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Successful Time Management 
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Successful Time Management

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Contents

Successful Time Management

Contents


Preface

7

1
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1
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3

Introduction
The Importance of Time Management
Brief Exercise
A Time Management Goal

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Goals
Specific
Measurable

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Urgent
Paired Comparison Analysis
Grid Analysis
Pareto Analysis
Nominal Group Technique
Delegation

26
26
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28
32
35
37
39

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3

Managing Interruptions
Introduction
Take Responsibility for Interruptions You Cause
More Tips for Managing Interruptions

40
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44

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And that’s
just what we are looking for
...
All rights reserved
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4
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4
4
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6
4
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3
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3
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3
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7
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2
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3

Scheduling
Introduction
Scheduling Options
Long Term Schedules
Medium Term Schedules
Short Term Schedules

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Introduction
1
...
We spend time commuting to work,
then filling up the workday before commuting home again and facing whatever time issues are posed
when trying to fulfill our duties outside of the office
...
It says that of all the results that we produce in the day, 80 percent of those
results are generated with 20 percent of our efforts
...

This poses an interesting question when it comes to time management; how can we take the 80 percent of
our efforts that are currently only producing 20 percent of our results and become more effective with that
time? What would we be able to do if we were as effective with that time as we are with the 20 percent of
our time that produced 80 percent of our results? Chances are we will never get to 100 percent
productivity – we are only human, after all
...
However, if you use the tools available in this ebook, you will
be able to have more control over your time and produce more results with the time that you do have at
your disposal
...
2 Brief Exercise
Here’s a brief exercise to try which can give you an idea of whether or not time management might be an
issue for you
...
On the left-hand side, list at least
five things that are the most important to you
...

List people, things, ideals, activities – whatever it is that is very important to you and to your personal
happiness
...
com
9

Introduction

Successful Time Management

Now on the right-hand side, list all the things that you spend your time on, starting with what you spend
most of your time on and continuing on down to what you spend the least time on
...
Most of us don’t have the luxury of
spending the majority of our time on the things that are most important to us
...
When things are very important to us and we are not able to dedicate any
time to those things at all, unhappiness is often the result
...


However, successful time management will help you to become more effective in completing the tasks
that you have to complete so that there is more time available for you to spend on the things that are
important to you
...

For example, if you currently don’t have a college degree but you feel that getting one would significantly
enhance your career possibilities, deciding to go back to school is a significant, life-altering decision that
demands that you restructure your time accordingly
...
Doing so will make us happier and more balanced so that we are less susceptible
to stress and more able to achieve our goals
...
com
10

Introduction

Successful Time Management

Time management helps you have a greater sense of control over your life –
both at work and at home
...
When you feel as if you are in control of your time, you feel empowered and confident
...


1
...
Many of us
are used to busy work and may not even question anymore whether or not it is a valid use of our time
...

If you adopt this goal, you will find that it helps to identify which of your activities are actually
contributing to your effectiveness and which activities are wasting time, distracting you from goals, and
increasing your stress level by making you feel overworked
...
Join us
...
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11

How Is Your Time Management?

Successful Time Management

2
...
1 Self-Test
Let’s start our discussion of time management with an assessment of where you are now
...

Section I
____ 1
...

____ 2
...

____ 3
...

____ 4
...

Section II
____ 1
...

____ 2
...

____ 3
...

____ 4
...

____ 5
...

Section III
____ 1
...

____ 2
...

____ 3
...


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...
Completing tasks well before they are due
...
Meeting deadlines without having to ask for extensions
...
Sticking to a daily work schedule to complete assigned tasks
...
Setting aside time for scheduling and planning
...
Planning time in my day for the unexpected
...
Planning daily breaks during the work day
...
For each section, total up your score and then divide it by
the number of questions in that section to give yourself and average score for that section
...
For example, your results might look like this:
Section II – 2
...
8
Section I – 3
...
5
Section III – 3
...

Section I – Goal Setting
Section II – Prioritization
Section III – Managing Interruptions
Section IV – Procrastination
Section V – Scheduling

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...
It would behoove me to start working on that skill first before moving on to additional skills
...
It would be a mistake to assume that just
because my results show that I am strongest in managing interruptions that there is nothing more for me to
learn in that area
...


