One of the challenges that we all face is that of time management, or to put it more correctly how we manage our use of time.

 

All those good ideas and initiatives that you want to pursue to drive your business forward and the same things gets in the way – ‘I just don’t have time…..’

 

The result? – Those good ideas and actions simply get shuffled along, day after day and eventually they disappear.

 

Here are a few ideas that I hope will help you with maximising the use of your time and, more importantly, will free up valuable time for you to spend working on your business and those new ideas which will drive your business forward. This is a big subject so I’m going to break it down into a couple of articles.

 

The first thing to do is find out what you are currently spending your time doing. The easiest way you can do this is by carrying out a very simple time study. Make a note of what activities you are carrying out in half hour slots during the day and do this for a week. If you keep a time study sheet handy on your desk this should not be a hugely onerous task. It doesn’t have to be anything complicated, just 5 columns, one for each day and then half hourly rows.

 

Simply by doing this time study you will find areas in which you can make immediate time savings.

 

Once you have completed the week, go through the sheet and analyse what you have been doing and when. Look for the quick wins first;

 

  • Are you doing a lot of admin tasks that could be handled by someone else? I find the easiest way of starting this analysis is to place a value on your time, so let’s say £50 per hour. So, how much of your working week is filled with £50 per hour work and how much with £10 per hour work? Can you outsource any of these tasks?

 

  • Create a default diary so you have set times during the day or week for different activities. This will stop you being pulled around from one thing to another. One of the biggest sources of distraction I find is to immediately look at emails as they come in. By creating a flow of similar based tasks you can be so much more efficient. Plan to have a set time to deal with emails and calls, maybe twice a day to enable you to create this flow whilst still maintaining a high level of customer service. You will be so much more productive by eliminating those constant distractions and interruptions.

 

  • Create a daily ‘To Do’ list. Do this before you leave for the day, that way when you arrive in the morning you will know exactly what you need to do and can crack on. It’s also a great idea to go a stage further and to prioritise the list so that you can make sure that you are getting the most important tasks done first. This is also a really valuable exercise to encourage your team to do.

 

In my next article we’ll look at ‘Urgency versus Importance’ and how you can deal with those Time Vampires!

 

If you would like any further information or assistance please arrange a call with this link http://bit.ly/cjintrocall

 

Kind regards

Chris

01737 652196

07894 014719