Part IV. Prioritizing

First of all let’s try to understand what word prioritizing means. Write down a list of projects or simple tasks to be completed and then rank them according to their importance, so the most important item will appear to be the first one in your list. It means you will start doing second priority task only when more important one is completed. This is how prioritizing process looks like.

It is easy to understand how priorities work if you associate them with poker chips. As a rule in poker three mail colors of chips are used. Blue chips are the most important for a player, because each blue chip worth a lot of money. If one looses the blue chip it definitely means failure for him, oppositely achieving an additional blue chip is a great success.

Red chips are not as important as blue, but still it is not recommended to ignore them. One need to pay high attention on red chips, but the first priority is always given to the blue ones. If one looses or gains an additional red chip it means neither failure, nor success, but when player operates with big amount of red chips, their loss or obtaining has much bigger importance.

There are also white chips. Their importance is not even close to red or blue chips. Failure to obtain white chips will not worry the player, sometimes one even sacrifices white chip to get more important red or blue one.

But let’s go back to prioritizing. Our top priority tasks are blue chips, the goals of medium importance belong to the group of red chips and after all white chips are the tasks with the lowest priority. It is highly important to make this division and you will realize that only some of your goals are equal to blue chips, and these are tasks to concentrate on.

The Objective Setting – Performance Appraisal form contain mainly the blue chips objectives. In a long term prospective your daily and weekly goals perform red chips importance level, because they are just an input, a step on the way to main objective. But actually during one week you will also have goals of different priority, which may be red or blue chips equivalents, a lot of your daily tasks may be so called “white chips”.

When you are planning your activities for a following day, don’t forget to prioritize your goals. It may be very important in some situations, for example you had a red chip task for Monday, but you didn’t manage to complete it in time, so on Tuesday this task gets blue chip priority.

When you try to rank your goals, to define their priority, take into consideration the following topics:

• Deadline;
• The level of importance;
• How important is this project for your supervisor;
• Accessibility of people you need to interact with or equipment needed to complete the tasks;
• Make sure there is a certain order of completing the tasks.

Another way to understand the level of importance of the objective you have is ask yourself a simple question: “What will happen if I don’t complete this task until deadline?” If the answer is, that it will lead to failure or some substantial negative effects, it means this is objective of very high priority – blue chip goal. If the consequences don’t influence the results in big extent, these tasks will likely belong to white chips.

After ranking your goals according to their priorities, you need to follow certain rules to achive effective time management and use your working time properly:

• 1. First of all it is recommended to spend the most amount of your time working on you blue chips objectives, less time should be devoted to red chips goals and if then you have some free time left, it belongs to white chips.
• 2. Never forget, that blue chip goals are goals of high priority, so you have to work on them first of all. Don’t start red chip task until you have your blue chip completed. It is much more useful to have just a small part of blue chip project ready, then to accomplish one white task completely.

To be continued…

Part3. Setting goals

Planning is closely connected with setting particular goals and defining objectives. When one talks about objectives, the task to be completed, the result is usually meant. Setting goals helps us to create certain direction to follow, not to be kept by waves in ocean of business, but to swim by ourselves. More over, goals are needed for effective time management. If the task you try to complete doesn’t contribute to your long-term objectives, then you are just wasting your time.

Objective Setting and Performance Appraisal Review system identify a range of objectives and goals you have. As a rule one has so many goals and all are so great and broad, that it is physically impossible to achieve all of them at the same time. In this case long term goals should be divided into smaller – intermediate goals, the latter to be broken into one week objectives, which can be achieved in seven days period. As a result, you will get a goal for each single day, so step by step, making your daily tasks done you are getting closer and closer to your main objective.

If you are ready to devote time for planning and setting your system of goals, then you are likely to be successful in time management. Below you will find some tips, important rules which will enable you to be more efficient in goal setting process.

• It is important to set goals for each day. You may do it in the morning when new day is just about to start, or maybe you prefer to set goals for the following day in the evening after work or before going to sleep. Setting daily goals, always keep in mind your week objectives.
• Creating goals, pay attention on details, plan what exactly, when and where you have to do.
• Set realistic goals, there should be a high chance, that you will accomplish it by the end of the day.
• If the achievement of goals you have set beforehand includes the others people time and decisions, think about it carefully, interact with those people and develop mutual decision. Never forget, that results may depend not only on your affords, but external influence as well.
• Always set measurable goals, so you can always know how much you have done today to achieve good results in long term prospective.
• The best way you can use your time every day is to complete goals you have set before.

Organization

Planning itself worth nothing if your project lacks good organization. Well thought organization means your goals will be accomplished, and your time will be used in the most effective way. Prioritizing and scheduling are two the most important steps of organization.

To be continued..