2
...
In order to get an accurate picture, you will need to choose a period of time, preferably
a week, that is representative of your average workload
...
You wouldn’t want to pick the
week of winter holidays unless you are specifically interested in identifying how you use your time during
that period of the year
...
Give a 1 to items that were low priority, a 2 to items that were
medium priority, and a 3 to items that were highest in priority
...
com
14

How Is Your Time Management?

Successful Time Management

There are a few guidelines to follow in order to get the most value out of this activity
...

Be accurate
...
Did you meet with others? Research benchmark information? Be as specific as you can be
...
This is only for you, no one else is going to see it
...
That’s the only way you will be able to identify areas that you can
improve
...
Not everything can be a 3 and hopefully not everything is
a 1, though you could find one day having all of the same level of priority in activities
...
From our example in Figure 1, checking your voicemail might have resulted in
confirming an appointment
...

Chatting with Sue probably didn’t have any results unless it was work related
...
At the end of the week, those starred
activities will represent possible areas for improving your use of time
...
Ideally you spent the most amount
of time on the items with the highest priority and the least amount of time on items with the lowest
priority
...

Depending on how comfortable you feel about it, consider sharing the results of your activity log with
your supervisor
...


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...
Goal Setting
3
...
Knowing
that you have achieved a goal gives you a sense of accomplishment and gives you a way to keep track of
what you have completed in the work place
...

Goal setting can be used in every type of work place and with every level of
employee
...
Well set goals are clear and you can
objectively determine whether or not the goal has been reached
...
The result is frustration and
lack of effectiveness
...


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Goal Setting

Successful Time Management

3
...
Edwin Locke published his theory on goal setting in 1968 in an article called “Toward a Theory of
Task Motivation and Incentives
...
He showed that people work
better when their goals are specific and challenging rather than vague and easy
...
You might know what it means, but will the
employee interpret it the same way? Instead, the goal should be clear, such as ‘reduce customer
complaints by 50% over a five month period
...
Gary Latham published “A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance” in
which they identified five principles that were important in setting goals that will motivate others
...


3
...
1 Clarity
A clear goal is one that can be measured and leaves no room for misunderstanding
...
Look at the goals listed in Figure 2
below to help you understand how to be clearer when setting goals
...

A clear goal is one that can be measured and leaves no room for
misunderstanding
...
com
17

Goal Setting

Successful Time Management

Unclear Goal

Clear Goal

Get better at processing work orders
...


Improve communications within the team
...
Include a
component where the employee must
acknowledge having received the
information
...

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2
...
So
if we know that a goal is a challenge and is also perceived as such by those that assigned it to us, we are
more likely to be motivated to achieve it
...


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...
A goal should be challenging, but must still
be achievable
...
I will dread the goal rather than be motivated by it
...
By positively rewarding the achievement of challenging goals, you encourage not
just the achieving employee, but those other employees who witnessed the reward that was given for the
achievement
...
2
...
The goal should be in line with the general,
established expectations that you have had for the employee in the past
...
This takes more time and energy on both parts, but it prevents an end result where the
employee didn’t have what he or she needed to have in order to be successful, or where the employer is
frustrated by the employee’s distaste for pursuing the goal
...


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But it does help to gain general agreement if the employee is involved in setting the
goals
...

You could also ask employees to create their own goals for themselves and then discuss them as a team
...
Letting them take on something that they want to learn and feel challenged by will give
them more motivation to do the needed work to achieve their other goals as well
...
2
...
What if the person is
halfway to completing the goal but they have a question? What if you suspect that the person is going
about the process of completing the goal in the wrong way? Feedback is a chance to correct or clarify
before the goal has been reached
...
It gives the supervisor the chance to clarify expectations
and to adjust the level of difficulty of the goal if it seems it’s too hard or too easy
...
When the goal has been reached, you can also conduct a formal
feedback session so that you can discuss what went well and what could use improvement in the future
...
2
...
When a role is complex or highly technical, the person in that role is often already highly
motivated or else they wouldn’t have reached that level in their organization
...
Projects can have the tendency to reveal themselves as being more
complex after they have begun, so both the employee and supervisor need to be in communication about
how involved a task has become
...


