What Are the General Principles and Approaches to Time Management? - BBA First Semester LU Notes

General Principles of Time Management

Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity. It involves a juggling act of various demands upon a person relating to work, social life, family, hobbies, personal interests, and commitments with the finiteness of time. Using time effectively gives the person “choice” on spending/managing activities at their own time and expediency.

Major Themes in Time Management

The major themes arising from the literature on time management include the following:

1. Creating an environment conducive to effectiveness
2. Setting of priorities
3. The related process of reduction of time spent on non-priorities
4. Implementation of goals

Related Concepts

Time management is related to different concepts such as:

• Project Management: Time management can be considered a project management subset and is more commonly known as project planning and project scheduling. Time management has also been identified as one of the core functions in project management.

• Attention Management: This relates to managing cognitive resources, particularly the time that humans allocate their minds (and organize the minds of their employees) to conduct some activities.

• Organizational Time Management: This is the science of identifying, valuing, and reducing time cost wastage within organizations. It identifies, reports, and financially values sustainable time, wasted time, and effective time within an organization and develops the business case to convert wasted time into productive time through the funding of products, services, projects, or initiatives at a positive return on investment.

Analysis Techniques

ABCD Analysis

(IMPORTANT FOR EXAMS)

A technique that has been used in business management for a long time is the categorization of large data into groups, often marked A, B, C, and D. Activities are ranked by these general criteria:

• A: Tasks that are perceived as being urgent and important.
• B: Tasks that are important but not urgent.
• C: Tasks that are unimportant but urgent.
• D: Tasks that are unimportant and not urgent.

Each group is then rank-ordered by priority. To further refine the prioritization, some individuals choose to force-rank all “B” items as either “A” or “C.” ABC analysis can incorporate more than three groups and is frequently combined with Pareto analysis.

Pareto Analysis

The Pareto Principle is the idea that 80% of tasks can be completed in 20% of the given time, while the remaining 20% of tasks will take up 80% of the time. This principle is used to sort tasks into two parts. According to this form of Pareto analysis, it is recommended that tasks falling into the first category be assigned a higher priority.

The 80-20 rule can also be applied to increase productivity: it is assumed that 80% of productivity can be achieved by doing 20% of the tasks. Similarly, 80% of results can be attributed to 20% of activities. If productivity is the aim of time management, then these tasks should be prioritized higher.

The 7 Principles of Time Management

1. Have a clear vision:
   Ask yourself, “What am I actually trying to achieve?” The clearer you are about your vision, the more likely you are to achieve it. It’s as much about what you’re not going to do as it is about what you are; you are establishing limits. For example, “I will process my emails for no more than 20 minutes.”

2. Do one thing at a time:
   Successful people don’t take on too much. They concentrate on doing and finishing one thing at a time as far as possible. Little and often: The human mind works best when we apply this principle.

3. Define your limits:
   The best way to be creative is not to try to think without limits but to carefully define what those limits should be. Limitations actually encourage creativity. If you feel you can’t get going or you’re getting nowhere, it’s probably due to poorly defined limits. For instance, if you have a limited amount of time, you will be able to concentrate your efforts better than if you have unlimited time. In the early stages of high-resistance tasks, try short limited-time bursts to overcome procrastination.

4. Use closed lists:
   Any list that has a line drawn at the end of it can’t be added to. This enables you to deal with all the items on it without the distraction of new work being added. Once defined, it can only stay the same or get smaller. It doesn’t matter which order you do things, provided you are going to clear the whole list. If you have a backlog of work to deal with, use the closed list principle.

5. Isolate your backlog; don’t add to it:
   Get the system for new stuff right. You need to be able to process a day’s work. Get rid of the backlog; if you’ve got steps 1 and 2 right, you can chip away at the backlog. It will only get smaller until it disappears altogether.

6. Reduce random factors:
   These are things that stop us from completing our planned actions and can never be eliminated. Your day starts to run you rather than you running it. We tend to react to random elements; that is, we use the reactive part of our brain to react to who or whatever makes the most ‘noise’. We tend to prioritize by this noise.

7. Commitment vs. Interest:
   Compare “I’m interested in writing” to “I’m committed to getting a regular column in the local newspaper.” Nothing is likely to come of it unless interest is turned into commitment. What are you prepared to commit to? Commitments are limited. Knowing your commitments is an essential part of making decisions and therefore one of the key principles of time management that can be called effective. They are what make the real difference in your life and work.

   Often, our rational and reactive minds pull in opposite directions. For example, “I want to be slim, but I also want some cake.” The question to ask is, “How will you feel when you’ve done it?” This is where commitment counts. If you’re considering a commitment, ask yourself three questions:
   (1) What would I need to start doing in order to commit myself fully to this?
   (2) What would I need to stop doing in order to commit myself fully to this?
   (3) Would I be prepared to pay the price for full commitment to this?

