Time Management
Add comment June 23rd, 2007
Track more than what you should do - Track what you did do For most of us tracking what we have actually accomplished is a foreign concept. We are very familiar with making lists and planning our future activities on calendars or in day timers; but do you know how much time you spent accomplishing those things you so diligently planned for?
Do you have a record of what you did when you weren’t actively engaged in accomplishing one of your listed items? If you don’t keep track of how much time it takes to answer your emails every morning or prepare the notes for the weekly sales meeting, how do you know if that time is being spent wisely? If you don’t have an accurate account of what you actually do in a day, how do you know your day is wisely planned?
If you only manage what you do and not how long you took doing it, there is no opportunity for improvement. We all have to answer emails but if you track how long it takes you, and then make a plan for improvement; think of all the other things (like strategic planning and market development) you could be doing with the time you save. But isn’t spending time to track what I do with my time only a further waste of time? No, and it is not a complicated process to mark on your day timer or calendar or list when you started the task and when you completed it.
By tracking your time you will also get a clear picture of what activities consume your day. While your “to do” list is usually full to capacity, your actual list often has very little correlation it. When you consider that managers only get 20 minutes of work time between interruptions, it becomes clear that managing that interrupted time is very important.
Think about it, your time is very valuable but it is the resource you give the least amount of thought to. We have accounting systems to track our money, we have sales projections to track our performance, we have budgets to track our profitability but we have nothing to accurately track our use of time.
How do you Track Time?
Record your use of time: Use a day timer to actually record the start and stop times of all the activities you do per day. Track this information diligently for a one week giving no thought to improvement or analysis.
Analyze what you actually did: Are there recurring activities that you spend a lot of time on? Perhaps you should consider scheduling those activities rather than doing them on an as need basis. How often do you transition from one activity to another? Maybe you can organize your day to avoid those breaks in continuity that eat up valuable time.
Analyze your to do lists: At the end of the tracking period take a look at your to do lists for the week. Were you able to cross any items off? Have some items been on the list for more than a week, a month, or (dare we consider it) a year? Analyze your results and come up with a plan to decrease wasted time and get those items accomplished.
Finally, share what you learn about your own time tracking with the rest of your employees. The adage is: “What gets measured, gets done.” By bringing time to the forefront of your organization’s consciousness and using it wisely, you will see remarkable results in productivity.