In complex or technical work environments, it’s important to make sure that the person has enough time to
reach the goal
...
You may also have to take into account the time
necessary to allow for a learning curve or to ramp up their existing skills
...
com
20

Goal Setting

Successful Time Management

3
...
M
...
R
...
Goals
In goal setting, there is one method that has stood the test of time
...
3
...
If
you can’t say specifically what you want to achieve, then how can you expect yourself or a subordinate to
be able to achieve it? A specific goal will answer the questions:


Who? Who is taking action or is affected?



What? What is the result I want to achieve?



Where? Is there a specific location?



When? When do I want to complete this goal?



Which? Are there restraints or requirements that have to be met?



Why? Why is this important? What specifically is the benefit of achieving this goal?

For example, let’s say that you want to improve customer relations
...
If you
answer the questions above, however, it becomes much more specific:


Who – customers whose accounts I am assigned to (currently 750)



What – I want to be the person that my customers think of first when they need to talk to someone
about internet technology
...
I will email and then call all 750 customers to re-introduce myself and
our services
...
com
21

Goal Setting

Successful Time Management



Where – In the five states where I currently have customers
...




Which – Starting with customers that I haven’t heard from in more than a year
...


3
...
2 Measurable

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Each goal that you set should be measurable so that you have a means of ascertaining how far along you
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Goal Setting

Successful Time Management

So, for our example above, 750 customers need to be emailed and then called in enough time that we see a
20% increase in the amount of inbound calls within six months
...

Let’s assume that we can complete 50 emails in a day in addition to maintaining normal customer service
...
But, we might not want to wait
three weeks between emailing and calling
...

In the first week, we decide to only email 100 people
...
Then
we alternate doing the same thing over the following weeks until we have completed our list
...

To find the measures for your goal, ask the questions:


How much?



How many?



How often?

Or, just answer the question, “How will I know when I’ve reached my goal?”
3
...
3 Attainable
As we saw in the last section, having a measure for your goals lets you plan the work that is necessary to
achieve the goal
...

What if in our example above we had said that we wanted to see a 20% increase in inbound calls in just
six weeks? How would our plan for reaching the goal have changed? Given our existing resources and the
workload that we have to maintain while reaching for the goal, would that even have been possible? If a
goal is not attainable given the constraints that you face, you either need to work towards removing those
restraints or lowering the level of the goal so that it becomes attainable
...
3
...
This doesn’t
mean that all your goals have to be low and simple
...
Some questions you
could ask yourself during this analysis include:


Do I have the resources (financial, personnel, equipment, etc
...
com
23

Goal Setting

Successful Time Management



What knowledge or expertise am I lacking that I will need to locate or learn?



Have I reviewed my existing workload with my supervisor to prioritize this goal with
existing goals?

In some version of SMART goals, the R actually stands for ‘relevant
...
Is the goal
something that you should actually be completing or is it better suited for someone else? Will it improve
your overall skills and ability to do your job? If not, why are you pursuing it?
3
...
4 Timely
The final component of the SMART goals strategy is ‘timely
...
Adding a realistic time
boundary lends a sense of urgency to your goal and will help to keep you focused
...
Making sure your goal is set with a time limit also ensures that you
complete the goal while it is still relevant to what you are doing on the job
...
4 Backward Goal-Setting
Another method of goal setting is to start with the end result in mind and then plan backwards from that
point to determine what you need to be doing each step along the way in order to achieve that goal
...
We usually start from where we are and then determine
what we need to do first, second, third, etc
...
But if
you start at the end and then plan backwards, you can determine whether or not your plan is realistic in the
time frame you are giving yourself
...

The process works by following the steps below:


Determine your specific ultimate goal
...




Starting at the ultimate goal, what is the step that has to be accomplished just before you reach
your goal? What has to be achieved and by when so that you can ensure that you will reach that
ultimate goal?



Work backward again
...




Continue working backwards until you have identified the very first milestone that needs to be
achieved and by when you need to achieve it
...
com
24

Goal Setting

Successful Time Management

When you work backwards like this, it is much easier to identify steps that you might have missed when
you plan from the present forward because it forces you to look at your planning from the opposite
direction
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Tools for Prioritization

Successful Time Management

4
...
1 Introduction
Prioritization is the ability to make the best, most effective use of your time, ability, and resources as well
as those of your team
...

