The Art of Time
Management

Common Problem
 I am BUSY
 I don’t have time
 I am not happy with my life
 I don’t feel I have achieved anything this year
 I don’t have control on my life
 I wish I have more than 24 hours per day so that
I can get more things done

What is Time Management?
Time Management is about controlling use of
Your most under - valued resource -
Time ie.Money.

Time Management Allows you
 Eliminate wastage.
 Be prepared for
meetings.
 Reduce excessive
workloads.
 Monitor project
progress.
 Allocate resources
appropriate to a task’s
importance.
 Ensure that long-term
projects are not
neglected.
 Plan each day, week,
month or quarter
efficiently.

Balance your life
 Balance in Life is important
 Recognize each aspect of life
 I am not getting enough time
for family/personal life
because of Work
 80% of day is spent at work
Family
Work
Health Finance

Where does the Day go?
 Normally we all spend our day as follows:-
 1) Sleeping :- 8 hrs.
 2) Working :- 8 hrs.
 3) Eating :- 2 hrs.
 4) Communication :- 2 hrs.
 5) P.Hygine:- 1 hrs.
That leaves about 3hrs for other things that make life worth
living.
But, wait a minute, let’s extend this to a week, since we
don’t work on 2nd & 4th Sat.& regular Sunday’s, we have
extra 20 hrs + the usual 3 hrs. to enrich our day.
That’s sound little better, doesn’t it ?
These fig. also ignores illness, which will average 5
hrs a week over our lifetime. And, of course, there
is time spent watching TV, which averages over 26
hrs weekly.

Why we fail?
“Most people set them, and then get behind
schedule. They then giveup this ‘hopeless cause’.
Even the most successful people get setbacks,
but they work twice as hard to ensure they
achieve what they set out to do”.
By Michale Podolinsky

How to Succeed?
 Make commitment to spend 10 to 15 minutes a
day, to plan ahead.
 Define tasks clearly, create deadlines, focus on
more important tasks.
 Break the task into smaller sections, allocate
estimated time.
 Use regular block of time for an activity.
 Delegation of workload

To Learn
 The value of time.
 How to control it.
 How to manage your time and the time of others.
And Understand That -
You are not paid by the hour
• The week
• The month
• The year
“You are paid by your achievements and
accomplishments.”

Assessing The Time Management
 There are 4 steps to examine Time management Behavior.
1) Identify Time wasters :- With the help of planner.
2) Added value :- Which add value to task.
3) Automation :- Working time can be reduced by Automation.
4) Analysis of Following points:-
A) Administrative Activities
B) Communication Activities
C) Operational Activities
D) Managerial Activities.
Avoid 3 common mistakes :-
1) Easy problem first.
2) The urgent over the important.
3) Confusing performance with attendance.

Realize the Value of Time:
 ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.
 ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.
 ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
 ONE DAY, ask a daily wage laborer with kids to feed.
 ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
 ONE MINUTE, ask a person who missed the train.
 ONE SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.
 ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal in the Olympics.

. Crisis
. Pressing problems
. Deadline-driven projects,
meetings, preparations
. Preparation
. Prevention
. Values clarification
. Planning
. Relationship building
. True re-creation
. Empowerment
. Interruptions, some
phone calls
. Some mail, some reports
. Some meetings
. Many proximate,
pressing matters
. Many popular activities
. Trivia, busywork
. Some phone calls
. Time wasters
. “Escape” activities
. Irrelevant mail
. Excessive TV
I II
III IV
Urgent Not Urgent
ImportantNotImportant
Stephen Covey’s Time Management Matrix

Quadrant I
 Represents things that are both “urgent” and
“important” – we need to spend time here
 This is where we manage, we produce, where we
bring our experience and judgment to bear in
responding to many needs and challenges.
 Many important activities become urgent through
procrastination, or because we don’t do enough
prevention and planning

Quadrant II
 Includes activities that are “important, but not urgent”-
Quadrant of Quality
 Here’s where we do our long-range planning, anticipate
and prevent problems, empower others, broaden our
minds and increase our skills
 Ignoring this Quadrant feeds and enlarges Quadrant I,
creating stress, burnout, and deeper crises for the person
consumed by it
 Investing in this Quadrant shrinks Quadrant I

