Time Management

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Time Management in the Modern Workplace

Being time - sensitive people , we have surrounded ourselves with time-saving devices indeed , a substantial portion of human activity is dedicated to finding ways to accomplish the same thing in less time . But despite our efforts to make things happen faster , many of us find that we are always pressed for time and , in a final irony , we spend a substantial percentage of our time to pay for our time-saving devices (Harvard

. xii

According to Harvard Business School (2005 , humankind has been intensely interested in time and its passing since at least the time of the Ancient Egyptians ancient people noted the sun 's measured progress against the backdrop of the stars and used it to demarcate the year Similarly , the Mayan priest of the Mesoamerica were especially dedicated to time with remarkable precision they calculated its passing in days and years and used this knowledge to regulate agriculture and the rituals of the daily life

Goal Setting

Goals are the starting point of effective management they act as a compass , pointing the way to the things on which a person should be concentrating on his time (Harvard . 1

When we set goals , we commit to outcomes that we can accomplish personally or through our team . Based on this , by setting goals and measuring their achievement , we can focus on what is important , provide a unified direction for our team , devote less energy to non-critical tasks , avoid time wasters , motivate ourselves , and boost overall job satisfaction (Harvard . 2

Time Management

Time management is a conscious attempt to control and allocate finite time resources . Concern with time and speed is the most apparent in the workplace , where it now impinges on the lives of managers , technical professionals , and supervisors to the point of creating a minor industry of time management seminars , day-planners , PDAs and scheduling software (Harvard . xiv . According to the Harvard Business School (2005 effective management has many benefits which include a reduction in wasted time , mitigation of work overload , and higher levels of personal productivity and perhaps the most important , time management ensures that the most important task get done

Based on the Harvard Business School (2005 , the need for time management in the workplace is underscored by the frenetic pace of modern managerial life . They spend almost no time sitting quietly in contemplation of the future instead , they are on and off the phone very few minutes , running in and out of meetings , and dealing with problems that appear out of nowhere

Sorting Out Workplace

People can overcome immense difficulties , develop enormous strength and devise technology to defeat great enemies but they can accomplish these feats only one thing at a time (Kustemacher 4 . According to Kustemacher (2004 , anyone who doesn 't know where to start is helpless the biggest stress factor for our mind is multiple tasks which apply to everything we do . If we don 't know where to start , we can make progress if we don 't know where to find things in our workplace , we waste our time searching and we create chaos in our mind

Incidentally , if we think we don 't have time to tidy up our desk because we have too much to do , we should do it now even if it takes 2 to 3 hours , the time is invested will be worth it , because afterwards we will have a clear mind and we 'll feel better and more motivated and we 'll soon make for the lost time (Kustemacher 4

The Four Quadrant Method

The Four Quadrant Method ' has become known as the work secret of the U .S . presidents and it was called the Eisenhower rule it has become popularly known as the time management matrix (Kustemacher 4 . Work through the jungle of s on your desk consistently in a clockwise direction and put each on your desk consistently in a clockwise direction and put each into one of the four areas until one single piece of remains on it make sure you stick to the task . Don 't allow yourself to be distracted , and trust that the activity will give you enormous activity and enthusiasm

The four areas include throwing away , forwarding , important , and immediate action . The first area is for everything you can throw away ideally , you should put a large container there . According to this area the list of unnecessary items which should give ideas for more things to throw away includes : old travel brochures , news over one week old , catalogs over six month old , magazines without any articles you need in the long term , obsolete letterhead , maps more than three years old or maps of countries you wont visit in the next two years s from school or college , wall calendars from previous years recipes that you 're never going to use , instruction for appliances you no longer have , and warranties that have expired (Kustemacher 5 . The second area is for everything that you can pass on to others to deal with . The third areas is for everything you have to do yourself soon with each item of work you put into this area , be clear about what the next step will be . The fourth area is special : it is for s that you can deal with right now while tidying up

Meaningful Priority and Time Management

Priority management align our values , principles , and practice in the personal , priority people and professional domains (Clayton 30 According to Clayton , it asks us to examine big picture themes such as developing a strategy with integrity at work , helping priority people and having more fun . In the professional domain , time management will inevitably come down to our diary , our productivity habits and improvements to these professional management is consequently anchored around notions of efficiency and effectiveness

Creating and Using an Activity Log

If we were asked to write a chronology of our workday yesterday , we 'd surely remember the important things we did and approximately how much time we spent doing them . According to the Harvard Business School (2005 , to understand our time-spending patterns , we need to create a written record - an activity log - for at least three days , preferably for an entire week we should log every activity as we do it in that way , we won 't overlook anything , particularly the many brief activities and time wasters that are part of most people 's days . As we complete each line of activities , try to label it by specific categories such as email , work , and so forth whenever possible because categorizing will make it easier for us to analyze it later

From Analysis to Change

Documenting our time use and analyzing our findings are necessary first two steps in time management they are necessary but not sufficient a third step is required before we can improve : we must plan for change (Harvard . 23

Seeking the Causes of Time Mismanagement

After our analysis has identified bad time-use patterns , it 's time to find the causes . Based on the Harvard Business School (2005 , we should ask and answer tough personal questions such as : why am I spending so much time in low-value meetings what explains the amount of time I 'm frittering away on unscheduled visitors and incoming phone calls and why do I spend so much time on internet and e-mail

Interventions to Reduce the Adverse Effects of Workplace Stressors

Changes in the work environment and organizational culture are perhaps the easiest to make , and can include activities such as job design redesign , or enlargement participative decision making building social supports in the workplace team building task revision implementing employee assistance programs promoting equity in the pay and benefits eliminating occupational segregation promoting bias-free job evaluation programs promoting equal pay for equal work developing sexual health policies and diversity training initiatives , and supporting educational and skill development opportunities (qtd . in Stockdale 142

Intervention at the individual level are most common , typically classified as stress management programs such interventions are designed to help employees positively reframe workplace demands and stressors , helping to minimize distress which might include working employees to learn the use of negative feedback as a catalyst for change in behavior or attitude so as to prevent negative feedback (qtd . in Stockdale 142

Conclusion

The first of time management is to understand how currently we spend the time we have we can best accomplish this by keeping an activity . Its simpler to analyze an activity log over three to five days . It is simpler to analyze an activity log if we label each activity with general category (e .g , travel ) and assign it a goal-related priority The next step after activity analysis is to find the cause of mismanagement . The final step is problem correction the best way to correct the problem is to develop more effective habits of behavior by repeatedly practicing the effective behavior until it becomes a natural response or a habit (Harvard . 26

Works Cited

Clayton , D . Leadershift : The Work-Life Balance Program . New York : Aust Council for Ed Research , 2004

Harvard Business School . Time Management : Increase Your Personal Productivity And Effectiveness . New York : Harvard Business School , 2005

Kustemacher , T Seiwart , L . J . How to Simplify Your Life : Seven Practical Steps to Letting Go of Your Burdens and Living a Happier Life New York : McGraw-Hill Professional , 2004

Stockdale , M . S Crosby , F . J . The Psychology and Management of Workplace Diversity . New York : Blackwell Publishing , 2004

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