mails or area updates. You want to receive these, because you want to see what's happening, but
you don't want them to clutter your inbox.

Rules are great!

This is where you could set up a rule in your email program that moves emails with, say, “Area” in the
subject line straight to the “Area updates” folder as soon as they come in.
This means that you don't need to manually file these emails, and allows you to keep all of the emails
in one folder to review when appropriate.

Rules are great for…

Non-Essential Email
If you regularly receive email such as newsletters, blogs and article feeds, you could re-route
these to other folders too, use rules, so that they're instantly delivered to a particular folder.

This will help keep your primary inbox clear, and they'll be in one place, ready to read at a
convenient time.

Maximise your calendar

We cannot control the wind,
but we can direct the sail

The Importance of scheduling your day, week and month

Scheduling is the art of planning your activities so that you can achieve your goals and priorities
in the time you have available.

When it's done effectively, it helps you:
• Understand what you can realistically achieve with your time.
• Make sure you have enough time for essential tasks.
• Add contingency time for "the unexpected."
• Avoid taking on more than you can handle.

There are a number of different tools to choose from:
• A simple paper diary
• A weekly planner.

You can also use apps and software , for example:
• Google Calendar®,
• MS Outlook®
• Business Calendar.

Once you have decided which tool you want to use, prepare your schedule using the
following steps:

Step 1:
Identify Available Time
Start by establishing the time you want to make available for your work.

Step 2:
Schedule Essential Actions
Use your preferred tool to record the actions you absolutely need to complete.
For example, if you manage people, make sure that you have enough time available to deal with team
members' personal issues, coaching, and supervision needs.

And then…

Step 3:
Schedule High-Priority Activities
Review your To-Do List , and schedule in high-priority and urgent activities, as well as essential
maintenance tasks that cannot be delegated or avoided.

*Handy tip*

Try to arrange these for the times of day when you are most productive – for example, some people are
at their most energised and are more efficient in the morning, while others focus the best in the
afternoon.

Once you have decided which tool you want to use, prepare your schedule using the
following steps:

Step 4:
Schedule Contingency Time
Next, schedule some extra time to cope with contingencies and emergencies. Experience will tell you
how much to allow. Even if you don't schedule this time in, emergencies may still happen

Don’t forget to review your activities

Make sure its all working for you, if not you need to go back through steps two, three and four, and
question whether all of the tasks you've entered are absolutely necessary. It may be that some things
can be delegated or tackled in a more time-efficient way.



One precious skill of Leadership and managing your time is to delegate tasks, and doing so enables
you to focus on other important work.

If you do this well, you can quickly build a strong and successful team of people, well prepared and
confident to meet the demands that others place.

1 Define the task
Confirm in your own mind that the task is suitable to be delegated. Does it meet the criteria for
delegating?

2 Select the individual or team
What are your reasons for delegating to this person? What are you both going to get out of it?

3 Assess ability and training needs
Is the other person capable of doing the task? Do they understand what needs to be done. If not, you
can't delegate this task.

4 Explain the reasons
You must explain why the job or responsibility is being delegated.

5 State required results
What must be achieved? And make sure they are clear on how you intend to decide that the task has
been successfully completed.

6 Consider resources required
Discuss and agree what is required to get the job done.

7 Agree deadlines

When must the job be finished and when are the review dates?

You'll achieve so much more once you're delegating
effectively!

To delegate effectively, choose the right tasks to delegate, identify the right people to delegate to, and
delegate in the right way.

Plan
To
Complete
Before…adding to your workload

Don’t add more to a heavy work load wherever and whenever possible until you complete
and have room on your schedule

“If you want to be more
productive ,

you need to become

Master
of your
minutes”