Approaches to Time Management

To get ahead in your career, deliver your projects successfully, and to get a promotion or a pay rise, you must learn to consistently focus on the activities that add the most benefit to your projects and your clients. The better you are at maintaining focus and managing your time, the more you will achieve, and the easier it will be for you to leave the office on time. Not only do effective time management skills allow you to get better results at work, but they also help you withstand stress and live a more fulfilling life outside of work.

The following strategies will help you get the right things done in less time:

1. Start your day with a clear focus.
   The first work-related activity of your day should be to determine what you want to achieve that day and what you absolutely must accomplish. Come clear on this purpose before you check your email and start responding to queries and resolving issues. Setting a clear focus for your day might require as little as five minutes, but it can save you several hours of wasted time and effort.

2. Have a dynamic task list.
   Capture the tasks and activities you must do on a list and update it regularly during the day. Revisit this list frequently and add new items as soon as they appear. Make sure your list gives you a quick overview of everything that’s urgent and important, and remember to include strategic and relationship-building activities as well as operational tasks.

3. Focus on high-value activities.
   Before you start something new, identify the activity that would have the most positive effect on your project, your team, and your client if you were to deal with it right now. Resist the temptation to clear smaller, unimportant items first. Start with what is most important.
   To help you assess which activities to focus on first, ask the following:

   • What does my client or my team need most from me right now?
   • What will cause the most trouble if it doesn’t get done?
   • What is the biggest contribution I can make right now?
   • Which strategic tasks do I need to deal with today to help us work smarter tomorrow?

4. Minimize interruptions.
   The more uninterrupted time you get during the day to work on important tasks, the more effective you’ll be. Identify the activities that tend to disrupt your work and find a solution. Basically, one of the most essential time management skills is to not get distracted. For example, avoid checking emails and answering the phone when you’re in the middle of something important. Once you have broken your flow, it can be difficult to reestablish it. Instead, discipline yourself to work on a task single-mindedly until it’s complete.

5. Stop procrastinating.
   If you have difficulties staying focused or tend to procrastinate, you may benefit from creating an external commitment (deadline) for yourself. For instance, schedule a meeting in two days’ time where you’ll be presenting your work and by which time your actions will have to be completed. It’s also very effective to complete the most unpleasant tasks early in the day and to allow yourself small rewards once you’ve completed them.

6. Limit multi-tasking.
   Many of us multi-task and believe we’re effective when we do so, but evidence suggests that we can’t effectively focus on more than one thing at a time. In order to stop multi-tasking, try these tips: Plan your day in blocks and set specific time aside for meetings, returning calls, and doing detailed planning and analysis work at your desk. Whenever you find yourself multitasking, stop and sit quietly for a minute.

7. Review your day.
   Spend 5-10 minutes reviewing your task list every day before you leave the office. Give yourself a pat on the back if you achieved what you wanted. If you think your day’s effort fell short, decide what you’ll do differently tomorrow in order to accomplish what you need to. Leave the office in high spirits, determined to pick up the thread the next day.

8. Say “no” and delegate.
   Everybody has their limits. We simply cannot do everything people want us to do. It will lead to burnout and work anxiety. That’s why it’s so important to be assertive and say “no” when people want to assign you additional tasks.
   Remember, there is nothing wrong with refusing to do things you’re not able to do, as well as delegating tasks, especially if there is someone who can do the work better than you.

9. Focus and block distractions.
   Notifications, pop-up messages, e-mails, and colleagues constantly talking to you all pull your attention away from work.
   There are many ways to stay focused. You can put your phone away, turn off social media notifications, or block distracting websites. But the best way is to concentrate and do what you have to do. It’s worth it to limit your presence on social media to the minimum because it takes a lot of your time and doesn’t bring much value into your life.

10. Goals.
    Set goals, and you will exactly know which direction you’re heading toward. Goals are part of the organization process but are extremely important in time management.

11. Stop multitasking.
    Often see job offers that set multitasking as one of the key skills of the candidate. But it’s better to throw such offers right in the bin. The truth is, multitasking damages our brain.
    It seems that juggling several tasks at once is a great time management technique. In fact, it dramatically decreases productivity. The study conducted at Stanford University has shown that “When they’re [multitaskers] in situations where there are multiple sources of information coming from the external world or emerging out of memory, they’re not able to filter out what’s not relevant to their current goal. That failure to filter means they’re slowed down by that irrelevant information.”

12. Allocate your time.
    Do you know how much time you spend on particular tasks? Gotcha! You’re probably among the majority of people who have no idea how their daily work looks in terms of work hours.

13. Create a morning routine.
    What’s the first thing you do when you wake up? If it’s making your bed, you’re on the right track. But if it’s checking social media, you’re doing it wrong.
    Having your own morning routine will unquestionably power you up for the rest of the day. It’s the first thing you do in the morning that determines the outcomes you will achieve during the day. Try starting with making your bed, then having a healthy breakfast, and leaving social media for the end of the day.