Chapter 7: Prioritizing helps in meeting deadlines
Chapter 8: Accomplishing more in less time
Chapter 9: Time Savers
Chapter 10: Doing two things at a time
Chapter 11: Your time, a self analysis
Chapter 12: Saying ‘No’
Chapter 13: Procrastination-The final enemy
Chapter 14: How to stay motivated
Chapter 15: Plan for success
Chapter 16: Workaholics beware
Chapter 17: Executive Burnout
Chapter 18: Tardiness
Chapter 1
Warming up to the
concept of Time.
“Now go on and enjoy yourself, dance to your heart’s content and win
the Prince’s heart. But remember, you have to be back before the clock
strikes twelve at midnight.”
We all are familiar with the words of the Fairy God Mother
in the evergreen fairy tale ‘Cinderella’. It’s these words that
probably made us aware-for the first time in our lives-of the value of
time. We all sympathized with Cinderella when all her splendid gown and
other finery turned to rags at the stroke of midnight. Our first
acquaintance with the villainous Time!
But then, is time such a villain, who should always be painted in
black? We have heard the proverb that says “there are no wounds that
time cannot heal.”
Here of course we get the image of a wizened old woman who comes
hobbling up to us with a pitcher full of balm and gentle fingers that
soothe away all our pains and sorrows.
But that’s enough! This book was not written to eulogize time. There is
no need of the romance of Cinderella or the soothing finger of an old
lady when we are talking about time. And do you know why? It’s because
we do not have the time for it.
We are going to try and understand time in its many faces. No, I was
not referring to the faces of watches or clocks. I was referring to the
many meanings that time has. Oh yes it does! You thought that time
meant the same to everyone. Well think again; or maybe you could try to
explain the logic behind the following cases.
Picture a farmer who plants a sapling of a tree that would
probably take ten to twelve years to reach the stage when it would
start to bear fruit, by then the farmer would in likelihood be under
the soil himself.
Picture a jailbird in bird counting on the bars of his cell
waiting for the seconds, minutes, and hours, days, weeks, months and
years to go by before he can be free again.
Now picture a young couple madly in love with each other
cherishing the few minutes they get to spend with each other every day,
cursing time because it flies so fast when they are together and never
the other way round.
So what does time mean to you?
When was the last time that you realized the value of time?
The answer is probably the last time you watched one of
those Hollywood thrillers in which the hero is driving a car in which a
time-bomb has been planted and the hero is unaware of this. But we
being the getting-to-see-it-all audience watch with bated breath as the
tiny needle of the timer ticks towards the point at which the explosion
is sure to occur.
But just before that, the hero hits the brakes screeches to
a halt to avoid hitting that old lady crossing the road. And when he
jumps out to help her cross the road the needle reaches the point and
the bomb is exploded. And our hero is safe. It’s funny how the hero
always escapes without a scratch in these movies. But I expect that’s
why they call them heroes.
Now we are really transgressing aren’t we? So back to our
subject that is Time Management.
Do you know what is interesting about the concept of Time?
It is absolutely uncontrollable.
Personally I believe that there is something very humbling
about this concept. Just imagine, man with all his power is just like a
helpless babe before time. There it is Time stands tall and strong
before man and man remains vulnerable and weak before it. Man, the big
strong man who tamed rivers and seas, who reached out to the skies and
beyond, who harnessed wind and water and dug up the bowels of the earth
is but a worm before Time.
The best he can do to win the battle against time
is die is hair and use some anti-wrinkle cream on his face.
In fact, the closest that man has got towards conquering time is those
many history books that have been penned; they are of course chronicles
of events that happened long ago and that is certainly not much to
boast about.
And so now we come to our subject that is time management
because after all the illustrations given above, I hope that I have
made one point clear, that is that Time cannot be controlled, it can
only be managed. And that is what we are going to do. We are going to
learn the art of time management. I don’t want you to have an air of
helplessness. You might begin to feel that if the battle cannot be won,
then what is point in putting up a struggle? Ah, but there you are
missing out on a very important point. In all the illustrations that I
used above, I was referring to man in general and not to one particular
Tom, Dick or Harry.
So you can see that this aspect of time is applicable to
every human being and there is no running away from it. Every person
has only twenty four hours in a day and no force on earth can alter
that. So in order to get the cutting edge what you have to do is to be
able to manage your time in the most effective way possible.
And that is what Time management is all about. It’s about
managing your time effectively and if I may I would like to add the
word efficiently too.
