A matter of time
Oct 1, 1998 12:00 PM, Ted Tate
If you want your business to grow, one of the skills most essential to that goal will be using your time effectively to accomplish the important things. Time is an enigma, puzzling and mysterious. It treats us equally; we all receive 24 hours every day. Despite the apparent equality time grants us, there is, however, a relative nature to it as well. For some people, there never seems to be sufficient time to accomplish a day's given tasks. On the other hand, some people will find that time may have a tendency to drag on far too slowly.
I have found one great truth about time. In my long career, I have had the privilege of meeting and working with successful businesspeople, some of whom are the top executives and entrepreneurs in the United States. They came from many walks of life with a wide array of business and social backgrounds. There is, however, one common behavior-an awareness of time and its importance. Each valued the notion of using time as efficiently as possible.
A good time-management course has the potential to fill a book, so in this brief article, I will focus on five key time-management tactics for people who work in small business and are committed to their business' success. I have followed these principles myself, and I have also seen other successful people whom I admire do likewise. They involve written goals (with priorities), handling "urgent" interruptions, saying "no," controlling the working environment and avoiding repetitive and/or trivial work.
We all know people who are perpetually busy, running from one task to the next, frazzled. They suffer constant phone interruptions. People barge in and ask them for favors or assistance. As soon as they focus on one task, the next issue pops up. Worst of all, everything feels like an emergency. These are also the people who claim that time management is not the problem. They maintain that they are organized, and they just have too much to do. Upon request, they produce their lists of things to do, pages upon pages of all kinds of things. Of course, they never catch up. By the end of the day, they usually go home worn out, frustrated, sometimes angry because they are usually further behind than they were in the morning.
Why is this? These are people who treat everything with equal importance. From their perspective, reading the mail is as important as making sales calls. They fall into the trap of dealing with everything that comes their way, no matter how trivial. To compound matters, some people equate success with keeping busy. Unfortunately, keeping busy means nothing unless it takes you closer to your goals. Running around frantically and helping other people with their jobs or handling trivial matters all day gets you nowhere.
Good time management starts with focusing on your goals, what you really want to accomplish. You should write these out (goals kept in your head are merely daydreams). For more complex goals, include a list of steps by which you plan to accomplish the accompanying goal. Without focused, written goals, time management becomes difficult, but with them, it becomes much simpler.
Prioritize your list. Remember, treating everything with equal importance is a sure recipe for disaster. Over time, there will simply be too much to do. Without set priorities, you can be at best unfocused. You should separate what has to be done (A) from what should be done (B) or from what would be nice to do (C). Not everything is equally important. For instance, buying gasoline for the car is a B priority unless your gauge is on empty; then it becomes an A. Paying your car payment on time to avoid a penalty is definitely an A. Paying a month in advance, however, can be a B or a C, depending on your personal situation. Clarify priorities by asking yourself why you are doing it, how it relates to your goals and objectives, if it is really important, if you can delegate it, and if it is so urgent that it must be done right away.
Focus on doing the A-list first; never mind the others. Some people avoid doing the A-list because it frequently contains the most complex and sometimes unpleasant tasks. Only after completing the A-list, however, should you start on the B-list.
Fight the urge to switch to C tasks, which are always the easiest and most appealing. This may be difficult, and it will require willpower. After you establish written goals that are truly important to you, you will be surprised at how quickly willpower develops. That is why time management and goal setting go hand in hand.
Finish one task completely before working on the next. When you put something aside incomplete, it remains in your mind as additional clutter, which, in turn, contributes to a sense of confusion. When you eventually return to the partially completed project, you will have to rethink it and decide upon the necessary steps all over again. Doing little bits of a whole series of tasks wastes time. If you complete a task, you can forget about it and focus on the next.
In addition to writing out your daily list of things to do, break up your larger, more complicated tasks into a series of smaller steps. People procrastinate with bigger tasks because they seem overwhelming. Doing a big job in a series of smaller stages makes it easier to get started.
In any office, a seemingly endless stream of little things has the potential to consume much of our time. It is tempting for us to respond to these apparently urgent tasks first and put off the truly important ones. Urgent tasks are often marked rush or important. Sometimes a person sticks his head into your office and asks if you have a minute. Other times, the urgent task comes by telephone, fax or mail. Almost always, these are C-priority items.
The worst part is that these urgent tasks are fairly obvious and can usually be handled with little effort, but it is easy to allow the low-priority tasks to absorb too much of your time. They grow in number until you spend an entire morning dealing with one little task after another until it becomes lunch time, and your A tasks-the ones you promised yourself would do first thing in the morning-remain untouched. Although C-priority tasks can be appealing, A and B tasks are critical to successful performance. By definition, B tasks can wait if necessary, but it makes no sense to postpone them in favor of something less beneficial.
An A or B task is often complex, time consuming or perhaps even a little unpleasant. Falling into the trap of spacing them out with simpler, less difficult C tasks is understandable. It can be an easy way to get a feeling of accomplishment, even if you left the more difficult tasks hanging. Here are some ideas for getting your priorities accomplished:
* Write out a list of tasks for the day along with each task's priority, thereby reducing the clutter in your head.
* For more complicated tasks, list the steps you need to take, in order, to accomplish it. Not only is it easier to get a big task done in smaller steps, but you will also be able to fill in any periods of extra time doing these tasks rather than C priorities.
* Make a commitment to yourself by scheduling goals and tasks on your calendar.
* Use deadlines for important tasks.
* Control interruptions.
