Great Time Management - Scheduling

Scheduling...
The Catalyst for Successful Time Management

Scheduling your activities well in advance is the most effective time management tool you can use. Most of you have wished for a clone so you could get more things done during the day or week but with just a little process change it’s possible to do it without the clone. Developing a well thought out schedule and following it closely will nearly double output capacity for most people.

The following time management scheduling tips with help you and your team get started developing a workable weekly schedule for these downsized times:

1. Weekly Practices:
• Personal Schedule Development – Your personal time management schedule should be developed sometime between Friday afternoon and Sunday evening. Have it ready to go so that first thing Monday morning you can glance at the day’s to-do-list and know what your expectations are.


• Team Schedule Development – When doing time management scheduling for a group of people, the upcoming weeks schedule should be completed no later than noon on Thursday of the preceding week. This approach provides time to coordinate activity, communicate expectations and an opportunity to flex before the week begins if required.


2. Block Out Time:
• Personal – Block out chunks of time for the truly important activities planned for the week. Depending upon your role in the organization leave between 20% - 50% of your calendar uncommitted. You will notice better time management results as you commit more time on the schedule.


• Team – Identify the work expectations for the team and schedule work time for each individual on the team. In the best organizations only 10% or less of the available time is left uncommitted.


3. Be Committed:
• Personal – For the best time management results, stick to your schedule if at all possible. When tempted to add a new task and remove an existing one, always evaluate the possibility of doing the new task the following week. Sometimes there are actions that must be added but they are usually few and far between.


• Team– The same holds true here as in the personal category. Stick to your schedule. Insert approval gates that make it difficult to make changes on the fly. These will keep everyone honest and allow only the most important changes to occur. It is rare that a new task cannot be postponed a week.

If this is a new process for you, you may find this time management tool cumbersome to use at first but once you begin to experience the results it produces you will come to rely upon it. By scheduling your tasks over time, you will double your capacity. That’s what I call Great Time Management.

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Article by John Golden