At its simplest level, prioritizing is straightforward
...
For example, you might choose to work first on the project that:


Is most likely to be profitable



Has to be finished before others can move on with their work



Is most important to your supervisor



Has a budget allocated to it already



Has the necessary tools readily available

Yet not all situations that require prioritization are this simple
...
In the rest of this chapter, we’ll review
several tools you can use to help you prioritize your work load
...


4
...
Urgent
We’ve all had it happen
...
They have a fire on their hands and they want your help in putting it out
...
You
have to be a team player, right? And if the person asking for help is your boss, do you really have a choice?
Well, maybe you do have a choice
...
To help you do this, consider the chart in Figure 3
...


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...
Urgent

Looking at the figure above, in which quadrant would we ideally spend the majority of our workdays? In
order to have the greatest job satisfaction and the least amount of work related stress, we would spend the
majority of our time in Quadrant III
...
We are able to make progress and move
forward, feeling at the end of the day that we have accomplished a great deal
...


That’s the ideal world
...
Everything feels urgent, but it’s not actually important
...
This can be a frustrating experience because you may not be able to feel as if you
have contributed something of value at the end of the day
...

Quadrant I situations could are important because whatever is at stake is
actually very important to our own job or work product and it happens to be
urgent as well
...
com
27

Tools for Prioritization

Successful Time Management

All of us are going to spend time in Quadrant I eventually
...
What you want to learn to do is to
distinguish these true emergency situations from situations that seem urgent but just aren’t that important
...
If you are receiving the request from your
supervisor, you can ask her what she would rather that you focus on – the item that is both urgent and
important, or the item that she has brought to you
...
But at least you know that you are applying your efforts to exactly the activity that she
wants you to handle at that time
...


4
...
It allows you to compare each item on your list with every other item
on the list in order to determine which are the most important
...

Paired Comparison Analysis is useful when you don’t have identified decisionmaking criteria or when you are trying to compare things that are completely
different from one another
...
com
28

Tools for Prioritization

Successful Time Management



Increasing sales



Decreasing lost revenue

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You start by creating the paired comparison chart
...
Then create a grid with each item as a row heading and a column
heading
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Tools for Prioritization

Successful Time Management

Customer
Service
(A)

Employee Training
(B)

Increasing
Sales
(C)

Decreasing Lost
Revenue
(D)

Customer
Service
(A)
Employee Training
(B)
Increasing
Sales
(C)
Decreasing
Lost Revenue
(D)
Figure 4: Creating the Paired Comparison Grid

You need to ignore the blocks that have you comparing the item to itself, since there will not be anything
to prioritize in those cases
...
Increasing Sales and Increasing Sales vs
...
The resulting grid is
shown in Figure 5
...
com
30

Tools for Prioritization

Successful Time Management

In the boxes that remain, you compare the two items and determine which one is more important
...
Between those two items, write the letter of which item is more important
...
See the example of a
completed grid in Figure 6
...
In our example, the
results would be:


A–2



B–0



C–5



D–4

From this analysis, we can determine that increasing sales has the highest priority, followed closely by
decreasing lost revenue
...

It’s important to note that although employee training received no rating, that doesn’t mean that it is not
important at all – it may already be of high quality or it might just not be as large an area of concern as the
other three items
...
com
31

Tools for Prioritization

Successful Time Management

4
...
In these
cases, a grid analysis is a useful tool for making decisions or prioritizing your work
...
This time the options will be the rows and the factors that will affect
your prioritization will be the column headings
...
Let’s use an example for this grid analysis of prioritizing
which firm to use as a marketing consultant
...


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...

XYZ
Consulting
Global
Consulting
Resources
Figure 7: Example of a Grid Analysis

Now that your grid is ready, you need to assign a weight to each factor so that you know which factors are
most important and which are less important
...
You can have more than one factor with the same score
...

Next you will start with the first column, in this case cost
...
Then move on to the next column and
complete the same rating, repeating this step until the columns are all completed
...