Now, when we talk about our resources, every one
knows that we are referring to the resources like fossil fuels,
forests, mineral wealth, and water bodies and so on. But surprisingly
time is never included in this list. When we talk about non-renewable
resources, fossil fuels like coal, petroleum and natural gas top the
list. But what about time? A point that most people tend to forget is
that time is the most valuable resource that we have, and time once
lost, is lost for ever. We can think about alternate sources of energy
for fossil fuels like electricity, fuel cells, solar energy and the
research goes on. But is there any alternative for time that is lost.
Again I stress on the point that time once lost, is lost
forever. And hence we have the proverb, “time and tide waits for no
man.”
Chapter 2
We live in our own
Time cages.
You might remember the earlier which I had quoted in which I mentioned
the farmer, a jailbird and the couple in love. It might have been
difficult to figure out the differences behind the same concept of time
applied to three different instances. In order to clear that up, I
would like to introduce you to two people. The first person is Ben and
the second person is Bob. Please say hi to Ben and Bob. Ben and Bob say
hi to you reader.
Right, now that you have said hi to one another let me proceed to tell
you a little more about these two fine gentlemen. Ben lives in the
city. He works as a Market Analyst for a firm called @$#& Oops!
For privacy reasons, Ben has asked me not to reveal the name of his
company. Well, I guess that that’s ok with us Ben. We aren’t too nosy
are we? So getting on with Ben, Ben loves his job and he is one of the
best in his field.
He has an office on the 56th floor of one of
those skyscrapers down town. In fact, even if he takes an elevator, it
would take him a good 2 minutes to reach his floor. I need not say that
Ben has a very busy life. He does a lot of running around, he does
market surveys, he doesn’t do it directly; he has people to do the
dirty work for him. But still he does a lot of running around and he is
on his toes all day long. No he is not a ballet dancer; that was just a
figure of speech that I used to tell you how busy he is. So let’s take
a closer look at Ben’s life without appearing
nosy.
Ding-a-ling-a-ling! That’s bens alarm clock gone off at 6 in the
morning and Ben is up already. Just look at him, though he is in
his…well…underwear, he still looks as large as life and as right as
rain. What makes a man all perked up than a good night’s sleep. There,
Ben is already out of the bathroom and he has put on a track suit. At
half past six, he is already in his car and heading for the gym.
I forgot to tell you that Ben is one hell of a
looker and is very conscious about his trim body. And in order to keep
it that way he works out in the gym every single day and that too for
an hour. So that means at quarter to eight he is on his way back home.
There is a fifteen minute drive from his apartment to the gym. At 8.15
he has had a shower and dressed and is going down the elevator holding
his morning paper in his hand. His office is only a ten minute drive
from his apartment but at this rush hour, the traffic just crawls. So
Ben chooses to use his electric razor in the car while he is driving,
dangerous though it may seem. Did you really think a man could have a
shave and a shower in just 15 minutes? Well, think again. And so the
traffic crawls on and Ben reaches his office at ten minutes to nine.
There is hardly time for him to grab a bite to eat, so what
he does is that he runs to the cafeteria and gets a sandwich and
coffee. The coffee he manages to gulp down but the sandwich remains in
its wrapper as he notices an interesting article in the newspaper that
was still tucked away under his arm. He reads it in the elevator on his
way up and reaches his office just in time for his secretary to tell
him that there is important meeting for him with the Board Members
within half an hour. Ben suddenly realizes that the meeting is about
some projects that he had done but the paper work was in no way
complete.
There is something like a whirlwind in the office as Ben and
his secretary strain themselves to get things done and finally just in
the nick of time, Ben is able to walk into the Board room with the
necessary documents with which Ben is in no way satisfied. It happens
with most last minute jobs you know.
The meeting goes on till noon, you know how people love to
talk, and Ben leaves the room with a lot of praises and even more new
assignments. He has had one more coffee, but the sandwich that he had
ordered is now fit for the waste bin. And mind you this is the third
time this week that Ben missed breakfast. Just before noon Ben gets a
seemingly endless number of calls from this agent and then that. Oh yes
his secretary had been screening the calls, you should see the number
of calls that she didn’t send his way.
At last by half past two Ben leaves his office and makes a
beeline to the cafeteria. Just as he takes a big bite out of his
monster burger, his cell phone beeps. He answers the call to find out
that it is a call from a very important client whom he had been trying
to fix an appointment with.
