Time Management

Effective time management means less stress in your day to day routine. Managing your time effectively will get more done each day and when your minimize stress your improving the quality of work.
“Effective executives, in my observation, do not start with their tasks, they start with their time. And they do not start out with planning. They start by finding out where their time actually goes,” (Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive” referenced by Negesh Belludi, 2008).
We can easily lose sight on how we spend our time and before you know it the day is over. Ask yourself how your spend your time; keep a log of everything you do for a few days. Evaluate this and determine where you spend the most time, how to utilize certain times of the day and what you can shave off the list. If you commute to work, utilize this time to catch up on emails, read reports or write you’re to do list for the day. This time may seem short, but in the end useful.
It’s also important to keep healthy to relive stress, not only can you be bombarded with heavy workloads but your personal life can affect your productivity as well. Get plenty of rest and make sure you have something for breakfast and lunch during work, this will keep you energized. Feeling run down exhausted or fatigue will only set you back and create distractions and limitations of productivity. A healthy lifestyle can improve focus; concentration and efficiency this will help finish the tasks out hand. Stock your break room with healthy snacks like apples or yogurt.
Tips to Reduce Stress and Improve Productivity * Plan each day * Prioritize your tasks * Say no to nonessential tasks * Delegate * Take the time you need to do a quality job * Break large, time-consuming tasks into smaller tasks * Practice the 1o-minute rule * Evaluate how you’re spending your time
By planning your day you can take control by accomplishing more. Create a “To do list,” put the most important tasks on the top. Also, each day keep a schedule of your daily activities to minimize conflicts. Using a planner, to-do file folder, calendar and post-it notes can keep you organized. Setting appointments or deadlines on your phone or email calendar could be used as daily or last minute reminders. It’s also important to evaluate how much time you have and how you spend your time. By creating a detailed system of time management you will see how much time you spend on day to day actions.
Remind yourself to prioritize especially when your day can be packed with meetings, reports and answering emails and interrupted by phone calls. This can be time consuming if done daily, but it’s effective to limit unimportant tasks because they can consume much of your day. To ensure your spending time and energy on important task you must prioritize first.
Your day may be filled with obligations and tasks some of which may also be mundane. Before taking on other tasks consider your goals and consult your schedule before agreeing to take on additional work. This can affect your personal life, if you take on too obligations you may feel rushed and stress and produce less successful work.
After creating your “To do list,” take a closer look and decide whether you could cut tasks out to add to another day or if possible delegate to someone else. Passing on tasks relieves your work load, but it’s also important not to throw too much at one person continuously as that will affect their productivity as well.
Quality over quantity can be very imperative at times. Creating work right the first time may take more time and research, but errors usually result in more time spent revising which in the end does not produce quality work and well managed time.
When working on a large time consuming project sometimes it’s best to break into smaller tasks. This will make it less intimidating when you break into smaller segments or decided to do one section per day for a week. Sometimes we may feel flustered and feel discouraged when working on projects, instead of getting stuck and wasting valuable time, move on to another task preferable small and then try attempting the task you got stuck on.
Another great tip is utilizing the “10-mintue rule,” work on the task at hand ten minutes each day, as you start it will sound more accomplishable and before you know it the task will be finished.
When you know you have an upcoming project that will take up time try to limit out distractions. Note time on your calendar to hold any meetings, calls or visitors if possible. If that doesn’t work with your position then perhaps shutting your office door and turn off your personal phone that will limit distractions throughout the days where you must focus on project completion.
Consult with HR of any upcoming seminars or meetings on the topic of time management. This is valuable to all staff and increase efficiency throughout the workplace and will be done throughout the year.
Remember to always take a break when needed especially if you’re feeling stressed fluttered by work, unmotivated, distracted or stumped. Too much stress can set you back, take a break, get some water, walk around to clear head, or do some breathing or stretching exercises to loosen up.
Analyze how you spend your time

In a four series article, author Nagesh Bellundi puts it best, “Effective time management is truly not about managing time as such; rather it is about managing priorities.”
Exercise: Evaluate how you spend your time
How much time do you at work doing things that don’t contribute to your success? (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_03.htm)
If you haven’t utilized an Activity Log you will be surpised on how much time you spend being productive. When you can understand and evaluate your time at work, you can then be able to minimize or eliminate low value activites. This will offer you more time trhougout the day to work on high value tasks.
Before you manage your time effectively, you will need to develop a system of how you spend your time currently.
Time Log
Below is an exercise for you to track how many hours and minutes during a whole work week you spend. If you follow a specific routine every day, you may be able to approximate your time analysis by doing this exercise for the time you spend at work during one week. More data leads to more comprenhensive analyasis so its imperative that you long a entire week. Log where time actually goes, after reviewing you can develop a schedule of how much time to spend on what really matters and what to cut out or limit.

