How to get the most from your working day

Top tips on effectively managing your time and how to avoid time stealers

It's OK knowing how to manage your time effectively (1), but often the very things that steal our time are right under our noses - we don’t see them. But by identifying them we can tackle them more effectively and prevent them stealing our time in the first place. A large number of these time stealers are actually rooted in our behaviour. By identifying and then changing these behaviours we can stamp out the time stealers.

Here is a list of common time stealers and some of the things you can do to address them:


Learn How To Say NO

We all want to be liked and one of the manifestations of this is the inability to say NO. Some of the most stressed people around, lack the skill to 'just say no' for fear of upsetting people (2). But remember - the more things you say YES to, the less time you have to achieve them.

• Are you over-running your time budget? The sad fact is that people could actually end up disliking you if you let them down because you took on more than you could deliver.
• Taking on too much may result in less time to earn – so less income.
• Accept that like any other skill, it is hard, and needs practice. Don’t give up first time. Remember the benefits.
• Learn some phrases that sound softer than NO, but have the same effect: (3)
  
  

a. I am in the middle of several projects

b. I am not comfortable with that

c. I am not taking on any new responsibilities

d. I have no more room in my calendar/have other commitments

e. I know you will do a good job yourself

Stress

Stress may not sound like a time stealer, but it often causes business owners to put off making decisions and to run around like headless chickens, unsure of what to do next. Stress grows stress and lack of organisation is one of the greatest fertilisers! There are many sources of stress, but when they are work related, the common factors are (4):

• High work load – address this through planning and delegation.
  
• Lack of control – know where your skills lie, who can support you, what you need to achieve to finish the project and the time and budget you have to do it.
• Lack of certainty – every new business faces uncertainty, but good business planning at the beginning will allow you to see the pitfalls before they happen and therefore to plan for them.
  
• Poor work environment – constant interruptions, too cold or hot, noise and distractions – these all contribute to lack of clear thinking and productivity – all times stealers.
  

Untidy Work Space

Disorganised people often say things like "a tidy workspace is the sign of a having too little to do”, but actually the opposite is true. If you can see less than 80% of your desk then you are probably suffering from 'desk stress' and need to tidy up. The most effective people work from clear desks. (5) Taking time to tidy up your space liberates you to be more effective with your time and therefore more productive:

• Create three trays – in, in progress and out.
  
• Every new piece of work needs to be placed in one of the trays
  
• Set aside fifteen minutes on a Monday morning to sort out existing paperwork into these three files. Why Monday? Start your week as you mean to go on. Why not Friday? A time of great pressure to finish the week’s work.
• Keep a list of work you have to accomplish on your desk and tick off as you go. Work which is not on that list should not be on your desk – file it
• And talking of filing, make a diary date with yourself to put aside ten minutes every day for filing –preferably at the end, because the next day you start with a tidy desk.
  
• Consider using Outlook© or similar software to organise yourself – you receive pop up messages and can incorporate emails and also share your diary.

Telephone Interruptions

There is something insistent about a telephone ringing – like a baby crying you just have to deal with it! But that is what answer phones are for!

• Turn off your mobile and leave the messaging service to answer calls. Pick up your messages on your break.
  
• Tell all your family and friends that when you are working you are NOT available for personal calls except in an emergency, when they should call on the main number.
  
• If you work from home, make sure that friends and family also understand that you are working and therefore earning and cannot take personal calls in work time. Their trivial calls are losing you money.

Emails

These are somehow less intrusive than phone calls. They are easier to ignore and as such are more manageable.

• Do set time aside to read your emails – AND THEN FILE THEM
  
• Do not answer everyone that comes in as it comes in.
  
• Answer in bullet points – this allows you to correspond quickly and also gives clarity to your message – it also forces you to think logically and clearly which in itself saves time.

Visitors

When you work from home, friends and family often think that this means you are available to ferry them around or sit and drink coffee, neither of which is true.

• Place a sign on your door, which says ‘Please stay out’ or ‘Please come in’. This will signal if you are available nor not.
• To deter casual droppers in, place a sign on the front door - ‘Currently in a meeting, please call later’
• If you get caught out and answer the door, set a time limit for which you are prepared to talk. Say something like "I have an important call to make in 5 minutes.” this gives you the flexibility to terminate the visit to suit your work schedule.

Meetings

We all have to have them but there is no excuse for them going on for ever.