The client had agreed for an appointment which was to be had
immediately. Out rushes Ben and into the waste bin goes his burger. The
meeting turned out to better than he expected and a beaming Ben returns
to his office and sits down to a host of pending paper work which keeps
him occupied till seven in the evening. At half past seven he remembers
his date with Kellie and though he rushes to the spot, he reaches there
half an hour late and goes home without meeting Kellie and with an
empty stomach and a weary body. So much for working out and being
health conscious!
Now that you are acquainted with Ben I would like you to
meet Bob. Bob lives in the country. He has a farm. It is not a very big
farm; it is one of those medium sized farms from which you can get
enough produce to make both ends meet. Bob is up at when the cock crows
at five in the morning. As soon as he is up, he goes to his dairy and
milks his three cows. I must add that Bob does not walk, he ambles.
Having milked the cows he heads back to the farm and sits down with his
morning paper. He chats leisurely with his wife who is going about her
daily business. Around 8 he hops into his tractor and drives to the
nearby dairy to deliver the milk. There he meets a couple of his
friends and spends a good half hour exchanging news with them. He gets
back to the farm at nine and has a relaxed breakfast.
When breakfast is over, he puts on his straw-hat and taking
his dog along starts his daily excursion among his cornfields. His corn
has a couple a weeks to go before harvest and now there is nothing much
to do but walk around inspecting the rat traps. At eleven he is back at
the farm and settles down to listen to his radio playing some old
favorite tunes. He has lunch at 1 and then settles down in his favorite
chair for a long afternoon siesta. In the evening he again goes to milk
his cows, gives them some fresh feed and has one more walk around the
farm.
After dinner by seven, by eight he is in bed and the lights
are out.
Let’s admit it, Bobs life is so leisurely that we
feel like screaming when we watch the pace at which he gets along. He
is happy and contented and the only clock in his farm stopped ticking a
few years ago. We cannot even draw a parallel line between the lives of
bob and Ben. They are two worlds apart. The point I was trying to drive
home is that it is our life style that decides how much time we have
for each thing. The way we live and what we do decides how we spend our
time and how much time we have to spend. We choose our life styles and
that decides what we do with our time and that is why I said that we
live in our own Time cages.
(Psst…I do not think there are many Bobs alive in
the world
today.)
So what kind of life do you live? We, that is most of us live in a
world of aero planes, and jets, and fast cars and supercomputers and
elevators and escalators, and electric trains and a thousand more
contraptions and machines that are all intended to save time and do
things faster.
Yeah, yeah we talk about convenience, but the fact is that
all these machines were the result of man’s endeavor to get things done
faster. And the result is that life moves so fast that we could get
dizzy if we were to take a minute break and just look around at all the
people whizzing around in the daily business called life.
Twenty four hours is hardly enough for us to finish a day’s
work. And so what most working people do is that they start
compromising on the other seemingly not so important thing like eating
and getting eight hours sleep in the night. And so we have such a large
number of people suffering from stress related diseases like ulcers,
high blood pressure and heart problems.
We cannot do much about the life style that we have chosen. It’s is
simply impossible that we suddenly decide to take a break, quit the
job, go to the country and live like Bob on his farm. For one thing,
there are not that many farms in the country and for a second thing,
most of us would die like fishes out of water if we were to settle down
in the country. After all, how many of us know how to milk a cow?
What does that mean, are we all doomed o suffer as ulcer patients and
blood pressure patients? Far from it; if we are able to manage our time
effectively we ca live a city life that is as enjoyable and comfortable
as Bob’s life in the country. And that is the purpose of this
book.
But that is not all. The main purpose of this book is to
help you manage your time better so that you can become more productive
and bring a lot of organizing into your life. You will be surprised to
find out how much one can do provided one has the time for it and one
can have the time only if ones time is organized and managed well.
So if you must build yourself a Time cage, go ahead and do
so but make sure you make it big enough so that you have time for every
thing and do not feel all cramped and cluttered in a single
celled prison.
Chapter 3
Where does all the
time go?
It is quite surprising when you sit and think about where
all the time in one day goes. Twenty four hours is really a lot of
time. But on most days it scarcely seems enough. But this is because of
certain misconceptions about time. Let us proceed to carefully examine
where all that time goes and find out if twenty four hours really
is. For that I have listed out certain points which will help
you to get a realistic view about how much time you really have in a
day.
Point 1
We do not really get twenty four hours in a day. Maybe it’s
because we always talk about the twenty four hours in a day, we get the
feeling that we really do have twenty four hours to finish our daily
business and the fact is that we do not. Assuming that you hit the sack
at least by twelve in the night and taking for granted the fact that
you need at least seven hours of sleep; let me fix your waking time at
seven in the morning.
