Time Management

Articles » Business Management

The key to effective leadership-of yourself and others, is the ability to manage resources within the constraints of time, budgets, the market, your boss and the political environment.  Time Management is probably the most important.  If you find yourself saying, "I just don't have enough time", then it's probably your own fault.

It's all too easy to blame everyone else for the fact that you have to take work home, that you missed deadlines, that the day's work is never planned and that you end up doing everything yourself because nobody else can do it.  The reality is your level of Time Management.  Furthermore, you never have time to prepare for all those meetings.  You can convince yourself that the reason other people cope better than you is because your job is different or more demanding, and your staff cannot give you adequate support.  The reality is that every job has its tensions and stresses.  Getting control of your time is your responsibility and the problem belongs to nobody but you.  Just remember, that without effective Time Management everything else you do may be not able to be done to your best ability.  So effective Time Management is the key to your level of performance in every facet of your work.

 

Identify and bring under control the areas in which your time tends to slip away unprofitably.  Research shows that the most common in time stealers are:

 

  • Confused responsibility and authority.
  • A lack of objectives and priorities.
  • Ineffective delegation.
  • Meetings.
  • Telephone interruptions.
  • Visitors who drop in.
  • Emergencies.
  • Trying to do too much at once.
  • Cluttered desk/personal disorganisation.
  • Indecision/procrastination.
  • An inability to say "No".
  • Unclear communication.
  • Delayed or inaccurate information.
  • Tasks left unfinished.
  • Untrained or inadequate staff.

 

To get back your time so that you can be effective in your job you need to deal with all the above plus any others that are special your particular workplace.