People around might see you as very busy and hardworking person, you were trying to combine different activities, writing report and talking by phone at the same time, or for example keeping conversation with your friend and writing mobile message. But at the end of the day can you say, that you have done all the things you planned to do, and are you sure you got the best possible results?

Well, of course, there are a lot of things that you can do at the same time easily, such as doing sport exercises and listening to music, or reading a newspaper and eating or drinking something. These simple things are also an example of multitasking, but they are so easy to do, because one doesn’t need to concentrate on both tasks. It is needed to focus only on one activity and second comes so natural, that you don’t even think about it. But in the first examples given in article, the person has to focus on both things: writing report and talking by phone, so the attention is divided. It means it is impossible to do your best if you are trying to focus on more then one activity. In this case doing more and more things brings less and less result.

Below you will find information about other disadvantages of multitasking:

• Multitasking doesn’t lead to high quality of the work done; actually it may reduce the quality substantially. When you try to talk by phone and write report, the person you are talking with will feel the lack of attention from your side and may be irritated by it and react negatively on your words.
• Don’t try to concentrate on several things at the same time; anyway it won’t bring any good results. Much better way to be highly effective is to switch quickly from one activity to another, as it is impossible to keep being focused on some tasks at the same moment.

Multitasking don’t give you a try to build effective time management plan. And if your employees had to think about many different tasks at the same time – then their productivity falls.

Is there any solution?
The secret is that multitasking is actually great thing, but it works only if different people are doing different tasks. One has to focus on area he is the best in, and other tasks have to be delegated to other people, who will do it better and quicker, then you. Another solution is to give these numerous tasks to outside workers, so called freelancers.

But keep in mind that not only new projects are to be started with planning. It is needed to look through your schedule every day. Some people prefer doing it in the morning, when the day just begins, some find it more suitable to create plan for following day in the evening after all work in office is finished. While creating your time management plan, don’t forget about the following points:

First of all determine whether the task you are going to do belongs to your responsibilities or not. Figure out if there are people whom you can delegate these tasks as their job description is more accurate to it. Acting in this way you will have more free time for completing tasks which are really important and lie within your responsibilities. In some cases work load can be divided into two parts for instance in order one part to be delegated. It means that interaction between workers and managers becomes highly important; sometimes the results of negotiations depend on communicational skills to great extent. But don’t forget that the highest attention should be paid to your own responsibilities.

Secondly, when you determine, how much work will you take to have it done, ask yourself is it really possible for you to handle this entire work load. One has to work hard, but there is a certain limit, after which each additional project you take is of lower and lower quality. But the aim is not to complete as many tasks as possible; the aim is to provide service of high quality, to be highly effective. And one has no right to sacrifice quality of products and services, to sacrifice reputation just to have one more task done. If you feel that you have reached your limit, that you have no physical or mental ability to maintain the demanded level of your work quality, you have to inform your supervisor about the situation. Determining your work load is an important part of time management process, more over one needs to act to improve the situation, when this work load is out of limits. Being able to see the problem and ask for help definitely shows your strength, not weakness.

Thirdly, think carefully before you will define the precise time you need for one or another task. This time should be based on reality; this is the only way to be effective in planning. The reason is that underestimating or overestimating your time may lead to really negative results not only in your personal work, but it may influence the efficiency of whole company. For instance, if you underestimate the required time, you will not probably be ready in time, so it breaks the schedule of other people, whose work depends on your results. The same way, in case of overestimating, you will have your task ready earlier, than it was supposed to be. It may seem as if you are highly efficient, but actually this situation will make you sit around and will just steal your time. So, good plan has to be based on realistic time estimates.

Lastly, don’t forget to include time for breaks, lunch into your plan. It has been already proven, that if somebody works hard, without any break under strong pressure of time and stress, his productivity is falling down rapidly. So, you are the one to plan you time the way, which will give you an ability not to be burnt out in work. Breaks will help you to refresh yourself, to get new forces, maybe even new ideas, which will after all result into high working capacity. That’s why one shouldn’t minimize the importance of spare time during working day.

How To Define The Work Load Properly

Remind yourself the list of tasks you have now and choose one current objective you have there. Keep it in mind and answer questions below:

• 1. What is your current activity which will in future help you to achieve the objective you have chosen?
• 2. When should this task (project/activity) be completed? Is there a deadline determined?
• 3. Define what time exactly you will need to have the project completed. Count only working hours, then count hours you need including possible interruptions.
• 4. Create a list of people you may need to interact with to have your project/activity successfully done.
• 5. ill this work demand from you completing certain tasks on weekly or daily basis? Determine these intermediate tasks and duties.