That means that you have already lost seven hours, which we
can deduct from twenty four, giving us only fourteen waking hours.
Waking hours does not mean the hours you take to wakeup but the hours
that you are awake. So let us get that straight, we have only 14 hours
in a day. Now if you think that all those fourteen hours can be used
for productive work, you are wrong again. For we come to our next
point.
Point 2
The fourteen waking hours cannot be used completely for
productive work. There are many things that a human being should do in
order to continue to live like a human being and some of theses things
do take up a lot of time. Now the following list that I have drawn up
is sure to vary from person to person. But I have taken the times for
each action on what I felt to e reasonable times as far as any normal
human being is concerned.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->Ø<!--[endif]-->Taking
a shower.
Most of us take a shower at least once in a day and the time
I think we can put down for that is ten minutes. For those of you
cleaner ones who shower twice a day put that as twenty minutes.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->Ø<!--[endif]-->Answering
the call of nature
Oh yes, we are all very cultured people who have the best of
manners and upbringing. We dress ourselves properly and conduct
ourselves with the utmost poise. But there are several times in a day
when we have to go back to nature and summing up all those things we do
in the bath room I think a good half hour should be enough.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->Ø<!--[endif]-->Getting
ready and tidying ourselves.
When we move about in society definitely we have to look our
best and adding up all the minutes that we spend in front of that
mirror, we get another ten minutes. For some people of course, this
figure comes up to half an hour. But I think ten minutes is good
enough.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->Ø<!--[endif]-->Eating
We need to eat to live and though I accept the fact that
people have different eating habits and times, I think that and I’m
sure doctors will agree with me that a person needs three meals a day
and should take at least ten minutes to ingest a meal and not just
gobble it down. So that makes it 30 minutes for food.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->Ø<!--[endif]-->Time
to relax.
Please do not raise an argument now. I promise to deal with
this bit later on. But right now I would like to put down one hour as
the time to relax, and this includes the time that you get to yourself
for prayer or meditation or just to stare out of your window or perhaps
the few extra minutes that you spend in your bed after waking up,
waiting for the last traces of sleep to go away.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->Ø<!--[endif]-->Time
with family and friends.
Please we are human beings, aren’t we? And we certainly
cannot get along with our business of life without chatting a few
minutes every now and then with our friends and the family too. So with
your permission, I would like to deduct another hour from your waking
time.
So now what do we have left?
We started off with 14 hours of waking time. And we proceed
to add up all the time that we accounted for in the above mentioned
points; let us see how much time we have left for productive work
provided we still want to exist as human beings.
The activities mentioned above would take when put together
a good three hours and twenty minutes. That is 3 hours and 20 minutes.
I put it down in both numerals and words so that you can get a real
taste of the figure.
Now if we proceed to subtract this figure from our 14 hours
of waking time, what do we get? We are left with just ten hours forty
minutes. In figures that is 10 hours 40 minutes.
And that is a fact. That is all that we get. So from now on
don’t you think that it would e more realistic to say that we have just
ten hour and forty minutes to accomplish a day’s work and not twenty
four hours. For if we continue to believe that we have twenty four
hours, then we are in effect deceiving ourselves.
But wait there is more to this story than meets the eye. I
hate to disillusion you but these crucial hours that we have
painstakingly added up are not really put to constructive use. There
are certain things called time waster which you have to look out for
and that is what we are going to deal with in our next chapter.
Chapter 4
How to identify
‘time killers’ that waste your time.
Till now, we have been harping about how valuable time is
and how time lost is time lost forever and so on. But now we come to a
strange concept and that is ‘Time Killers’. The very word sound like
sacrilege doesn’t it? How can one talk about killing such a valuable
resource. But that’s the way the story goes. Thee are a lot of time
killers in this world and what you have to do is that you have to
identify these time killers, look out for them and stay wary of tem.
Only then can you put your available time to the maximum possible
use.
The time killers that I have listed below are more or less
general. They are things that most of us encounter. But apart from
these, each one of us may have unique time killers that are particular
to our style of living and way of work. Be smart and identify these
killers. When I talk about killers, do not get the impression of masked
men lurking in shadows brandishing guns and knives. The killers that I
am referring to are quite ordinary every day things that we see and use
in our lives but often do not realize how much of our time they take
away.
The funny thing about telephone calls is that these
instruments are indeed great time savers. In fact the amount of time
that people get to save thanks to telephones is stupendous. The problem
arises when telephones are not used properly. Most people do not
understand and even if they do they forget that telephones are not to
be used for lengthy conversations. For one thing, another person may be
trying to reach you and there is nothing as exasperating as trying to
reach a person over the telephone and being confronted with a busy
tone. So the first thing about a telephone conversation is that it
should be brief.
