The presentation provided tips for improving personal efficiency at work through setting SMART objectives, prioritizing tasks, managing interruptions, delegating responsibilities, and maintaining a healthy work-life balance in order to make the most of the 80 non-working hours each week. Key recommendations included breaking ingrained habits, focusing on important tasks, and scheduling time for lower priority items to avoid them becoming urgent.

1. AUA Manchester 2012
Session no 208
Time management: how to improve your
personal efficiency at work.
James Craig
Faculty Accountant
The University of Leeds

2. Two facts
1. There are 168 hours in a week,
every week!
Sleep – 48 hrs
Work – 40 hrs
? – 80 hrs
2. The brain is incapable of multi-tasking

3. Engrained habits.
Break these
Underlying causes?

4. Objectives (1)
• Purpose; direction; framework; focus on
results
• A written objective.
• States what you want to achieve, and by
when.
• Use templates to hold regular meetings with
your manager/ subordinate – eg once week
or once a fortnight.

5. Objectives (2)
• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time-bound
• SMART!

6. Your priorities at work.
Your boss’s priorities for you.
Priorities from others at work
(peers/ colleagues in other depts/
students).
Discuss regularly with your boss.
Pin up near your desk.
Priorities at home.

7. Prioritisation Exercise
• In groups of two or three, discuss what
priorities you might establish for yourself over
the coming few months.
• Remember: SMART
• Would you be happy presenting this to your
boss (or to other colleagues?)

8. Prioritisation model
Important and Urgent
Important and not Urgent
Urgent but not Important
Neither Urgent nor Important

9. 1. Important and Urgent
Carry out when you have most
energy, eg first thing after you
arrive at work.
Avoid the after-dinner dip
(assuming you have one!)

10. 2. Important but not urgent
Not yet urgent, so don’t allow to
become urgent!
Schedule a time to do them, or
delegate to others
(more on delegation later)

11. 3. Urgent but not important
Potential time-wasters: interruptions requiring
our attention but which don’t help us with our
objectives.
Time-stealers. Break bad habits
Self-discipline

12. 4. Neither urgent nor important
!!
Social networking during work time
Times Higher Education?
AUA Perspectives?

13. Urgent interruptions
• Break off
• Deal with now
• Schedule a time in your calendar or diary to
re-commence your important work

14. Overcoming Procrastination
Bad habits
Realistic, bite-sized goals
(manage expectations)
The ‘tolerable ten’
Switch email off

15. Prioritisation
• David Rock – ‘Your Brain at Work’ HarperCollins
2009
• The brain is like a theatre
• Actors make up the audience; like pieces of
memory which can be called up onto the stage in
an instant
• The stage is the prefrontal cortex (4% of the
volume of the brain); ie v small
• The stage in the theatre: very energy-intensive
and a limited resource.

16. Email/ Outlook tips
‘Always on’ can be an addiction!
Set hours each day
(If not possible in your job, perhaps turn off
notification symbol and bleep)
Triage system to clear out in-box each day:
• Really need attention
• Get rid
• File – reference – later action

17. More on email/ Outlook
Templates
Out-of-office assistant (when you’re actually in
the office!)
Meetings calendar – ditto
FAQs - post on website and send the enquirer a
link

18. Management Time:
Who’s got the Monkey?
William Oncken and Hal Burrows, Harvard
Business Review
Ken Blanchard: ‘The One-Minute Manager
Meets the Monkey’, Harper Collins, 1990.
ISBN 978-0-00-711698-0

19. Four rules of monkey management:
1. Descriptions (plan with boss)
2. Owners (assignment)
3. Insurance (responsibility)
4. Feeding and checking (managing
performance)

20. Delegation/ Coaching
Assigning involves a single monkey.
True delegation involves a family of monkeys at
once.
Coaching gets you into a position to delegate –
aircraft analogy: taking off/ reaching cruising
height.

21. Common barriers to delegation (discuss):
1. The task won’t be done as I want it.
2. I feel guilty about handing out dull or
repetitive work.
3. They say they won’t do it: haven’t got
the time.
4. I feel uncomfortable about
confronting a poor performer.
5. I don’t have anyone to whom to
delegate.

22. Delegation issues – comments from
delegates (1)
• Satisfaction a problem (control freak): will my
colleagues provide work of sufficiently high
quality?
• There are different ways of achieving a task:
yours isn’t necessarily the best. Be prepared
for your colleagues to do things “their way”
provided the outcome is what’s expected of
them.

23. Delegation issues (2)
Fear of their success may be a barrier to delegation
(your colleagues could outshine you which will
reflect not so well on you). Stand back and ask
whether that’s in the best interests of your unit/
department; not to mention your colleague who
would benefit from a developmental opportunity.
“We’re all in this together” – inform your staff of
the context of the work: make it more meaningful
in terms of where it fits in with the broader picture.

24. Delegation issues (3)
• “No chance of doing that now” – agree
‘protected time’ with your colleagues; eg 3.00
on Tuesday afternoon. Relates again to the
objectives and priorities established abovr.
• Build or re-building trust where the colleague
has a history of not delivering, or has an
‘attitude’ problem.
• Confidence can take time to develop.

25. Delegation issues (4)
• No-one to whom to delegate. Try delegating
upwards and sideways, as well as down.
• Perfectionism can be an issue. Often
perfectionism is not needed, or not desirable.
• Discuss and share as a team - delegate to a team
and let them decide how to allocate the work.
This gives them greater ‘say’, more job
satisfaction etc, and produces the end-result
required provided you have provided the
necessary coaching/ training in the first place.

26. Monkey management – Imposed Time
• Boss-imposed time
• System-imposed time
• Self-imposed time
– ‘Good’ self-imposed time – more time for
performing the core of your job; more time for life
outside work
– ‘Bad’ self-imposed time – subordinate-imposed

27. Lifestyle
(whole lifestyle: work and non-work)
• Clean, tidy desk and clean, tidy home
• Clear desk at end of each day
• Good sleep habits (eg regular bed time)
• Proper breaks away from your desk
• Doze off somewhere after lunch (seriously!)
• Cycle or walk to work
• Walk about at work (eg avoid using the lift)

28. More Monkey Management
• Saying ‘no’, tactfully.
• Investing time in getting to know someone, eg
a regular contact in another dept, or the PA of
someone senior.
• An hour for coffee. A friend as well as a
colleague.

29. Living Life to the Full
www.llttf.com/
llttf.com has ‘ten top tips’, including:
Eat plenty of bananas
Eat breakfast every day (porridge or muesli)
Exercise
Wear ‘wow’ glasses!
Music
Do a good turn

30. Other activities (the 80 hours)
• Be extremely selective about TV viewing (like
junk food – for the most part)
• More Radio (Radio 4)
• Pastimes
• Pastimes requiring a minimum standard, eg
choral society, advanced driving
• Mothers with young children – regular
evenings out (persuade your spouse to stay in)

31. Delegates’ concluding contributions
• “Their stress is not your priority”
• Don’t try and do everything. Concentrate on a
few activities your enjoy most.
• Change your working hours if it suits your boss
and your team, eg 8-4. Flexible working for all
team members, can suit the team as a whole.
• Pilates is beneficial and easy to do.

32. References
Ken Blanchard et al: ‘The One-Minute Manager
Meets the Monkey’, Harper Collins, 1990.
ISBN 978-0-00-711698-0
David Rock: ‘Your brain at work’, Harper
Business, 2009. ISBN 978-0-06-177129-3
Living life to the Full – www.llttf.com
Leeds University Bicycle Users’ Group –
www.leeds.ac.uk/leedsbug/