Can’t find enough hours in your day? Use these tips to better manage time!

Number 164

If you want to get more done with the time you have, a great starting point is to spend a week or two taking a fresh and realistic look at how you are spending your minutes and hours. An effective way to do this is to maintain a detailed log of your activities throughout the day. You can use software for this, or write notes on a paper calendar or in a journal.

The idea is not original. Peter Drucker, widely recognized as the dean of management consulting, said that he often asked his executive clients to maintain a detailed log of how they spent each day. Once they had accurate records, he said, he could work with them to cut back on unproductive activities and devote more attention to their highest priorities.

By keeping a detailed time log you can create a realistic view of how you are allocating your most scarce resource – time. From there you can make changes, adjusting the pattern of your days to better reflect your priorities. As you work to manage your time to produce better results, consider these additional techniques:

• Have shorter meetings. Chances are that at least some of the meetings you regularly attend take longer than they should. And if you’re frustrated by the wasted time, other participants probably are as well. So even if you aren’t chairperson, you may be able to convince your colleagues to experiment with shorter meetings. For example, if a meeting normally takes an hour, propose restructuring so that it lasts only 45 minutes. You might also:
  • End 10 minutes before the hour. One reason so many meetings start late, and waste everybody’s time, is that some attendees are coming from another meeting that ended at the same hour as this one is scheduled to start. You know what it’s like – the people coming from a 9 o’clock meeting are always late to their 10 o’clock because they want to check messages or get another coffee. If the 9 o’clock meeting ended promptly at 9:50, there would be a smoother transition.
  • Have an agenda. Even informal meetings are likely to move more efficiently if participants know the purpose and the list of tasks to be accomplished.
  • Stand up. Many organizations are experimenting with “stand-up” meetings, where nobody is invited to sit during the discussion. Stand-up fans say that these meetings tend to be much shorter than seated ones, with attendees finding ways to move things along when their colleagues become long-winded.

• Say “no.” Chances are that a chunk of your day is devoted to activities that may feel urgent but aren’t really very important. Maybe you agree to attend meetings or undertake projects not because they matter to you, but rather because you want to be nice, because you want avoid conflict, or because “yes” is just your knee-jerk response. If so, perhaps you should get better at saying “no.” These approaches might help:
  • Know your priorities. Start each morning by setting three key goals for the day. Devote some time toward achievement of these goals as early in the day as possible. Remind yourself of your goals at regular intervals, like at lunchtime and each time you get something to drink. And when you’re tempted to turn to some new activity, say “no” to temptation unless it will help you meet one of your daily goals.
  • Schedule work time. Do you sometimes spend all day addressing emails and other low priority requests, and never seem to get around to your most important projects? If so, schedule blocks of time on your calendar to devote to work on your highest priority tasks. Treat those time blocks the way you treat important meetings, and stick to your schedule – saying “no” to interruptions -- unless it is critical that you shift your attention to another, higher priority.
  • Practice. Saying “no” gets easier with practice. If you put your mind to it, you can learn how to tactfully decline proposals and opportunities that aren’t consistent with your priorities. An important first step is to learn to pause before you say “yes,” so you can ask yourself what you might have to give up if you don’t say “no.” For example, if your friend asks you to come to a meeting that sounds kind of interesting, pause before saying “yes” and think about what else you could be doing with your time.