Another thing about telephones is that most people do not
know how to use a telephone properly. In stead of immediately
identifying themselves and asking directly for the person they want,
some people go on playing a lot of “who is speaking” games once they
make a call or answer the telephone.
Now coming to mobile phones there is a lot to be said and
done. What should be done is turn off your cell phone when you are
having a conversation or a discussion with more than one person. As
soon as you get a call, you may ask the people you were talking to
excuse yourself but you leave them waiting while you chuckle and giggle
over your
phone.
Often we tend to give ore importance to the caller than to the person
we were having the discussion with. Again the same rule applies here.
Be brief. A mobile phone is to be used to get an important message
across to a person who you were not able to reach on the land line.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->The next point
is about those chatter boxes. Haven’t we all met them? They simply love
the sound of their own voices and once they open their mouths, there is
no stopping them. They waste not only your time but their time as well.
Steer clear of such people. Believe me, it is much easier to avoid such
people than to tell them to shut up and if you get a telephone call
from such a person, use a caller ID facility or ask your secretary to
divert the call.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->Traffic jams
and finding parking spaces. Any one who has lived in the city for at
least a day will know what I am talking about. There is no getting past
a traffic jam at the rush hour. And will someone tell me whit is called
the rush hour when that is the time when the traffic is the slowest.
The only thing you can do is anticipate the traffic jam and
leave your home a half hour or one hour early. But that does not really
keep the time killer at bay. It just helps you to avoid being late. In
this respect you have two options. Either you could find something
constructive to do while you wait for the traffic to move along or the
traffic light to change or a better option would be to take subway and
walk the rest of the way. You can get a long a lot faster on your feet
and it is a lot better for your health as well.
By doing so, you can also get rid of the headache of finding
a parking space.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->Not
surprisingly lengthy meetings and discussions can prove to be awful
time killers particularly if the meeting does not have a clear agenda
and if there are people who love top talk among the group. It has been
found that most middle and senior level mangers spend nearly 70% of
their work time talking. And in most organizations, parleying has been
made into a fine art.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->Bad machinery
is a time waster. How many of us have wanted to sit and scream and bang
the daylights out of a pc that does not give us the required data or
information. A computer that takes a long time to start up, a
photocopier that gives shamefully faint photocopies, even a leaky
faucet or a stubborn drawer or door knob can waste a lot of time and
send us up the wall. If you have such equipment or machinery, get it
changed at the earliest possible date. It is worth the amount of time
and energy that you waste on it every day.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->Long queues
certainly waste a lot of time. That does not mean that you have to jump
the queue. If you can get the job done over the telephone or can
reserve your ticket in advance, do it, even if it means a few extra
dollars, it is worth the time you may have to spend waiting.
Apart from these each person may have particular time
wasters, like for instance, a car that refuses to start in the morning,
difficult hair that insists on looking like Medusas head on a bad snake
day, an elevator that takes for ever to reach your floor. Use your
common sense and try to find alternate methods or even better, if you
cannot find an alternate method, you could put the time to some use
like read your morning paper in the elevator.
You will get a better idea of how to get over time killers
once we handle the section called the time savers.
Chapter 5
Organizing is the
key to Time Management.
Tips on Office Organization.
Now this is fact that I think would not raise any arguments.
If you are better organized you have a better chance of managing your
time effectively. So what is this art of getting organized? There have
been enough and more books written about the art of getting organized.
And I do not want to give my modest contribution to this much hyped
about topic.
Instead of working on somebody else’s definition let me ask
you, how organized do you want to be? When we talk about getting
organized people generally get an impression of a spick and span office
with not a paper out of place. But my experience has taught me that a
neat office does not necessarily have to be a very organized office. If
you throw away every single piece of paper that comes to your office,
certainly your office will be neat but not organized. I believe that
organizing is a relative term. It is all a matter of convenience.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->In an organized
office there will be a place for every thing and everything will be in
its place. But at the same time you should be able to lay your hands on
the object you need the moment you need it. And in this respect a
little bit of clutter is ok.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->And it is not
enough that you know where every thing is, somebody else should know it
too. In case you are not able to come in person and get something,
somebody else should be able to do the job for you. It is here that
labels and tags can prove to be vital. Every single file should have a
name tag and every thing should be filed properly. It is not enough
that you name things according to your convenience. The names should be
intelligible to others as well.
