How to manage time effectively

Premakumar FERNANDO

Time is a constraint. There are twenty four hours in a day, no more, no less. The challenge is to maximize their use - and it's possible, provided one approaches the issue methodically.

TIME MANAGEMENT: Three long meetings. At least a dozen phone calls. Two reports to write. Work on the upcoming presentation to monthly staff meeting. Simmering conflict between two rival employees to deal with. And time to start next year's budgeting process.

Does this sound like a day from your calendar? If it does, then your day is like of most other managers- filled with meetings, fragmented activities, interruptions, and spontaneous brushfires to extinguish. Handling these would not be a problem except for one hard reality: There are only twenty four hours in a day.

Indeed, finding time to get their all work done is one of the biggest challenges faced by managers whether you are in the Private sector or in the Public sector. Mostly, in Private sector you have no alternate but to find time within 24 hours.

In the Public sector very rarely managers do attempt to find time and invariably key things are not done on time and thus chaos at all ends.

In all accomplishments in life, other than which results by accident, passes through three stages - the goal, the plan, and the action. By maintaining the sequence you can better organize yourself to squeeze more out of those twenty four hours.

One must learn to identify the tasks that are most important - and least important - and will discover how one can focus his or her time on the most important critical tasks and avoid time wasters.

Mastering time management will help to balance the many pressures on time and achieve our goals. That balance will help to avoid burnout and stress, and make managers more effective particulary in the Public Sector than what they are today.

Firstly, it is important for one to know why you're doing what you're doing. Most of us at most of time we do not know why we are even coming to office. Some think marking the attendance before 8.30 am is the most important thing for them to do and thereafter till 4.15 pm you just spend your time without a purpose or a plan.

One must identify the strategic issues-the essentials of his job or the key performance indicators of his current employment position and isolate them from those that are not strategic.

Having identified the issues strategic to one's personal operations one need to be clear about the goals associated with each issue. To achieve these goals you need to take specific actions within a reasonable time frame. Delayed actions are wasted actions.

For example if the preparation of budget is delayed by three months, then the sole purpose of the budget is lost. Activities or blockages hampering the achievement of goals should be reduced or eliminated.

Planning how to make the best use of time is a form of project management. And, of course, the parts of your project over which you'll have most control are those relating to today and the next twenty four hours.

So, while being aware of the overall picture, the diary for the next two days will require immediate attention. It has to be more detailed than the next month's diary. Though effective time management entails more than diaries and to do lists, both play vital role in keeping focused on the key issues, being aware of the value of time - and being organized.

Most of the things we worry about are unimportant, and we have little control over much of the rest. So focus efforts on the few things one can do something about. Live a happier, more productive life by changing what you can and accepting what you can't. Think of the time you'll save and benefits that it will bring to our country.

Those who make the worst use of time are the first to complain of its shortness.