Time management - Key Time Destroyers
Key Time Destroyers
If you carry out a time log in many industries and at many levels the sort of ‘time destroyers’ shown above will materialise. They are very common with some having a much higher incidence and impact than others.
The first step is to recognise their existence and the next step is to consider how you might eliminate them.
When you carry out your own time log you will probably find that the only a few of the above are the most frequent.
Hence, you should focus on those for maximum impact.
Implementation of action plans can be on a personal level, team level or company wide for the best results.
It is often difficult to get new concepts accepted across the company, so ‘local’ implementation and demonstration of the benefits may be the best way forward.
Most people only have 24 hours in the day to get things done, unless you are able to travel at somewhere near the speed of light which has the disadvantage of increased mass.
These areas will be discussed in more detail next (Action chasing).
Many have heard of the Pareto principle where probably 80% of your productivity is produced from 20% of your time.
Unfortunately, that means that 80% of your time is spent on trivial items.
This ratio will always apply.
The difference between someone who manages his time well and that of another is their productivity during that all important 20% of their time.
The poor Time Manager will spend too much of his time in Box 2 (‘urgent’ but ‘not important’) jobs, nowhere near enough time in planning, the Box 3 jobs (‘not urgent’ but ‘important) and too much time on Box 4 trivial jobs (‘not urgent’ and ‘not important’). Not doing Box 3 jobs by planning properly means more Box 1 jobs (crises, ‘urgent’ and ‘important’) materialise.
This box matrix is discussed elsewhere, see ‘urgent v important’.