Great Time Management Techniques
The Six Keys to Success

Key #3: When, Part 8/8

This article will complete the great time management techniques discussion about proper sequencing of the eight time segments that I recommend should be blocked out on your calendar.

We are developing a way of budgeting your time so that you accomplish your most important goals as well as the other day to day tasks that seem to eat up your time.

Our objective is to help you accomplish more than you thought possible, with less stress than you are experiencing today while living a full and meaningful life. If you are up for that, let’s finish fleshing out these last two time segments.

7. Results Review and Revision
Time management techniques recommend taking about 10 - 15 minutes at the end of the day to:

• Review what has been accomplished during the day
• Record the amount of time spent on each scheduled time segment
• Note the scheduled time segments that were missed
• Write in the unscheduled tasks worked on
• Record the time spent on unscheduled events

The information recorded during this time is useful for several things:

• Identify missed objectives and when they should be addressed later
• Recognize missed time estimates and how to develop more accurate estimates
• Identify scheduled objectives that are not being addressed and why
• Discover unscheduled activity that may need to be added to the schedule
• Improve efficiency and effectiveness of the planning and scheduling process

This time management techniques segment is often overlooked or ignored but is very helpful in evaluating your effective use of time.

8. Contingency, Allowing for the Unexpected
Everyday something will happen that you haven’t planned for and yet they need some of your time. Time management techniques recommend that you budget some time for the unexpected. Ideally we want to eliminate the unexpected but realistically we know that is impossible. However, time spent on the unexpected can be significantly reduced if we really focus on not letting it control us.

For example: If you are in the middle of an important activity and the phone rings. Most of the time the best thing to do is not answer the phone but call the person back when you have scheduled phone time.

The key to success here is to force the unexpected into a scheduled time segment whenever possible.

The objective is to budget an hour or less per day for the unexpected and attempt to manage your unscheduled time each week to five hours or less. If you use more one day try to use less the next. You will be surprise at how efficient you can become with this technique.

We have now completed our review of the segments of time that should be reserved on the calendar. Next we will begin discussing Key #4, Tracking in Great Time Management Techniques.

*CTS – Critical to Success activities

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