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Time Management. This seems to be the focus of the 90's and
probably the new millenium as well. We have more time saving
devices available to us yet we seem to have less time. We
spend millions of dollars annually on time management books
and seminars but we still seem to have too much to do in too
little time.
I have made a career of time management. No, I'm not a time
management consultant. Just a busy executive longing to find
more time in every day. And over the years I have discovered
that there seems to be four key elements to effective time
management skills:
1. An accurate understanding of how long tasks really take to
complete.
2. A single focus on the goal or task at hand.
3. Efficient uses of small amounts of time you don't even
realize you have.
4. More efficient ways of completing the more mundane, but
necessary tasks in your life.
An accurate understanding of how long tasks really take to
complete
I've been managing people for over 15 years and I have found
that those who share poor time management skills have one
thing in common: they have NO idea how long activities really
take them to complete. For example, I once managed a woman
who was going to go to Starbucks on her 15-minute break to get
a café mocha. Starbucks was a 20-minute drive from the office,
one way!! She insisted it was a five-minute drive. It wasn't.
Many who are habitually late underestimate how long they
spend getting ready to leave the house or how much time their
drive will take.
So the first key to time management is to obtain a REALISTIC
estimate of the time it takes you to accomplish most of the
tasks you perform every day. The only way to do this is to
time them! Next time you leave for work in the morning, look
at your watch the minute you get into the car. When you
arrive at work, look at your watch again. How much time
lapsed? If you are "time challenged" I bet you will be
surprised at how long it really took. When you get out of
bed in the morning, look at the clock. When you're ready to
leave the house, look at the clock again. How much time
lapsed? When you begin to clean the house, look at the clock.
When you're through, look at the clock again. I could go on
and on, but you get the picture. The objective is to take a
typical day in your life and clock everything you do. It's
probably a good idea to jot your findings down. Keep a log
of the time it took you to get to work, to leave the house
or to do your weekly cleaning, etc. etc. Once you have a
REALISTIC perspective of your actual time requirements, then
you can begin to plan your day in accordance with the
priorities you created using the Conscious Prioritization
method discussed above. Remember NOT to underestimate your
time when you plan. Refer to your time log and learn how to
say "no" so that you do not over commit yourself.
A single focus on the goal or task at hand.
This is a BIG ONE! So many "time challenged" individuals do
not even realize that when they get little accomplished it's
because they have been easily distracted from their goals. An
example of this is when you say you're going to clean out the
closet. In the course of doing so you find some old photo
albums which you spend a significant amount of time looking
through (although you'll swear you only spent an hour looking
at the albums!). At the end of the day you discover that the
contents of the closet are all over the floor around you and
that you are no farther along in your efforts to clean it out.
So you put everything back and sincerely wonder why you made
no progress at all!
If you're going to clean out the closet, clean out the closet!
Do NOT allow yourself to become distracted by the contents
within it. If you were going to drive from your house to the
grocery store, would you turn down streets that wouldn't get
you there? Would you deter along the way? Probably not. So
why do it with any project you're going to undertake. This
principle can be applied equally to your work environment and
your home environment. Choose a task and stayed focused on
only that task until it is completed or until your allotted
time has run out.
Efficient uses of small amounts of time you don't even
realize you have.
This is my favorite strategy of all. It has become somewhat
of a game to me. I'm constantly trying to find ways to be
productive with the few minutes here and there that I'd
normally waste. For instance, I purchased a cordless phone.
It turned out to be (as I'd hoped it would) the BEST
investment I've ever made with respect to accomplishing
more with the time I have. Whenever I talk to anyone on
the phone and ESPECIALLY when I've been left on hold, I wipe
down the kitchen sink, the kitchen counters, the microwave
oven, the stove top, the refrigerator shelves, the bathroom
sinks or the bathroom mirrors. Or, I may do the dishes or
throw in a load of laundry or two.
I don't know about you but I find I am constantly struggling
with clutter and things that are out of place. So, whenever
I walk from one room to another I take something with me to
put away.
From time to time I find myself waiting, waiting for my son,
waiting for my husband, waiting for the babysitter, waiting
for the phone repairperson or just waiting. So once again I
use those previously wasted moments to pick up toys, put
away folded laundry or clean out the refrigerator.