Saying "no" Many people cannot say no to requests for their time and therefore involve themselves in too many issues that have little to do with their job success. Below are the three most common reasons and some suggestions for dealing with them:
1. Poor self-esteem or a lack of confidence and assertiveness. (When you want to say no but you cannot think of a valid reason, and you eventually say yes, later feeling anger and resentment for getting involved in the first place.) Practice saying no in situations with low risk. Go to your library or bookstore and find self-help books (or audio tapes, which are ideal for commuters) on assertiveness and self-esteem.
2. The desire to avoid confrontation or unpleasantness, which stems from wanting to avoid hurting someone's feelings. If you feel you should deny a request, say it right away before the person asking gets his hopes up. If people apply pressure, stand your ground. Expect to say no many times a day. You have every right to decline, especially if you are being asked to volunteer your time. Guilt is not a terminal disease, and as time goes by, you will become more comfortable. Incidentally, you are under no obligation to provide detailed explanations or excuses as to why you are declining a request. In fact, the more you explain, the more unbelievable it sounds. It also gives people an opening to find flaws in your excuse and try to get you to change your mind. Instead, simply say no. When pressed for reasons, be vague to avoid badgering or hounding. Say something such as, "I know my schedule, and it's just not possible. Unfortunately, the answer has to be no." Be prepared for the pushy types to come back with questions and alternatives. In that case, say, "No, I cannot, but I wish you the best in finding someone else."
3. Yearning to feel useful or important. You are not helping people when you do their work (or most of it) for them. You are simply showing them how to remain helpless. Instead, tell them you cannot deal with the situation because you are also busy. Offer suggestions or alternative ways of solving the problems. Help them help themselves. If you are sincere and really want to help people, then encourage self-reliance. There is a quote in the Bible that says, "If you feed a man a fish, you feed him for one day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime."
These are good time management strategies, but they will not work unless you commit yourself. Again, that means writing out your goals and deciding how to achieve them. Without focusing on real goals, the best strategies live a short life, and you will wind up with the same poor habits.
People cannot interrupt you unless you let them. If you have an office with a door, close it for periods of time with the request you be left alone. When people come in your office or work area unannounced, stand up immediately and remain standing, which discourages them from sitting down and staying too long. Ask unannounced visitors to return late in the day, and reserve some late-day time for this and returning phone calls. You will find that returning calls and meeting with people late in the day causes people to get to the point quickly because they want to leave on time. When I was a manager, people came in all day long with all sorts of problems. I would tell them I was too busy, but if they would come back at 4:30 p.m. (we closed at 5 p.m.), I would be able to talk with them. I would say, "Just to save time, I'd like to ask you to write out the problem as you see it in your own words. Then I'd like you to consider what our options might be and put those in writing also. Finally, pick your choice of all the solutions and be able to tell me why you picked it. That way, we can get right to it." Rarely did many come back once they had thoroughly considered the problem and its solutions. If they did, we were able to resolve it quickly. This exercise not only saved me time, but it also helped my subordinates think for themselves.
With phone interruptions, on the other hand, there are a few tricks you can quickly put into practice. Do not answer your phone for periods of time during the day or even all day. Use voice mail, a secretary or an assistant to take messages. Some people think something bad will happen if they do not handle every call immediately; that is nonsense.
Set aside time to return the day's calls. Usually late afternoon is best because by then your energy level is lowest, and you have saved your high-energy period for your A and B tasks. Cut phone calls to a minimum by avoiding small talk. Have any required information in front of you before making the call. Be friendly, but get to the point.
When callers are long winded, find the excuse to hang up. Some diplomatic ways might be saying that someone just entered your office, you are running late for an appointment, or you have received another phone call that you cannot let slip by.
Train family and friends not to call you at work. If that is not practical, set times and lengths of calls in advance with them and mean it.
Do not worry about offending people. Most people are not offended as easily as we think. You do not have to be rude, but you must have the courage to take charge and be firm.
As I stated earlier, for many people, keeping busy spells success. They run around all day, hopping from one trivial task to another only to complain in the evening they are further behind than when they started. Being busy means nothing unless the tasks bring you closer to your goals. When people emphasize results instead of activities, they then start to move forward. Think carefully about your goals and objectives. How do those trivial tasks add to your effectiveness, to your success? Remember, it is not how much you do that counts, but how much you get done.
Take a long look at the tasks you do daily and ask, "What if they weren't done at all?" If the answer is nothing, stop doing them. The ones you must do, try to delegate. Ask yourself if you can do the task less frequently. For instance, make bank deposits once or twice a week, not every day. If you work alone, can you hire someone to do them? If not, can you send the work out, such as have proposals typed by a typing service or copying done by a copy shop? Remember, spending time organizing prospect lists, filing, making copies, keeping detailed records, rearranging your desk and all the other trivial tasks keep you from having time to be successful. Learn how to focus on the activities that will give you the greatest return.
* Time waits for no one.
* We are all equal; each person receives 24 hours per day.
* Lost time is never found again.
* Wasting time is robbing oneself.
* You cannot change the past nor live in the future. You can only take action this very minute.
* Not enough time scheduled for A and B priorities.
* Interruptions, drop-in visitors, distractions, telephone calls.
* Personal business during business hours.
* Doing it yourself, involved in too many detailed, routine tasks, avoiding delegating.
* No focused goals. A lack of objectives, deadlines and priorities, which causes confusion about what to do and when.
* Lots of paperwork, reports, reading material.
* Leaving tasks partly done, jumping from one task to another task, constantly switching priorities.
* Procrastination, indecision, daydreaming.
* Lack of self discipline.
* Socializing, idle conversation.
Acceptable Use Policy blog comments powered by Disqus