To calculate the results, you take the rating that you gave the consulting firm for a category and multiply it
by the weight factor
...
Simply multiply 3 by 5 for a score of 15 for this category for ABC Consulting
...
Figure 9
shows you what this would look like in our example
...
com
33

Tools for Prioritization

Successful Time Management

Cost

Overall
Experience

Experience
Similar to This
Project

Recommendations

Quoted Time
Frame

Weights:

5

3

5

4

2

ABC
Consulting

3

3

1

5

4

4

4

3

4

4

5

4

5

3

3

2

5

5

5

1

Market
Consulting
Inc
...
com
34

Tools for Prioritization

Successful Time Management

Experience
Similar to This Recommendations
Project

Quoted
Time
Frame

TOTAL

Cost

Overall
Experience

Weights:

5

3

5

4

2

ABC
Consulting

15

9

5

20

8

57

20

12

15

16

8

71

25

12

25

12

6

80

10

15

25

20

2

72

Market
Consulting
Inc
...
When you present your recommendations for a consulting
firm, you can now demonstrate a logical reason for the recommendation and even discuss the different
factors individually should someone want to remove a factor from consideration
...
5 Pareto Analysis
When you use a Pareto analysis, you are taking information and grouping it into similar categories
...
For
example, let’s say you were given the task of improving customer service ratings by 15% over the next
quarter
...
So if you want to get the most return on your investment, how do you determine
what that 20% should consist of?
Let’s start by looking at the results that you’ve been given
...
com
35

Tools for Prioritization

Successful Time Management

Item

Number of Complaints

Complaint

A

9

Phone rings many times before being answered
...


C

20

Staff members don’t know the information customers
need
...


E

18

No delivery window means customers have to wait at
home all day
...


G

6

The return policy is too strict
...


Figure 10: Sample Customer Complaints

At first glance, you might say that the third complaint, “Staff members don’t know the information
customers need” should be your priority since it had the most complaints
...

Examine the complaints to determine which ones are related
...
com
36

Tools for Prioritization

Successful Time Management



Order Fulfillment – 31 (Items E, F, and H)



Return Policy – 6 (Item G)

Now by examining the results you can see that you would have the best results if you focus on customer
response and courtesy, followed by the order fulfillment process
...


4
...
It is not always easy to do so, particularly when the group members have different motives and
different goals
...

The Nominal Group Technique allows everyone to have a ‘say’ in what the
priorities for the team will be
...


Challenging? Not challenging? Try more

www
...
nl/life
Download free ebooks at bookboon
...
Use a flipchart or other
means of capturing the issues
...
If you think there are those people in
the group who would be uncomfortable listing their concerns, you can do this exercise in writing and keep
it anonymous, but doing it in a group is good because it helps facilitate discussion and can let you clarify
the ideas and issues that are listed
...
For
example, if you had on the list ‘poor response from technical support’ and ‘technical support takes too
long to reply,’ you could group those two together
...

Once you have a final list, have each person rank what they feel is the most important to the least
important issue to be solved
...
Is something just an annoyance or a pet peeve, or does it actually have a definite impact on the
way that they are able to work? If there are 10 issues, the ranking should be 1 to 10 with 10 being the most
important and 1 being the least important
...
For example, you might end up with data that looks like that in Figure 11
...

Issue 1

Issue 2

Issue 3

Issue 4

5

1

3

4

6

2

George

6

4

1

3

2

5

Pete

2

3

5

6

1

4

Celia

4

1

2

5

3

6

Robert

1

2

4

6

3

5

Ann

3

2

6

4

5

1

TOTALS:

21

13

21

28

20

23

Amy (or Person
1 if you are
doing this
anonymously)

Issue 5

Issue 6

Figure 11: Sample Nominal Group Technique Grid
Download free ebooks at bookboon
...
The group has also determined that the most important issue is Issue 4
...
In a case where your scores are tied for an issue, you may
have to make the decision using another tool or simply ask your supervisor which item they would prefer
that you work on
...
7 Delegation
One further technique you can use to prioritize your time is to identify the tasks that you don’t actually
need to perform yourself
...
It may be because
we feel that it would be faster just to do it ourselves than to try to explain how to do it to someone else
...
However, none of us has
endless time and endless energy
...
The benefits for you include:


Reduced stress



Additional time to dedicate to tasks that you truly need to work on yourself



Practicing the skill of effective delegation

Benefits for the other person include:


The opportunity to learn something new



The chance to feel useful and part of the team



The chance to show you what they can do and earn accolades for that achievement

And finally, benefits for the organization include:


Having more than one person who knows how to perform the given task



Adding a new perspective to a situation



Having employees that are less stressed due to sharing their work duties

Download free ebooks at bookboon
...
Managing Interruptions
5
...
But if you didn’t, then you might consider trying the
activity now
...