Nagesh Bellundi, 2008.
Create a chart of four columns as the sample above shows. Make enough copies for each day for one week. Jot down every ten to fifth teen minutes to record your activity. Include times spent traveling or in a meeting.
Column 1: Contains labels for time intervals, in 10- or 15-minute increments.
Column 2: Records your daily activity.
Column 3: Identifies the project or purpose that activity served.
Column 4: Rates the effectiveness of time spent.
For each task in your time log, ask the following three questions for importance and relevance.
3 Questions to Ask Yourself:
Necessity: “Should I do this at all? Does this relate to my priorities? Does this help me achieve my goals or my company’s objectives?”
Ownership: “Is this required of me? Am I the right person to do this? Do I have the right tools to do this? Can I delegate? Can I seek help?”
Prioritization: “Can I spend less time on this? Should I do this during the part of the day when I can focus/concentrate better? Can I do this during some other part of the day or week?”
Asking these questions can help you identify the nature of your task and prepares you to discover ways of maintaining a productive day. Discovering all these details is key to identifying time wasted and time effectively used.
Keep your log in chart with you all day, carry it on a clipboard or paperclip to planner. Record all activities whether or not they insignificant, all time adds up throughout your entire week. Log your time in ten to fifteen minute intervals and then spend an hour at the end of the week to compile your log ins. Include travel time, time chatting with co-workers in the breakroom and time spent on the internet. Below it what your Time Log should look like.

http://www.rightattitudes.com/2008/10/22/analyzing-how-you-currently-use-time/
Step 1: Tally up Time- Use by Purpose or Project
In the third column labeled Purpose/Project, consolidate these projects and purposes into meaningful categories of about 10-15. Reviews each day’s time log chart and add the time spend in each category, calculate percent of total time and review results. Example shown below.

http://www.rightattitudes.com/2008/10/22/analyzing-how-you-currently-use-time/

Step 2: Examine Wastefulness
As you tally your time by category, evaluate the time you spend not productive. It’s important to identify non-productive tasks and actions. After reviewing, the remaining time on your time logs should be actual time spent on productivity and efficiency at the right time when prioritizing.
Step 3: Investigate Time Demands to Seek Better Habits
“Many executives know all about these unproductive and unnecessary time demands; yet they are afraid to prune them. They are afraid to cut out something important by mistake. But this mistake, if made can be speedily corrected. If one prunes too harshly, one usually finds out fast enough.” (Peter Drucker in “The Effective Executive” referenced by Nagesh Belludi, 2008).
Benefits of Time Logging
Immediately after logging you can make sense of where your time goes. This will then help you consider habbits you need to develop, or change and start using hours and minutes more effectively.
Another advantage is that your time logs will serve as a foundation for structuring your time according to your priorities and enable effective time management.
Time logging is somethings you can do every three to six months and your results may continuosly change. Identify the area which you drain the most time and focus on improving that until the next time you log in. Compare and contrast and write down how you improved on cutting back for future referernce .
Activity Log

Similar to a Time Log, you can also set up a spreadsheet titled, “Activity log.” Note everything you do at work as you do it. This will work best if your position involves you being at your work desk a majority of the time, otherwise utilize the, “Time Log” and may copies for each day during your one-week time management evaluation.
An Acticvity Log will also help you understand whether or not your’re doing your most important work during the right time of day. If your more energentic and creative in the mornings, you would do better at attemping important tasks during this time. You can also focus on low energy tasks like emails or returning calls in the afternoon .
Activity Logs are also useful for helping you identify non-core activities that don’t help you meet important objectives. For example, you might spend far more time than you think surfing the internet, or getting coffee each afternoon. When you see how much time your wasting on such activities, you can change the way that you work to eliminate them. Date/Time | | Activity Description | | How I Feel | | Duration | | Value (High, Medium. Low, None) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

Include the following headings: * Date/Time * Activity Description * How I Feel * Duration * Value (High, Medium, Low, None)
Everytime you change activities, wether it be replying to emails, working on a report, grabing coffee in the break room, note dowth what the activity is , the time and how you feel (alert, flat, tired, energetic, and so on).
Then at a convient time , go back through your Activity Log and write down the duration of each activity and whether it was high, medium, low or no value task. Evaluate this based on how far it contributed to achieving your job goals.
Learning from Your Actvity Log
Once you finish logging your time for evaluation week, you should be able to boost your productivity by applying actions to various activites throughout your day. Actions can include: * Eliminate/Delegate * Schedule * Minimize * Reduce
By eliminating tasks that don’t help you meet your goals. If possible , delegate a task that may not be part of your role that someone is in your department should be doing. Also, eliminate any personal actions including sending non-work emails or surfing the internet.
Schedule your most challenging tasks for times of the day when you are more energized . This will mean you are more alert and focused to do better quality of work and it will also take you less time to so .
Minimize the number of times you switch between types of tasks. Questions to ask yourself: * Could your check and reply to emails at only a few times of the day? * Could you process all your invoices at the same time each week?
Key Points
Creating a report on your use of time and for tracking the time you spend on a task or job can be very useful and insightful in a busy day filled with tasks. Try not to procrastinate; spending too much time on a low-value or low priority task can eat up valuable time throughout your day. If you feel stuck on a task or stressed , take a break or do a few stretches at your desk. Evaluate if there are certain times of the day where you work better and use that time wisely. Time Logs and Activity Logs are a useful tool for analyzing how you use your time. They help you track changes in your energy level, alertness and effectiveness throughout yout work day. The advantage of utilizes these logs is to help you eliminate time wasting on activites so that you can be more productive.
Once you ‘ve analayzed , you should be able to boost your production by eleminiating or deligating low-value activities, scheduling challenging tasks for the time of the day when you feel your best, minimizing the number of times that you switch between types of tasks and reducing the time you spend on personal activities.

Works Cited
Naegesh Bellundi. (Oct. 20, 2008). Time management the basis for managing your time effectively. http://www.rightattitudes.com/2008/10/20/basis-for-managing-time-effectively/ Nagesh Bellundi. (Oct. 22, 2008). Time management analyzing how you currently spend your time, http://www.rightattitudes.com.
Anonymous. Finding more time in your day http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_03.htm Nagesh Bellundi. (Oct. 21, 2008). Time management log where time actually goes.
http://www.rightattitudes.com/2008/10/21/log-where-time-actually-goes/