HOW'S YOUR TIME MANAGEMENT BEEN THIS WEEK?
For many of us, it's the bane of our life, with a to-do list that never ends and not enough time to do it all.
I've been thinking about it this week as I've had a meeting with a coaching client who has really transformed their working life by using Stephen Covey's time management principles. They have now moved into a more senior role and are still applying those principles to cope with the demands of the new role, deal with their own transition, achieve what they want to achieve in their first 6 months and deal with all the other commitments they have outside work. Oh, and have a life at the same time!
I've also been thinking about it myself. I'm working on a couple of big projects at the minute. I really enjoy what I am doing but I can also be a terrible procrastinator, so I do lots of other things before I get to what I really need to do and I work much better when I have a deadline approaching. That doesn’t help me when I need to work on longer term important projects like these, so I've had to employ some of my time management techniques to help me focus.
For many of us, we get so caught up just coping with the day to day stuff that we forget the bigger picture and that's why I love Stephen Covey's approach. He suggests that we think of all the tasks and activities that we have to do, using the following matrix approach.
Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix
It’s a different way of thinking, that helps us to prioritise our work and keeps our focus on the important tasks, rather than just the busy work or things with urgent deadlines.
So what goes into each quadrant?
Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix: What Goes Into Each Quadrant
Now ask yourself these key questions
How much time am I spending in each quadrant?
Is that working for me?
What am I spending time on that is neither urgent or important (for example, we all need a bit of downtime browsing social media but how much time does that add up to for me)?
How could I deal with things before they come to a crisis and become urgent?
What big thing would I like to achieve and how could I do it if I focused just a little more in quadrant 2?
The Best Time Management Tips
Tips for procrastination
Just do it – get the difficult thing out of the way.
Think how much better you will feel once it’s over. If it’s a really difficult thing or boring, or just something I’ve really been putting off, I’ll schedule a reward afterwards, nothing too fancy, maybe a cup of coffee and a bun or a call to a friend. But it’s a little reward that works for me.
15 minute chunks
This one really works for me, especially for the boring tasks that I tend to put off. I set a timer for 15 minutes on my phone. 15 minutes isn’t too long to concentrate but it’s surprising what you can get done in that time. And what quite often happens is that I get into the zone with what I’m doing and decide to keep going once I’ve finished my 15 minutes. Getting started is usually the most difficult thing.
The 4 Ds of Time Management
This is a nice straightforward framework for deciding what to do with a task, a request, or an email.
Do it
If it cannot wait and needs to be taken care of now OR if it can be completed in two minutes or less, do it immediately
Delegate it
If a task is not yours to do, or someone else could do it better, then delegate it
Dump it
If it is unimportant now and in the future, then dump it
Defer it
If the task is one that can’t be completed quickly and if it’s not high priority, defer it. BUT – schedule a time in your diary or calendar when you will do it.
Saying NO!
This can be so difficult for many people, especially, in my experience, for women.
For many of us, we want to be seen as nice people, who value and help others. But often, what happens is that we are saying Yes to other people at the expense of ourselves.
Saying No doesn’t make you a bad person, or selfish or unkind. But it can be really hard though to do, especially if your first response has always been to say yes.
Practice – if you know you are going to be asked to do something that you would rather not do, or don’t have time for, then practice the conversation beforehand. Rehearse saying No. If it’s a real challenge for you, find a friend who will practice with you and ask you request after request that you will simply say No to!
Know your priorities – this will really help you to be able to say No. If you know that by saying yes to that new project at work, even if it sounds really exciting and good for your career, it will mean that you have to stay late a couple of nights a week, when your priority is to be at home with your family in the evenings – then it’s a lot easier to say No.
Don’t apologise – so many people do this. We dilute our first response of No and often end up apologising so much that we end up saying yes! Stop yourself from saying I’m sorry at the start of the sentence and try not to over explain why you are saying NO.
Get back to you – if you are ambushed with a request that you don’t want to do and can’t quite get the right response then stall for time. Say something like, I’m pretty busy at the minute, but let me check and I’ll get back to you. That gives you time to think it through and practice saying No if you need to.
OK, Where do I start?
My top advice with time management is to keep a log for a week. It’s a real pain, especially when you are already stretched. But it will let you see what is really going on. Sometimes we don’t actually realise what our issues are until we do this. Those quick scrolls through social media (Twitter in my case) that end up sucking up so much of our time. Or those interruptions from colleagues or friends, that are often about their problems and crises, how much time are those actually taking?
Once you’ve done this, start small. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when you try to change too much all at once. So identify one thing that you could do to help yourself manage your time that bit better and then work on that.
If you are interested in applying the Stephen Covey time management principles, check out this LinkedIn post where I have included a simple worksheet to get you started https://www.linkedin.com/posts/marie-ferris_improve-your-time-management-skills-ugcPost-6590553894793822208-KFCk
If you haven’t read his book yet, it is highly recommended - Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.