Developing positive time management skills

There are three major factors which affect successful Time Management:

  • The nature of your job
  • The context of your job
  • Your own and others people’s style of working

To manage your time successfully you need to have a clear understanding of the effects of these three factors on each other.

The nature of your job

To be effective in your work means doing the right things (effectiveness) in the right way (efficiency); this involves being clear about the key result areas of your job and the precise outputs required. On a more basic level it means answering the questions:

Why does my job exist? Is it a new or established position?
What would happen if this post disappeared?
How much control do I have over what happens?

The context of your job

The type of business your organisation is involved in, the needs of clients and colleagues and the culture of your organisation are the major parts of the context of your job.

Understanding organisational culture is a complex process - it involves understanding how things get done in the organisation, who REALLY makes decisions and which are the key informal as well as formal relationships. Understanding the organisational politics of your organisation can help you to develop time-effective strategies.

Other organisational factors such as the relation of the organisation with its environments, political allegiances and resistance of adaptability to change are other relevant factors.

Your own and other people’s style of working

No-one complains about having TOO MUCH TIME on their hands at work!

Working styles differ greatly depending on skills and inclination. What do you know about your own style of working?

Ask yourself the following questions:

  • Are you an early starter or are you more effective later in the day?
  • Have you identified which is the best time of the day to work on critical tasks?
  • Are you a procrastinator?
  • Are you easily overwhelmed by tasks that seem too grandiose to tackle?

What holds good for you also holds good for the people around you; if you have opposing styles this in itself can cause tension and waste time!

Being time-effective means taking account of the working styles and rhythms of other people. Think of your team, your boss, your partners:

  • Are they morning or evening people?
  • Are they initiators or followers?
  • Are they overview people or fine detail people?

How can you and they get the best out of your working relationships so neither you nor they waste their precious time?

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