Managing Time

Managing time is the act of deciding and controlling the amount of time spent on different activities. To achieve success in any field, it is crucial to arrange and manage time properly. Good time management helps to complete more tasks in a shorter duration, reduces stress, and paves the way to success. It empowers one to take on new opportunities and sustainably grow in all spheres of life.

Rampant organizational restructuring, fast-paced technological advancement, market uncertainty, shorter product or service life cycle, addition in value for money, and limited resources are among the factors that put the squeeze on managers to get much more out of their working day. Information overload makes it difficult to separate the useful information from the masses of data or to spot real opportunities and priorities. Most of the incoming emails are tagged with “high importance” and demand immediate attention or responses.

We all are responsible for misusing time in many ways. All these time-wasting activities cumulatively have a significant impact on productivity and effectiveness. Thinking more about tasks that are either incomplete or have not started yet can lead to stress. Poor work habits are easily picked up over time and can be deep-rooted to such an extent that they remain unquestioned or quintessential. This keeps people unaware of how their habits play an important role in causing problems of the time.

Many misperceptions can prevent us from managing time properly. A few of them are cited below:

The misperception of being indispensable: If you have got all the answers, you will, undoubtedly, receive the major share of the problems.

The misperception of misplaced values: Working late every night or answering emails late at night does not mean that your company will value you more. This means that you need to re-organize to fit things into your workday. If you fail to do so, your employer may benefit from your extra time, not you; rather your work-life balance will get badly affected.

The misperception of looking busy: Apparently ‘busyness’ does not mean that you are busy with important things. It shows that you may have no time to see, hear, understand or help others.

The misperception of being helpful: It states that you are a gullible person who can not say “no”. Although it is difficult to say “no” again and again, eventually it will be better for you and the people related to you.

It is, therefore, imperative to contemplate and find out the time-wasters for you. A tentative list of time-wasting activities or habits is cited below to help you discover the biggest time-wasters for you.

Interruptions – calls, messages, visitors like superiors, subordinates, clients, etc.
Meetings – Frequent and longer, inside or outside
Procrastination – habitual delay, fear of failure
Bulk or junk mails
Being tagged in cc: or “for information” mails
Unclear objectives
Unstructured report formats
Social media – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
Internet surfing – for not so obvious reasons
Gaming – too long or at work
Lack of automation
Travel – Frequent travels within or out of the city
Squirrel mentality – unfocused determination, tendency to start a new project, never finish it fully and then move on to a newer one
Teething problems – issues connected with a new project or at the beginning of a new process or activity?
Others

Once the time-wasters are discovered, attempt to prioritize tasks by urgency and importance in the four quadrants of The Eisenhower Matrix as shown below. This will help in sorting out the tasks which you should do right now or schedule for a later date and time or which you should either delegate or not do at all.