• If you are running a meeting set an agenda and a timescale for each item. If you need to run on beyond this, schedule another meeting.
  
• Make sure that everyone is informed in advance of what they need to prepare and what they need to bring –this speeds things up.
  
• Set outcomes for the meeting so that it does not ramble on and people feel like they can see a result for the time spent
  
• Make sure that concise notes are made so that the meeting is meaningful, time-costly mistakes are less likely to happen and information can be recalled quickly.

Delegation

Don’t try and do everything yourself. Meetings should be used to establish who is doing what and by when.

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• Keep a check on whether things are up to date - In fact delegate this too – insist that someone who is undertaking part of a task keeps you informed at regular agreed intervals – i.e. 3pm each day or every Monday.
• Identify your strengths and weaknesses – try a SWOT analysis for this (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). If you find it hard to do something, identify someone who can assist or a tool that can help you. If you hate book-keeping, either pay someone to do it for you, invest in software that makes it easier, consider training to increase your knowledge and learn tips or worst case, re-jig your day to include more time to undertake the task.
  

Distractions

Working for yourself can be full of distractions. The TV and radio, magazines, computer games – believe it or not, even housework can seem attractive when you are faced with a task you don’t fancy. All of these eat up your time.

• Create a work space just for yourself – this might be a corner of an existing room or a room designated solely for the purpose i.e. an office or study.
• Don’t use this space for watching TV or other leisure pursuits – the trick is to associate the space with work not leisure. Your work space is for working in.
• Consider dressing up for work. Many people have to make an effort for the office. I am not suggesting that you don a suit, but equally, you will not be in work mode and therefore not using your time constructively, if you sit in your office in your pyjamas or boxer shorts. Think smart, think work
• Insist that friends and family regard this space as yours – it is not the broom cupboard any more, it is the space in which you make money. This may well encourage people to leave you in peace when working
  
  
  

Crisis management (fire fighting)

Even the best-organised person can find himself or herself up against the unforeseen. However, there is no doubt that organising yourself in advance and risk assessing your job or project will prevent you having to deal with unexpected annoyances which simply eat into your productive (and therefore, money earning) time.

• Do keep a diary of your day-to-day movements and let others know where you are.
• Do spend time at the beginning of any major project to think about how it will run. Imagine yourself running through the whole event or project from start to finish – think about every aspect and plan for it.
• Write things down – time wasting occurs when you can’t remember what was agreed.
• Use email to keep everyone up to date with changes and monitor for problems in advance.
  
  
  

A quick list of Dos and Don’ts

Do	Don’t
Recognise that organisation lies at the heart of good business	Expect to succeed if you are not prepared to embrace time management and other organisational techniques.
Make lists and use them	Assume you can do it all in your head – in Business you can’t!
Prioritise your tasks to make sure you do them in the right order	Assume the task on the top of the pile is the most important one.
Make time for your filing - daily	Leave filing to the end of the week – this quickly becomes a month and then never – be disciplined
Communicate effectively with everyone involved – using times and dates and stating outcomes	Assume everyone knows what is in your mind. Document, date and outcome – this gives you far more ammunition when things go wrong and may stop them going wrong in the first place
Treat time with respect – remember Time Is Money – waste it and you will earn less	Put off until tomorrow what you can do today – "a minute wasted is a dollar unearned”.
Remind people that you are a business person during business hours	Give the impression that you are available during working hours
Make sure you have all the facts	Act on half information – you may have to waste time in back tracking
Plan and Act	Act without a Plan
Set yourself clear objective, budgets and timescales	Jump in without having a clear idea of the end goal or the time and money you have to achieve it.

In short, there are only so many hours in a day. Before that day begins you need a clear picture of what must be achieved, what might be achieved and what can wait for another day.

Don’t let yourself be distracted by other people who may not understand your pressures – and by the same token, take time to inform others of your priorities and get them on side.

Organisation remains the key to tackling time wasters like stress and disorder. The time you spend at the beginning of the week or day, setting out what needs to be done, prioritising and setting aside contingency time, will serve you well - and the old maxim remains true that a "stitch in time saves nine”.

Tania M C Lewis

Business Advisor

Sterling Design Services Ltd

16th March 2007

(1) See our sheet entitled "Principles of Time Management”.

(2) http://www.tsuccess.dircon.co.uk

(3) More examples at this address: www.onlineorganizing.com

(4) www.businesslink.gov.uk

(5) www.tsuccess.dircon.co.uk