Commercials are another great source of time. Remember that
there are LOTS of chores around the house that CAN be done
in 2 or 3 minutes. If you take advantage of those moments
you'll find you can do more in seemingly less time.
Lastly, don't forget to make productive use of the time you
spend in the dentist or doctors' waiting rooms. Be sure to
take all the reading you want to catch up on or your bills
to pay. You could decide to take your cookbooks or recipe
cards to plan the next week's meals and your grocery list
at the same time. Write those letters you've intended to
write. The point is to remember to make efficient use of
the small amounts of time you don't even realize you have.
More efficient ways of completing the more mundane, but
necessary tasks in your life.
This strategy is really about devising better (i.e. quicker)
methods to get things done. Since housecleaning is the one
thing that's probably universally dreaded, I'll use it as an
example again. (I've chosen this example specifically because
if you're doing something you ENJOY you really don't want to
rush through it, do it more efficiently or do it in the small
amounts of time you don't even realize you have. The point is
to FREE up time from the "have to's" so that you can give
more time to the "want to's").
If you want to clean your home more quickly (to save time to
do more of the things you enjoy) than you must reduce
scrubbing! You'll notice that the goal of all of the
housecleaning methods below is to eliminate it entirely.
Scrubbing, I have decided, is the root of all evil (okay, not
really but it does take up a tremendous amount of time!)
Additionally, you'll discover that the majority of the
following tips are focused in the bathroom and kitchen areas.
This is because these areas, more so than any other part of
the house, seem to be the most time consuming to clean.
Using an inexpensive shower squeegee wipe down the shower
doors after every shower and save oodles of time cleaning and
scrubbing. To clean white grout or caulking around the
bathtub, soak paper towels in bleach and lay them directly
on the affected area. Walk away, or do something else for
about a half-hour or more. Remove the paper towels to find
the grout and caulking clean and white. To clean the bottom
of the bathtub fill it with just enough water to cover, add
bleach and let it soak. A half-hour or an hour later, come
back to let the water out and enjoy the sparkling clean
bathtub bottom. For mildew and soap scum, there are no better
products than Scrub Free. The Scrub Free SOAP SCUM product
also works well on faucets. Put as much in the dishwasher as
you possibly can. Load it with pots and pans, Tupperware,
spatulas, you name it, just about everything except china and
crystal. Some pots and pans may not be suitable for the
dishwasher so be sure to use discretion. And obviously you'll
have to run the dishwasher more so the cost of running that
should be balanced against the benefit you gain in time saved.
Use rubbing alcohol to clean stainless steel sinks, bleach to
clean ceramic sinks. (I love bleach-have you noticed?)
Dust less often, unless someone in your family has allergy
problems. Vacuum tile, hardwood or vinyl floors weekly. Scrub
them bi weekly or monthly.
These are just a few of the household hints that have saved
me hours of time throughout the years. Remember, the objective
is to spend as little time as possible on those mundane yet
necessary tasks in your life. I have illustrated my point
using housecleaning as an example but really this can apply
to any area. I'm sure if you analyze some of the less
enjoyable chores you do, you too, can find more efficient
methods to complete them.
As you have seen, time management is about:
1. An accurate understanding of how long tasks really take to
complete.
2. A single focus on the goal or task at hand.
3. Efficient uses of small amounts of time you don't even
realize you have .
4. More efficient ways of completing the more mundane, but
necessary tasks in your life
But ultimately, the real goal of time management is to
organize your days more effectively so that you can create
more time for yourself and the things that you enjoy! I have.
 Jacqueline McLaughlin Hale is a CPA and the editor of
"The Balanced Woman" a monthly ezine. It contains parenting
tips, household hints, ideas for pampering yourself and more.
Subscribing is easy and FREE. Just send a blank
TheBalancedWoman-subscribe@onelist.com She is also the
author of The Woman's Guide to Resumes and Interviewing,
Lessons From a Toddler and 77 Ways to Pamper Yourself. All
of these publications are available through AJAY Publishing at:
http://angelfire.com/sd/jobsearchforwomen.
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