Often we tend to use codes like ARCS, CRBER,WHOSH which
might make sense to us but may sound like double Dutch to every one
else. Now that’s enough about office organization.
Let’s now move on to getting yourself organized.
Tips on self organization
The best way to get organized is to find out the loop holes
where we usually end up in a mess and see whether we can get around
them.
For every working man or woman, the following are often
pitfalls:
<!--[if !supportLists]-->Ø<!--[endif]-->Forgetting to
take important documents ad things along
<!--[if !supportLists]-->Ø<!--[endif]-->Misplacing
Objects and so on
I have used the following tips in my life and they have
proved to be quite effective. Maybe you too could try them out and see
whether they work for you.
Nine hints to become a more organized
person
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->Accept the fact
that we cannot rely too much on our memories.
The human mind is exposed to a hurricane of information
every day. As a result the mind does a very nice filtering process and
very little of what we see and hear is retained in our minds. So
instead of depending on our very selective memory why not depend on a
piece of paper.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->Carry a tiny
scribbling pad and a pen with you all the time.
The moment you fix an appointment or are asked to attend a
meeting, jot it down in the scribbling pad. Do not bother about others
laughing at you. You will have the last laugh in the end.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->It is a good
idea to write it down orders in your book.
Each time you tell somebody to do something or when somebody
like your boss asks you to do something write it down in your book
along with the date and the time. Do not be afraid of being thought
about as a person with a very poor memory. It won’t be long before
people start thinking of you as a highly organized person.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->If you have an
electronic pocket organizer be sure to use it.
Each time someone gives you his or her telephone number,
immediately enter it into your pocket organizer, along with the
person’s name of course.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->Use the
backside of business cards to help your memory.
Usually we get a lot of business cards as we go about our
daily business of life. The business card of course contains the name
of the person, his or her telephone number and probably the name of the
firm for which the person works. But the problem is, the next time we
meet the person, the face may seem familiar but we won’t have the
foggiest idea as to where we met the person. The best thing to do would
be to jot down a few points about the person and probably the reason
for meeting him or her and the place as well. This will certainly
lessen the load on your memory centre. But take never to do
it in front of the person.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->Keep away the
business cards properly
As soon as you get back to your office take care to keep
away the business cards you collected properly. Don’t just stuff them
into your card folder. Take care to read them properly and perhaps keep
the cards of important clients separately. If you do not find much use
for a person’s card, toss it.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->Prepare a to-do
list everyday.
I cannot over-emphasize the importance of to-do lists in
getting yourself organized. It is probably the most sensible thing that
a busy person should do. In fact I thought of devoting an entire
chapter for to-do lists and I think that is just what I will do.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->Plan what you
have to do well in advance.
It is a good idea to have daily, weekly and monthly plans.
No this is not about expanding your business and things like that. I am
not referring to a strategy plan that involves takeovers and mergers.
Those things are beyond the scope of this book. I was referring to
having plans about the daily, weekly and monthly activities of your
business and yourself as well.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->Have a fixed
timetable.
It may seem kind of mechanical but it would be wonderful if
you could have a fixed time for everything and try to stick religiously
to the time table. Believe me it really helps because in that way you
will have time for everything and everything can be done in the time
for it.
And so you are now moving towards becoming a more organized
person.
But there are still miles to go before mastering the art of
time management. And that brings us to our next chapter.
Chapter 6
To-do lists
I had mentioned earlier the importance of ‘to-do’ lists and
this chapter is dedicated completely to highlighting the advantages of
a ‘to-do’ list.
The 6 advantages of maintaining a to-do
list
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->A to do list
helps us know the different things that have do be done so that we do
not miss anything.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->A to do list is
more dependable than our memory.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->Once we have a
written list of the things that we have to do, we can prioritize and
decide which jobs should be done first.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->Sometimes one
or more jobs may require that we go to another office or section. A to
do list helps us to avoid repetition of labor. For example, if we have
to deliver a document at an office and collect a document from another
office which is on the same block as the first office, both these tasks
can be done together. It saves us the time energy and effort of going
to the same place twice. But only if we have a ‘to-do’ list can we know
in n advance that there are two jobs at the same place. This is the way
post men operate when they deliver mail.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->A to do list
enables us to cross out the tasks which have finished doing and towards
the end of the day when we see the list of things that we have crossed
out, it certainly will give us a sense of accomplishment and
satisfaction. It also has the effect of shocking us if nothing at all
has been done and crossed out.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->·<!--[endif]-->If anything
remains on today’s list, it can be carried over to tomorrows list and
that is excellent way of preparing a to-do list
for the day, by examining the ‘to-do’ list of yesterday and
carrying out any task that has been left without completion.
