Time is the most precious thing in our lives. We all come with an expiry date and time is always in short supply. I will quote American business philosopher Jim Rohn "Time is more precious than money.You can always get more money but not time".As I am growing older I am becoming more conscious of each passing day, hour and minute. In a day we all have same amount of time .As time available in a day is constant we can’t manage time. We can only manage our self to get the things done in the available time. Time management is nothing but self management and life management. Mr Bhushan Paranjape who was my Manager 6-7 years back once gave me the soundest advice about time. He told me there are two types of people in this world.
People who have no time: These are the people who don’t know priorities in life and think they are always short of time. These people always complain that they don’t have time for work, colleagues, parents, family, friends or vacation. Such people are failures in life and never get anything done on time.
People who have time for all important things: Such people always think they have sufficient time for the important things in life. So time management starts with having a mindset that there is always sufficient time to do things that are important in life. Such people know their priorities in life and allot time accordingly. A CEO of a company and a person from lower ranks have the same time. But one will always hear from people in lower ranks that’s they don’t have time do do their work.Some people can get more done is same allotted time.
Over period of time as my responsibilities have increased .This made me to read many books on the subject of time management. I will list down some of the principles that are very important for time management and getting the things done.
- Make a list of goals: Start with writing down the list of things that need to be done in a year and also in a day.You will find out that one ends up accomplishing most goals which was written down.
- Organize the activities: Organize the activities in the list as per their priority and importance. One can use the 80-20 principle of Pareto to sort out the tasks as per their importance.
- Single handling and concentration: Then pick the most important task and work with full concentration on that task till it’s completed. One of the reasons for great success of people is Germany is they do only one thing at a time and stick to task till its completed.
- Setting deadline and rewarding: For every task allot a time line and try to finish it before the committed time. This makes one feel very good about one self. Once a difficult task is completed always reward one self with a good dinner, outing or vacation. This rejuvenates one to get back with full force for the next task.
- Time log: Keep a track of how you spend your time. Once you start logging your time you will realize how productively you are using your time and will start improving.
- Break work in to small pieces: If task is very big and challenging then break it into small parts. Then finish each small part with deadline.
- Delegate: Delegation is the most powerful management tool. But to delegate one need to pass on authority and responsibility to others which needs great self confidence. This requires training others and explaining clearly what is required from them. No one can do everything on their own in life.Delegate everything that others can do and do only the things which if you do will make a difference.
- Meetings: Research shows meeting are one of the biggest time wasters in office space. It distracts people and breaks their rhythm. If you are conducting a meeting ensure you have an agenda, start time and end time for a meeting. Also every meeting should end with a minutes of meeting and with proper action plan, responsibility and due dates. When the next meeting happens the minutes of meeting of previous meeting should be tracked for monitoring the progress of work.Never delay starting of a meeting waiting for someone who is going to arrive late.M K Gandhi once said " Problem with punctuality is that there is no one to appreciate it"
- New techniques and team work: Always try to find out if there is a better and faster method to do a task. The best part of working in teams is one can compliment each other and get more things done in lesser time by sharing knowledge and experience. On a good team 1+1=11 and on a bad one 1+1 is less than 1.Valuing others time is very important. Never keep anyone waiting or waste their time even if you are in authority. Always come for meeting 2 minutes before time.
- Learn to say no: This is most difficult thing to do, as others may get offended. But learn to say no to all unimportant things like long coffee breaks, lunch or unwanted meetings. Cut the time spend watching TV and cricket matches. Spend more time in reading. Dr Kalam says “ A hour of reading per day will make one knowledge center and it will attract people to you like bee to nectar”
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