Developing effective time management skills Plan ahead

  One of the keys to successful time management is planning your goals ahead and then ring-fencing the required amount of time to achieve them. Some people report that spending time planning simply creates an additional pressure on their already precious time and that they are simply too busy to do this. However, it is estimated that 1 per cent of working time spent planning produces an average saving of one hour a day. This sounds like a pretty good return on your time. However, time spent planning does conform to the law of diminishing returns and it is possible to waste time by ‘overplanning’. The world is not entirely predictable and it is estimated that you can accurately plan only about 40 per cent of your time. So your plans need some flexibility built in to them in order to accommodate the unexpected. The level of planning required at work depends upon the time frame that you are working to. There will be certain goals which require long-term planning such as identifying the strategic objectives of a business over the next five years. Some may focus on the next financial year and others may be much more short term, focusing on the week or month ahead. The level of planning that you get involved in will depend on your role in the organization. There are a number of interventions that can help you plan ahead more effectively both in the longer and the short term.

Be clear about what your goals are

  The first step in goal planning is to identify what your priorities over a period of time actually are. In the work setting these should consist of a combination of your own personal goals and the corporate goals of your employer. Many employers carry out annual ‘personal development reviews’ with their employees and these can be very helpful in terms of identifying their work related goals over an extended time period, usually over a year. Once you have identified and agreed these goals with your employer, you should experience a clearer sense of direction and purpose in your job. It will also allow you to plan ahead in order to achieve the identified goals. These longer-term goals can then be broken down into more manageable chunks or shorter-term objectives on the way to achieving the longer-term goals. You can then set a time frame for achieving each of these objectives and review your progress towards achieving them on a regular basis. If your own workplace does not already operate a personal development review system, it would be well worth asking your employer to introduce one.

Manage your diary effectively

  It may sound obvious but the use of a diary can be invaluable in the task of planning ahead because it allows you to do so much more than record appointments. It allows you to get an overall impression of the demands being placed upon you both on a daily basis and also over the longer term. It can help you identify busy periods, prioritize, delegate, reschedule, identify deadlines, avoid appointment clashes, spread out stressful and less stressful tasks, balance your workload, avoid back-to-back meetings, build in travel time, start and finish on time, build in some prime time and also time to deal with the unexpected. Also, using a page a day diary will allow you to plan a visual representation of each day in some detail and thus reduce any inefficient management of your time.