To be continued…
Previous parts:

• Effective Time Management For Managers. Part 1

• Effective Time Management For Managers. Part 2

What Expectations Can You Have

Of course, it would be impossible to look through all components of time management, to give the detailed characteristics of each topic. We will pay our attention on the most important, the main ideas and principles of time management, for instance planning and organizational skills, which can be used in real life. We have tried to give the theory enough to understand the basic facts about managing your time, but mostly the article is devoted to practical advices in the field of time management.

Objectives

The main objective of the article is to enable you to:

• 1. Understand the importance of planning as a part of time management;
• 2. Get the understanding of the way you can benefit from having good organizational skills;
• 3. Get the knowledge of how one can save time thanks to effective delegation, training and communication.
• 4. Use special recommendations and techniques for handling overwhelming projects, paper work, solving out important problems.

Format

The article below will provide you enough of theoretical information, but its main aim is to teach you to use this knowledge, to develop skills, one can apply to in everyday business life. Involvement into practical exercises will help you to gain time management much quicker, then if you will prefer being passive and just observe. Remember this simple rule and you will succeed.

How To Manage Your Time

Planning

Effective time management doesn’t exist without planning. To create a plan means to create the understanding of what you are going to do, which way you will do it, planning makes you ready for taking important decisions in future.

Planning process will take some time, but good, detailed plan will help you to save a lot of time in long term prospective. Always, when you start new project or get new task, try to start working with creating a plan. Planning will be easier if you answer these questions:

• 1. What tasks do you have to do?
• 2. When is the deadline to have tasks done?
• 3. Is there possibility to delegate this task? If yes, then determine responsible people.
• 4. How long time will it take to complete all tasks?
• 5. What intermediate steps you need to complete?

To be continued…

Sometimes it seems, that the harder team works, the worse result they get, and they never have enough of time to finish the project. On the other hand, there is one more problem; it lies in putting priorities, it is very important to know which tasks have to be done first, and which can be postponed because of lower level of importance for company.
To create effective time management system and to solve all the problems described above a lot of managers use the trainings provided by professional consultants.

Time Management Training

The aim of time management training is to increase the efficiency of the company; more over it will help to increase the personal productivity of each particular worker and this will for sure result into higher employee productivity of the whole team. As a rule training is focused on certain topics such as creating daily schedule, organizing documents and e-mails, so it will take much less time and affords to find the one you need. Investments in good time management system always give high returns.

How Good Time Management Influence The Organization

As soon as the productivity of workers is increased, a range of internal organizational problems are solved automatically, by themselves. First of all the organizational stress will be eliminated, because of better communication and understanding between workers.

Employee Benefits

It is obvious, that organization as a business structure will be able to increase the efficiency of its working process and get higher profits. But one has also to mention, that every single worker will benefit from good time management skills. Better results achieved by employee, recognition and awards create the best motivation for further effective work. Additionally, worker will face much less amount of stressful situations, because all work will be done in time, and being calm and relaxed it is easier to focus and to do your job properly.

The Importance of Employee Time Management

As it was already written, high productivity increases the income, so the worker, whose time management skills are highly developed, will be much more efficient and his hard work will influence the growth and successful development of the whole organization. Take into account, that worker who knows nothing about time management will slow down the process of development; such worker becomes liability, but not an asset. You will find more useful information about employee time management below.

Effective Time Management

There are a lot of methods to improve the employee time management in the organization. But we have to admit, that before you start using any of such methods to make the employee time management skills better, you have to create the basics, the foundation, such as strict work ethics policy. Every worker in the company has to follow this policy, for example enter the office at certain hour and finish work not earlier, then assigned time. Below you will find a list of the most effective methods of employee time management.

• Give feedback and evaluation

  It is important for employer to give feedback and evaluation to workers within certain intervals of time. There are several reasons for it:
  – To underline the responsibilities of worker;
  – To describe the particular results company expects from worker;
  – To set goals for workers.

  This will give an employee the understanding of the current situation and idea about main goals, which have to be reached in the foreseeable future. The workers will get to know, that their work is important, that they are going right direction and you are confident in them, it makes employees do their best to achieve good results.

• Provide the proper coordination.

  If you want to develop good employee time management skills, then proper coordination, provided by employer is just necessary. If you want to implement any new project it is vitally important to give employees the detailed instructions they should follow while doing their job. More over, it is also very important to highlight the information about good achievements of worker, even better if such worker will be rewarded. It will become great motivation to show better results not only for this particular employee, but for the whole staff as well.

• Conduct time management trainings and seminars.

  Instructions provided by employer are very important, but the best way to improve time management skills of workers is the practice, so trainings became the method of great importance. The earlier you will hold the training day, the earlier it will return you with money. It is recommended to use the help of professional specialist in the field of time management trainings to get better effect. As a rule specialists dealing with human resources (HR) have good knowledge in employee time management.