Now, when we talk about preparing a to-do list, there two
important points that should not be missed out.
The ‘to-do’ list should be realistic.
It is not enough that only daily ‘to-do’ lists be
prepared.
We say that the list should be realistic because it should
include only things that can be accomplished in a day. There is no
sense in preparing a list that includes items that can only be done
over a week. And it is here that it becomes relevant to prepare a
‘to-do’ list for a week and a month and even a year.
It is best to pin up weekly and monthly lists instead of
carrying them around. And then a very crucial point that you should
bear in mind is that a weekly list is not something
to be done on the last day of the week and a monthly list is not
something to be done at the end of the month. I
have put that down in italics because that is what most people do. If
it is a task that has to be completed at the end of the month, it is on
the 30th of the month that they take up the task.
So your daily to do list should include an item on doing a
little bit on the task that is to be completed at the end of the month.
Does this help towards meeting deadlines?
Chapter 7
Prioritizing helps
in meeting deadlines.
It is not once or twice in the course of our work that we
have to meet deadlines. They crop up every now and then. That is ok
enough it is only that when we approach the deadline everything goes
haywire and there is a mess everywhere. The things we do daily are
thrown completely off gear and meeting the deadline becomes a big head
ache.
Is there any way out of this? Of course there is. For one
thing, if we are well organized and an urgent requirement, like the
submission of a project or something like that crops up, there is
nothing to sweat about. All we have to do is to compile the material
that we already have with us. Easy enough it sounds!
But in real life we are not just called upon to submit
reports of already completed projects. We usually get projects and
fewer days than required to complete those projects. Then what do we
do? The only way out seems to be having to work extra hours. That is
not altogether harmful. It never hurts to work a few extra hours once
in a while.
But another alternative is to prioritize. See
whether you can arrange your work in such away that you get to do the
more important tasks first. If there is some daily work that doesn’t
call for too much urgency, keep it aside. Concentrate on the more
important tasks.
Similarly, while you are working there may be a thousand and
one distractions at your work place or office.
You will have to decide which is more important, attending
to those distractions or focusing on your work. If you can afford to
turn off your cell phone, go ahead and do it. Similarly, you could even
keep your land phone off the hook if that won’t create a ruckus in your
office that is.
Anther thing you could do is put up a do-not –disturb sign
inn your workstation to ward off those disturbances.
You might also have to remind yourself to stay put at your
workstation and not linger around either mentally or physically.
It is not necessary that you do all the jobs yourself. If
you have a secretary or subordinates, it is about time that you started
trusting them with not so very important jobs. The word over
here is ‘delegate’.
Delegation can be a mangers best time saver.
The three advantages of delegating are:
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<!--[endif]-->Delegating
gives us more time to concentrate on more important issues.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<!--[endif]-->Delegating is a
very good method f giving practical training in the real situation to
our staff.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<!--[endif]-->It is a good
method of fostering decision making among subordinates.
But at the same time all tasks cannot be delegated. There
are certain criteria to be taken into consideration before delegating a
task.
The criteria for deciding whether a task can be delegated
are.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->1.<!--[endif]-->If the task is
repetitive, by all means delegate.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->2.<!--[endif]-->If the decision
can be reversed quickly and easily, it is safe to delegate. For example
if is rearranging the furniture in your office or deciding on the
Christmas celebrations at the office, then it is quite safe to
delegate.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->3.<!--[endif]-->Check and see
if the impact is not too much on others in case the decision is wrong
<!--[if !supportLists]-->4.<!--[endif]-->Check and see
if there is too much money or physical resources involved in the
decision.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->5.<!--[endif]-->Check if
delegating is within the companies existing policies.
In this way, if you prioritize you can decide which jobs
should be done first, who should do it and what should be done when.
Before you know it, meeting deadlines will stop being such a headache.
Chapter 8
Accomplishing more
in less time
We have all experienced those days which were full to the
brim and at the same time we have experienced days when a few time
consuming tasks have taken up all our time. Why is it that on
some days we can do so much while on other days we seem to do
practically nothing though we were busy the whole day?
In order to provide an answer to this question, I would like
to give you a small illustration. You have been to the beach, haven’t
you? There you might have seen kids building sand castles with sand.
You can only build a sand castle with sand of course, but I hope you
have seen those kids at work. What they do is that they dig up sand
with their spades and fill up their pails with sand. Then they turn
over the pails and hey presto they have the base of the castle which
can then be shaped.