Most of us are so accustomed to being interrupted during the day that unless
we are intentionally aware of it, we won’t even notice when it’s happening
...
In an ideal world you could simply align your
priorities so that you all had the exact same work tasks every day and you would greatly decrease or
eliminate interruptions
...
We all have a role to play in our
organization that is different from the role of our colleagues
...
How you manage them, however, is entirely up to you
...

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the key skills that top employers demand
...


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Regent’s Park
London NW1 4SA
United Kingdom
Tel +44 (0)20 7000 7573
Email mim@london
...


For more information visit www
...
edu/mim/
email mim@london
...
london
...
com
40

Managing Interruptions

Successful Time Management

5
...
If we can
identify those times that we are causing our own interruptions, we can reclaim that time by simply
disciplining ourselves and others around us to eliminate the causes of those interruptions
...
Then
ask yourself: is it worth it? If the answer is yes and the distraction is serving a purpose that helps you be
more effective at work, then by all means, allow for that distraction
...

If we can identify those times that we cause our own interruptions, we can
reclaim that time by simply disciplining ourselves and others around us to
eliminate the causes of those interruptions
...

For you, an interruption is an excuse for why you haven’t been able to complete something
...
You shouldn’t stop your work for an interruption
unless you feel that the interruption is more important than what you were working on
...




You try to work on multiple projects at once
...
If you
are in charge of what you work on from day to day, then make it a goal to complete one project,
task, or item fully before moving on to the next one
...


Download free ebooks at bookboon
...

When you don’t want to do something, you find reasons to avoid doing it
...
It says ‘you don’t have to want to do something in order to do it
...

See the next chapter for more tips on managing procrastination
...

Each of us has an environment in which we will do our best work
...
Determine what the distractions are in your environment that you can eliminate
...
Arrange your furniture so that you can avoid
distractions
...




You accept non-work calls at work
...
But in
many cases, we have started accepting calls at work that are not emergencies
...
But if it’s affecting our productivity, these calls become an
interruption and a nuisance
...
You can do this in a way that lets the person know that
they and what they have to say are important to you
...




You often have co-workers stopping by to chat
...
They can make some of the hard days bearable and the
good days better
...
Treat these interruptions as you would the phone calls from family and
friends – let the person know that you have an important project that you are working on and
you’d like to get back to them later on that day
...
Just don’t let chatting keep you from getting done what you need to accomplish
...
com
42

Managing Interruptions

Successful Time Management



You answer every email as it is received
...
And that’s
just what we are looking for
...
All rights reserved
...
Many of us have the tendency to jump every time that we receive an email
...
In most cases, this is a waste of time and simply interrupts what you
were doing
...
m
...
You may even be able to
check less than this – it just depends on your job and the expectations of your workplace
...

Wherever you are in your academic career, make your future a part of ours
by visiting www
...
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...
ubs
...
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43

Managing Interruptions

Successful Time Management

5
...
This will serve as motivation to continue trying
to eliminate interruptions from your day
...
Can you handle it by email or a short
conference call? Don’t take your time and the time of other people unless a meeting is truly the
best way to achieve your goal
...
If you don’t know why
you are meeting, how wil you know if you accomplished what you needed to accomplish?



Before attending a meeting, be sure that you understand exactly what the meeting is about
...




Use ‘Do Not Disturb
...
The feature allows
you to direct calls to your voicemail rather than having the phone ring in your office
...
Don’t be afraid to use a sign on your door that says ‘do
not disturb’ if you have a serious deadline that you have to concentrate on – sometimes a physical
sign is what it will take for some people to get the message
...
Not in the sense of defending yourself, but in the sense of defending your
time
...
This signals to
the other person that you have somewhere to be
...

Head to the bathroom, the break room, or even the stairwell for a moment before returning to your
desk
...
Most of us don’t like to say no to others
...
But sometimes
the best thing for you and your workload is to simply say no
...
If they invite you to
lunch today, propose that you go on Friday
...


