Too Busy? Try These Practical Time-Management Tips

Too Busy? Try These Practical Time-Management Tips
by Samuel M. Natale

Tip #1: Since most of us are of good heart and willingness to help, there is a tendency to say "Yes" to things before we have a chance to really think them through. Hence, my first tip is: Never (and I do mean NEVER) carry your appointment book with you. I know, it's hard to imagine life without it, but if you do not have the book with you, you must take a break from any request for your time to go find your book and check your availability. This permits you space to get sane about what you really can do … or not do. Once you locate the book, take a broader view of your commitments and see where and how this request fits.

Tip #2: Safeguard your peak performance time. Time of day is a critical determinant of your productivity. I recently sat on a dissertation committee where the student explored how each of us has a most productive time of day. There is apparently a genetic and developmental issue that determines when each of us is "at our peak." Identify this peak time and protect it for your highest priorities.

Tip #3: Say "no." It's a wonderful word, but few of us use it with the frequency it deserves. To be honest, our inability to say "no" is usually more about our desire to be liked and affirmed—and to avoid others' disapproval—rather than about our desire to be helpful to others. Indeed, we should be helpful to one another and to our common missions, but that means fitting our abilities with the situation at hand and deciding whether our skill set and time permit us to productively satisfy the request. Saying "no" does not mean that you don't care about the other person, but that simply, for many possible reasons, the other person's request cannot be a priority for you at that moment.

Tip #4: Prioritize your "to-do" list. A to-do list is a critical tool, but it needs to be used sensibly and it needs to be prioritized. Too often, our hastily scribbled list becomes a catch-all for all the things we can think of that eventually need to be done. So, by the end of the day, we have heroically completed twelve of the twenty-four items on our list. Problem is, none of the items was time-stamped as "important" or as having primacy over the others.

You see, the "to-do" list is only as good as the prioritizing it contains. The A's should be the urgent/primary things; the B's should be those things that are good to get done; the C's … .well, if we don't get those done and we have prioritized them correctly, they'll either disappear or come back in another form later.

Tip #5: Use the "Pareto Formula" as an important control mechanism. It suggests that, generally speaking, we get eighty percent of our results from twenty percent of what we do. Just check your closet and notice that you wear twenty percent of your clothes eighty percent of the time. Many successful executives report that determining their critical twenty percent—and then giving their best time to those initiatives—makes an enormous difference for them in time use.

Tip #6: Delegate—sometimes. Delegation is an important and frequently-mentioned technique in the time-management literature. But, truth be told, that makes me smile since in these days of more work with fewer people (and since I am not a millionaire), I often find it difficult to find anyone to whom I can delegate.

Delegate where you can, of course, but remember that when you delegate a project, you retain responsibility for its completion. A deadly trap (and one inexperienced managers often make) is to delegate that which they do not know how to do. Sure, it seems like it saves time, but it actually costs you more time later. How can you supervise accuracy and efficiency when you do not know what should be done or how it should be done? So yes, delegate (when you can find someone), but just delegate those things that you understand how to do.

Tip #7: Don't think of personal time as "free" time. It may sound trivial, but when we name time as "free," then it is available to other people and projects. Personal time should be used for the things you really need to do individually, from personal care to exercise to reading and meditation.

Tip #8: Practice "sacred selfishness." This is a concept taken from a Bud Harris book of the same name. He defines it as "making a commitment to valuing ourselves and our lives enough to pursue the decision to become people of substance." The idea is that we should make enough space in our lives so that we can be excellent and so that what we do has meaning and significance. The scholastic adage "Nemo dat quod non habet" (one cannot give what one does not have) is pertinent here. We can't get the job done well if we're burnt out.

Tip #9: Don't let the telephone tell you what to do. There are few conveniences greater or more intrusive than the telephone. But the issue is control. YOU must control it and not the other way around. Just because someone calls does not mean that you must take the call. Obviously, you need to return urgent calls, but some people act as if every one of their calls is urgent. YOU need to make the decision which call is necessary to answer, not your caller. In fact, it may not be a bad idea to screen all calls and take only those that appear or are truly important. As for calling back, simply group your calls and return them either before lunch or before quitting time, when people are eager to get on with their lives rather than dally on the phone. It actually works, believe it or not!

Tip #10: Don't let the door tell you what to do. As with the phone, you don't have to answer every knock on the door. If you're in the middle of a project, it may be more sensible simply not to answer the door. A "Do Not Disturb" sign can work on some occasions, though there is a tendency for many visitors to think that the sign is not meant "for them." But when a sign is not appropriate, then it is usually fine to close the door and ignore it, permitting you to stay on task. Then, be available at a later time for those who may need your attention. And here's a bonus: this technique also effectively blocks the "time eaters" who roam the halls looking for something to occupy themselves!

Samuel M. Natale, D. Phil. (Oxon.) is Professor of Strategy at the Hagedorn School of Business, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY 11530 and, concurrently, Senior Research Associate, Department of Educational Studies, University of Oxford, England. You can reach him at SammyMN@aol.com