No, we are not concerned with building castles in the sand
or in Spain or wherever. We are concerned about those pails which the
kids use to build their castles. If you have such a pail with you, you
can understand what I am talking about. Try putting a few
small rocks into the pail. When I say rocks I mean rocks probably the
size of medium sized cabbages. The most you can put into the pail would
be three or four and even these would stick out into the air.
The pail is full isn’t it? It is full of rocks. But does
that mean that it is really full. Now get some pebbles probably the
size of table tennis balls and see whether there is room for a couple
of the in the pail. Definitely four or five of the pebbles can slip in
to the spaces between the rocks. Is the pail full now? Yes it is full
of rocks and pebbles. Now if you will oblige me, see if you can get
some glass marbles or beads. Slide them into the pail. You don’t have
to try too hard; they will find their own paths.
If you think that the pail is full now, think again. Just
wait till you get some sand and pour it into the pail. You will be
amazed at the speed with which it trickles in. And we are not done yet.
You are not going to believe this but the pail will actually
accommodate something more. Try pouring a glass of water into it and
you will find the water disappearing into the depths of the pail. If
you want, you can keep pouring water till the pail brims over. But that
is not our intention.
The purpose of this experiment was to show you that what you
thought to be full could in fact accommodate much more, but of a
different kind of course.
This is exactly what happens to most of us on most of our
days. We take on big tasks. That’s well and good. But we get so
occupied with these Herculean tasks, which may take more than a day to
get over with anyway, that we tend to forget those smaller tasks which
may be just as important. This is where we can understand the
importance of prioritizing. The big things are important, but the small
things may be just as important.
While you are trying to handle those rocks, do not forget
those pebbles, marbles, and grains of sand and drops of water. Some
people have asked me to give specific examples for these materials. So
I would like to take a minute to compare. I believe that things like
saying good morning and greeting others generally are very important if
you are working in an organization. These things I would compare to the
water. Just because you have had a busy day, it doesn’t mean that you
have to be a grouch.
Telephone calls (remember to be brief) I would liken to the
sand. They keep coming all the time. And if you do not answer your
telephone calls people will start thinking you do not work there
anymore. Responding to emails and dispatching bills and payments can be
compared to the marbles Meetings and discussions are the pebbles and
major projects and things like audits and presentations are the rocks.
There should be time for everything and everything should
have it’s time.
And with this I would like to tell you to please
discard the myth of perfection. It does not exist in this world.
Nothing and I mean nothing is perfect. So, it is not really important
that everything has to be shipshape. As long as it is presentable you
don’t have to lose sweat about a project that you have done. But that
does not mean that your work should be shabby. Make it as presentable
as is possible within the time frame allotted.
And in order to accomplish more within lesser time it’s
about time we took a look at those time savers and that takes us to our
next chapter.
Chapter 9
Time savers
Everything in this world has something to balance its
existence. If there is white, there is black; if there is darkness
there is light, if there are time wasters, there are time savers. So
now let us focus our attention towards those time savers because they
are our best friends when we talk about Time Management.
Again, as in the case of time killers, I am just listing out
a few general examples over here. These are by no means the only time
savers in the world.
Surprise! Surprise! I had included telephones under the list
of time killers but telephones are in fact one of the best time savers
that man has invented. Just imagine the amount of time you get to save
by just making a telephone call!
Suppose you are to have a business lunch (sometimes called a
working lunch) with an important client. Obviously you have to reserve
a table in your favorite restaurant. Now, imagine you have to go there
in person and get things done directly. The task would easily take away
at least two or three hours of your time when you take into account the
journey, the traffic and all that. On the other hand, this is something
you can easily do over the telephone while you are comfortably seated
in your office.
So telephones are certainly one of the best time savers in
this world. But of course, it all depends on how you use the telephone.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->ü<!--[endif]-->Computers
I don’t think that enough can be said about the time saving
roles of the computer. But then I don’t think that I have to say much.
I suppose every one will agree that computers are indeed time-saving
machines.
<!--[if !supportLists]-->ü<!--[endif]-->Elevators
Next we come to elevators and elevators too we know save a
lot of time that we would other wise have to spend plodding up flights
and flights of steps. Elevators save not just time but energy as well.
But one annoying thing about elevators is that sometimes even f we
punch the button repeatedly, the elevator takes for ever to reach or
floor.
Now, if you just have to go two or three floors up or down
in such cases it is always better to take the stairs instead of waiting
ten or fifteen minutes for the elevator to come to your floor. It’s
better for your health too, top climb a few stairs every day. %