Download free ebooks at bookboon
...
Not
every email is urgent! Then again, some are
...
Your email subject should be clear and indicate whether or
not a response is needed
...
com
45

Managing Procrastination

Successful Time Management

6
...
1 Introduction
We are all guilty of procrastination from time to time
...
But if you
have a chronic problem with procrastination, it is likely impacting your ability to get your work done and
get it done on time
...
If you can’t determine when you are procrastinating, you won’t be able to come up with the
motivation you need to stop procrastinating and move forward
...
Is it something you don’t enjoy? Or is there another reason why you are
stalling on getting the task done? Once you understand why you are procrastinating, you can take the steps
needed to manage and resolve it
...
2 Defining Procrastination
There are times when you have a valid reason for avoiding doing a project
...
And then there are the times when waiting is simply that – waiting
...
Another more scientific definition comes from
psychologist Clarry Lay
...
That gap of time could actually be applied to the
task that you are avoiding, getting it completed and out of your way that much sooner
...


Remember as well what procrastination is not
...
If you have put off a task because it is unimportant in favor of one that is important, that is
not procrastination
...


6
...
com
46

Managing Procrastination

Successful Time Management



Handling papers repeatedly instead of doing what you need to do with them the first time



Reading emails repeatedly without deleting, filing, or responding to them



Finding reasons to leave your desk when you start working on a high-priority task



Leaving something on your ‘to do’ list that is actually important



Deciding to postpone working on something until you feel like it, have more energy, or are in a
better mood



Saying yes to helping others with tasks that are not as important as those already on your ‘to do’ list



Deciding to wait to work on a project because you think you do your best work under pressure

If you performed the Daily Activity Log exercise described in Chapter One, you can now look back at
your logs and see if you can identify where you were procrastinating
...
Then look to see what you did earlier that day
...


6
...
If none of these seem to fit your exact situation, they may help you to
brainstorm your own feelings about the tasks that you are avoiding
...
Next, we’ll discuss means for
combating procrastination in each case
...
com
47

Managing Procrastination

Successful Time Management

6
...
1 You Find the Task Unpleasant
The fact is, there are certain aspects of all jobs that are unpleasant
...
Sit with
the feeling of unpleasantness and see if you can determine where the feeling is coming from
...
Keep the conversation with yourself going until you can pinpoint why it is that
you feel this way about the matter at hand
...
4
...
But some of us are disorganized
...
If you see yourself as disorganized and you’ve learned to
tolerate that, it’s a convenient excuse to have the next time that you want to avoid doing something
...
Once you see the cost that being disorganized
is having on your ability to complete tasks, you may be motivated to improve your organization skills
...
com
48

Managing Procrastination

Successful Time Management

6
...
3 You Find the Task Overwhelming
No matter who you are and what your experience level might be, there are times when all of us will feel
overwhelmed by a task
...

Usually it is because something is missing that you may not have even identified yet
...


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4
...
And for many of you,
you can point to the level of success that insisting on perfection for yourself has created
...
This is another sign that you may be lacking the
kind of resources you need to do the job well
...
Without taking any risks at all, you can’t
learn anything new, grow your skills, or achieve more than you thought was possible
...
There are simply no guarantees that anything we do will be
perfect
...

6
...
5 You Are Having Trouble Making a Decision
Another common reason for procrastinating is that you are having trouble making a decision
...
If you can’t make a
decision, you will continue to face a road block until you make it
...


6
...
5
...
So you will need to
work to conscientiously combat the behaviors that have led to your procrastination in the past
...
Consider
trying a combination of the techniques in this section until you find the ones that work best for you
...
You will
need to work to conscientiously combat the behaviors that have led to
procrastinating in the past
...
5
...
What’s important is finding a way to motivate yourself and to be accountable for your
actions so that you are less likely to procrastinate and so that you focus on the value that your efforts will
bring
...
com
50

Managing Procrastination

Successful Time Management



Identify what will happen if you don’t complete the task
...
If you aren’t doing that, you aren’t doing what you are being paid to do
...
Preferably, they should not
be unhealthy rewards!



Ask your coworker to check up on you to make sure you have done what you said you would do
...




Remind yourself that you don’t have to WANT to do something in order to DO it
...
5
...
Remember that it can take weeks to change a habit, so you need to give yourself the time
to make your new practices your new habits
...




Force yourself to handle emails and paperwork the first time that you touch them in order to avoid
the piles of paper that can tend to accumulate
...




Use a timer to keep yourself aware of the time you are spending
...