Time-tracking process

Employee time tracking is very important process, it helps to control the way worker uses his time and the level of his productivity. Some years ago manual timesheets were widespread, now they are totally replaced by automatic systems; as an example one can name time clock software, the tool, which controls every minute worker spend in office. Nowadays these automatic systems, time management software make the process of time tracking easier and much more efficient. It helps the employer to keep under control the workers productivity and the level of development company shows. Try to get as more information about time management software as possible.

One has to understand the importance of effective time management and for employer it is also needed to know the main methods of improving time management in the organization and time-tracking. Because high level of employee time management is the foundation for development and growth of business. It will help you to set realistic goals for workers and provide employees the motivation and the ability to achieve these goals easily being highly effective in doing their job and using every minute of work time.

Only Realistic Goals

First one needs to set certain goals and then do the best to achieve them, but unfortunately, a lot of people stuck on first step. It is very important to work out such goals, which can be really achieved, ask yourself about your expectations and try to match them with real situation. First of all take decision how much time you will devote to your business daily and which hours are better to work without being interrupted by anybody. Keep in mind, that it is impossible to reach success if you try to accomplish more tasks, then you can actually do.

Write A List Of Things, Which Should Be Done

It is recommended to start with writing down the tasks you have to do in general. Then have a look at your list and find out which of these activities are the most important, which of them will make your business develop and prosper. So these tasks have to be first in your to do list. The next step is to find out certain time to complete these high priority tasks.

Watch Through Your To Do List Periodically

Keeping in mind your main goals is thing of great importance, but don’t forget, that your priority tasks may change with time passing. The more you work, the more you know about your home business, the more skills you get, becoming real professional, and it allows you to see new targets, to put new priorities. That is why it is very important to rework the to do list from time to time, changing the types of activities or time devoted for some tasks.

Set Time Limits

Now, when you have already figured out how much time you may devote to your business activities daily, when you have completed the list of priority tasks, it is high time to think about time limits for each particular task you have put in list. First it may be not that easy to set certain time limits for each task, but this fact shouldn’t scare you, it will become easier and easier with time. One more thing, don’t forget to rework time limits, because after getting an experience you will need less and less time for your tasks.

Work During The Work Time

If you have set some special hours to do your business, try not to switch to other activities during this time. This is important to manage your tasks with high effectiveness, imagine, that you are working in normal office. If it is impossible for you to get rid of all interrupting factors, make at least an attempt to minimize their influence on your work. First of all make sure, that your desk is situated in calm place, let all your family members or just people you live with to know about your work hours, so they won’t interrupt you while you try to concentrate on work. It may be also useful to ask friends not to call during time devoted to work, let them know about your free time you can spend with them talking or having a drink together.

Well, it is very important to work according your schedule and complete tasks within time limits, but keep in mind the main reason you have chosen the work from home, I am sure this reason is the ability to be flexible. So sometimes one needs to do things of higher importance, then work, and try not to work during non-working hours at home.

If you are shopping around trying to find high quality time management software, take into consideration the following aspects:

• Searching for web timesheet, figure out whether this software provides interactive reporting or not. This topic is really important, because database of reports is very wide as a rule and this tool helps to choose right one quickly and easily.
• Time management software is not isolated; the need to transfer data and further information will always exist, so ensure the web timesheet to be integrated with accounting system you use of will use in future;
• Web timesheet also has to provide you the possibility to create rules in order to check out its validity, to know whether it helps to organize effective time management or not.
• Another detail to pay attention on is the presence of built in function of approval routing. This function will give you an ability to choose the manual or pre-defined routes for timesheets.
• The function of managing the reimbursements is also of great importance. The overall process is integral activity, which helps to manage all types of expenses and influence productivity of employees greatly.
• Choose the software, which provides the automatic e-mail notifications. It is very useful function, because e-mail notification can be sent on certain time and deal with information about rejection or approval of expenditure.

It is obvious, that time management software will offer wide range of functions and will substantially simplify the process of managing the organizational expenses and time. But the main factor, which determines the great popularity of web based timesheets, is the high effectiveness of this tool. The benefit you get from using software is much higher, then your expenses, using the professional language, we can say, that in this situation the Return of investment (ROI) is very high.

Another great advantage of web timesheet is the fact that it can be used any time, in any situation. The only things one needs to get access to software are computer and internet. It doesn’t matter whether you are at home, in the office or railway station, you can manage your data, transfer the information and create the system of effective time management.

More over, all information, which web timesheets contain, can be reached only by certain level of users, so high level of protection is guaranteed.

To start searching web based timesheet software visit Wikipedia Comparison of time tracking software page.