Staff Training

Time management is an important tool for every level of the workforce. In this era of Lean, downsizing, rightsizing and mergers,we are all learning to do more with less. Doing more usually leads to stress, missed deadlines, late nights, and general frustration with work and co-workers. Even if you think you're well-organized, a little refresher course on organization and time management can provide a few tips and tricks that will allow you to be more productive and save you some stress in the process.

Let’s start by talking about what time management is. Time management is a set of principles,practices, skills, tools, and systems working together to help you get more value out of your time with the aim of improving the quality of your life.¹ While this may sound complex, it doesn’t have to be. Learning new skills and honing others can make life in and out of work much more satisfying.

Time is a finite resource.How we use it is the key to success or failure. Time is only “found” by taking it away from one activity and giving it to another. Time management is not necessarily accomplishing a lot of tasks, but accomplishing the right tasks, those things that truly need to be done.

According to one website time management is a journey.² You can learn how to manage time but it takes practice and continued instruction to be successful.

Since most of us are too busy to make an in-depth study of time management, let’s look at some practical applications of theory.

Time Wasters and Counter-measures

Procrastination
Procrastination is the avoidance of doing a task which needs to be accomplished. People procrastinate for a variety of reasons: fear of failure, concern over the size or scope of the project, the time commitment, aversion to risk, and even fear of success.³ We may appear to be busy getting ready to start the project, by cleaning a desk or organizing files without actually tackling the job.

Procrastination occurs with both large and small projects. Sometimes it is rationalized by assuming things won’t take very long to do,or that people always work better under pressure. Of course, the effect delaying the big project is that the work produced is not the best we could do. Procrastination slows down work flow, and can affect an entire team.

Counter measures:

• If the project looks massive, break it down into smaller parts; do each part individually. You don’t need to start at the beginning, you just need to start.
• Make deals with yourself. Agree to work on the project for 5 minutes. See what is accomplished at the end of that time.
• Tell a co-worker that you are starting.This adds pressure,as you have now“gone public.”
• Reward yourself as you complete parts.This will motivate you to keep going.
• Do the worst part first. Get it out of the way and the rest of the project will look manageable.