Create a filing system that would allow anyone else to walk into your space and easily locate what
they are looking for
...
com
51

Managing Procrastination

Successful Time Management

6
...
4 When the Project Feels Overwhelming
If you simply feel overwhelmed by a project, we’ve discussed the fact that it usually means that something
is missing
...
You can also try some of the following techniques whenever you feel overwhelmed:


Take the task and break it into smaller, easily achievable tasks
...




Reward yourself as you complete each sub-task
...




Ask for input from others, particularly if you haven’t managed a project of this size before
...


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52

Managing Procrastination

Successful Time Management

6
...
5 When You Are a Perfectionist
Perfectionism is often based on the fear of what will happen if you make a mistake or a fear of ‘looking
bad
...
Some tips include:


Review the expected results for the project with your supervisor
...




Realize that no one is perfect and hiccups will occur
...




Practice some stress-management techniques so that you are prepared for those moments when
problems arise
...
5
...
Yet if you aren’t sure which option
is the best one, you will undoubtedly find yourself at a standstill
...
You can take a number of steps to help you make that decision and
keep on moving
...




Use group consensus to come to the best decision
...




When all else fails, just make the best choice that you can
...


Download free ebooks at bookboon
...
Scheduling
7
...
We live in a world where there is always something jockeying for our attention and our
time
...
It allows you to block out segments of time and assign them to a specific activity
...


Scheduling is actually a form of organization
...
For example, how many times have you sat down in
front of the computer intending to just read the day’s headlines, but the next thing you know you’ve been
distracted for an hour? If you are intentional with your time scheduling, you can instead have a purpose
for your time – a purpose that is important to you and to the organization
...
’ This is a listing of the days of the week and
the hours available in that week, as well as the requirements that are fixed in your schedule
...
Fill in all of the fixed tasks that you can identify
...
Be sure to schedule in your breaks as well
...
com
54

Scheduling

Successful Time Management

What’s left is time that you can schedule in order to help you be as productive as possible
...
For example, you might decide that you
are going to dedicate two hours on Monday to working on the sales presentation that you have to complete
for next week
...

Continue to fill in your days with different tasks assigned to their dedicated time slots
...

Once you’ve scheduled in time for the things that are important for you to complete, you need to treat
those appointments with yourself and your work just as if they were a meeting or other required event
...

But when you schedule time for what is important and you stick to that schedule, you will find that you
are more productive overall and less inclined to fall victim to procrastination

7
...
But to be as effective a tool
as possible, you should think about scheduling in short, medium, and long-term time frames
...

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...
A place where you can develop your potential and grow professionally, working
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...
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It’s 48 hours
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...

It could be your toughest test yet,
which is exactly what will make it
your biggest opportunity
...


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...
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55

Scheduling

Successful Time Management

7
...
1 Long Term Schedules
Most of us have goals that have been set for us for a period of time such as a quarter or a year
...
Besides using the skills already discussed in this
ebook, a long-term schedule lets you plan for how you will reach these long-term goals
...
Then you can fill in what you estimate to be the required time that will be required
each week in order to complete a project on time
...
But you should know what you
need to achieve that week in order to meet that month’s goals, which will lead you to making that
quarter’s goals and then your goals for the year
...
2
...
It simply depends on what makes the most sense for your type of work
...
This becomes a snapshot of your activity for the month or week that you can use
to help you reach those longer term scheduling goals
...
Don’t forget to schedule time to
get your scheduling done for next month either
...
2
...
Your daily schedule not only helps you
make sure that you are working on the most important things first, but it also serves as a record for what
you have accomplished
...
If you still find that you
are having time management issues, review your schedule and compare it to what you actually did during
that day
...


Download free ebooks at bookboon
...
Resources
Lifeorganizers
...
Managing Interruptions
...
lifeorganizers
...
html
...
com
...
http://www
...
com/dar
...
com
...

http://www
...
com/pages/main/newMN_HTE
...
Managing Interruptions
...
selfgrowth
...
html
Topachievement
...
Creating S
...
A
...
T
...
http://www
...
com/smart
...
Time Scheduling Suggestions
...
ucc
...
edu/stdysk/htimesug
...











In Paris or Online
International programs taught by professors and professionals from all over the world
BBA in Global Business
MBA in International Management / International Marketing
DBA in International Business / International Management
MA in International Education
MA in Cross-Cultural Communication
MA in Foreign Languages
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57



---