Manage yourself - not your time

The term "Time management" sounds absurd as it creates a false impression of what a person is able to do. Time can't be managed time is uncontrollable. We only can manage ourselves and the time used by us. Time management is nothing but self-management. The skills we need to manage others are the same skills we need to manage ourselves: the ability to plan, delegate, organize, direct and control.

Listed below are some of the most frequent reasons termed as “Time Stealers” for reducing effectiveness in the workplace. Tick the ones that are causing to be the major obstacles to your own time management.

· Interruptions - telephone & personal visitors
· Tasks you should have delegated
· Procrastination and indecision
· Acting with incomplete information
· Dealing with team members
· Crisis management (fire fighting)
· Unclear communication
· Inadequate technical knowledge
· Unclear objectives and priorities
· Lack of planning
· Stress and fatigue
· Inability to say "No"

1. Shifting priorities and crisis management. Management guru Peter Drucker says that "crisis management is actually the form of management preferred by most managers" The irony is that actions taken prior to the crisis could have prevented the fire in the first place.

2. The telephone - Our greatest communication tool can be our biggest enemy to effectiveness if you don't know how to control its hold over you.

3. Lack of priorities/objectives. This is probably the biggest/ most important time waster. It affects all we do both professionally and personally. Unfortunately too many of us think that goals and objectives are yearly things and not daily considerations. Those who accomplish the most in a day know exactly what they want to accomplish.

4. Attempting too much. Many people today feel that they have to accomplish everything yesterday and don't give themselves enough time to do things properly. This leads only to half finished projects and no feeling of achievement.

5. Drop in visitors. The five deadliest words that rob your time are "Have you got a minute?". Everyone's the culprit - colleagues, the boss, and your peers. Knowing how to deal with interruptions is one of the best skills you can learn.

6. Ineffective delegation. Good delegation is considered a key skill in leaders. This is probably the best way of building a team’s moral and reducing your workload at the same time. The general rule is this - if one of your staff can do it 80% as well as you can then delegate it.

7. The cluttered desk. Look at your desk after reading this article. If you can see less than 80% of it then you are probably suffering from 'desk stress'. The most effective people work from clear desks.

8. Procrastination. The biggest thief of time; not decision making but decision avoidance. By reducing the amount of procrastinating you can substantially increase the amount of active time available to you

9. The inability to say "no!” The general rule is; if people can dump their work or problems on to your shoulders they will do it. Some of the most stressed people around lack the skill to 'just say no' for fear of upsetting people.

10. Meetings. Studies have shown that the average manager spends about 27 hours a week in meetings and about only 6 hours in the planning time and untold hours in the follow up. Or we can say, in meetings, minutes are made but hours are lost!

Some strategies to manage your time:
Always define your objectives as clearly as possible: One of the factors which mark out successful people is their ability to work out what they want to achieve and have written goals which they can review them constantly. Your long term goals should impact on your daily activities and be included on your "to do" list. Without a goal or objective people tend to just drift personally and professionally

Analyze your use of time: If you are constantly asking yourself "What is the most important use of my time, right now?" it will help you to focus on 'important tasks' and stop reacting to tasks which seem urgent (or pleasant to do) but carry no importance towards your goals.

Have plans: Most people know what they want but have no plan to achieve it. Your yearly plan should be reviewed daily and reset as your achievements are met. Make lists constantly. It enables us to stay on top of priorities and to remain flexible to changing priorities. This should be done for both personal and business goals.

Action plan analysis: Problems will always occur, the value of a good plan is to identify them early and seek out solutions. Good time management enables you to measure the progress towards your goals because "What you can measure, you can control".

Time management (or self management) is not a hard subject to understand, but unless you are committed to build time management techniques into your daily routine you'll only achieve partial (or no) results. The lesson to learn is that the more time we spend planning our time the more time we will have for those activities. By setting goals and eliminating time wasters’ everyday, you may find extra time in the week to spend on your family.