Quadrant III
 Includes things that are “urgent, but not important”
- Quadrant of Deception.
 The noise of urgency creates the illusion of
importance.
 Actual activities, if they’re important at all, are
important to someone else.
 Many phone calls, meetings and drop-in visitors fall
into this category

Quadrant IV
 Reserved for activities that are “not urgent, not
important”- Quadrant of Waste
 We often “escape” to Quadrant IV for survival
 Reading addictive novels, watching mindless
television shows, or gossiping at office would qualify
as Quadrant IV time-wasters

Is it bad to be in Quadrant I?
 Are you in Quadrant I because of the urgency or the
importance?
 If urgency dominates, when importance fades, you’ll
slip into Quadrant III.
 But if you’re in Quadrant I because of importance,
when urgency fades you’ll move to Quadrant II.

What is the problem with urgency?
 Urgency itself is not the problem…
 When urgency is the dominant factor in our
lives, importance isn’t
 What we regard as “first things” are urgent
things

Where do I get time to spend in Quadrant II?
 From Quadrant III
 Time spent in Quadrant I is both urgent and
important- we already know we need to be
there
 We know we shouldn’t be there in Quadrant
IV
 But Quadrant III can fool us

20
Obstacles to effective time management
Unclear objectives
Disorganization
Inability to say “no”

21
Obstacles to effective time management
Interruptions
More interruptions
Periods of inactivity

22
Obstacles to effective time
management
Too many things at once
Stress and fatigue
All work and no play

23
What can we do?
Recognize that obstacles exist
Identify them
Employ strategies to overcome

24
Prioritize
Do
Delegate
Delay
Delete

Delegation of workload
 Use technology
 Use your colleagues
 Outsource tedious
chores
 Train others to do the
jobs you want to
delegate
 Have realistic
expectations
 Provide additional
information
 Remember that end
result matters, not the
methods
 Review progress of
delegated task

Meetings- Paperwork
 Be bold to request absence from the meetings that are not
useful to you
 Give feedback & suggestions to improve effectiveness
 Pre-circulate agenda if you are in charge
 Don’t accept shoddy preparation for too long
 Worth spending time to create filing system- soft & hard

Prime Time
– The time of the day that you are most
productive.
– Determine the hours of the day you are
most productive (early morning/mid-
afternoon)
– Schedule monotonous / routine tasks
during non-prime time hours.
– Schedule creative or intense tasks
during peak times.

0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2
8:00 AM 10 12 2 4:00 PM
Energy Level

29
Use your waiting time
On public transportation
At the doctor’s office
Waiting for your plane
On hold
When you are early

30
Use your waiting time
Correspondence
Letters or memos
Books or tapes

How to use Technology?
Many E-mail programmes have in-built
calendar software that can keep track of
 Appointments
 Meetings
 “To-Do” lists
 Remainder & Alert functions

E-mail Advantage
Preferred mode of business communication
 Mails
 Memos
 Notes
 Attach documents
 Queries
 Jokes
 Other spam

Handling E-mail
 Get off the lists
 Unlisted address
 Check it once or twice per day
 Deal with it

Deal with e-mails
 Requires quick response, respond immediately
and delete mail.
 Requires response but not able to devote time,
delegate it to a subordinate. (instead of “I do
it”/ “It gets done”).
 Requires serious amount of time, schedule for
action in Day planner and save or take a print
out for future action.

Time Planning Software
 Track down colleagues
 Cross checking schedules
 Booking Meeting
 Schedules & Books meeting rooms & other
facilities
 Confirming attendance
 Handle inevitable changes
 Entire team’s availability at a glance.

Some Time Planning Softwares
 Meeting Maker (www.meetingmaker.com)
 Electronic Assistant Lite 3.1 (www.dante-
productions.com)
 Virtual Secretary 2001 (www.wizardware.com)
 Standard time for Palm 1.0
(www.pilotzone.com)
 Quick Reminder 1.12 (www.mobisystems.com)
 Time 1.2 (www.comit.com.au)

Hurdles
 Lack of commitment
 Procrastination
– fear of failure or success
– low self-esteem
– lack of prioritization skills
– the task too daunting
 Plain stupidity & over confident.

Effects
 Promotes efficient work practices.
 Highlights wastage.
 Effective use of time.
 Focus the chosen activity.
 Reveals problems.
 Lends a structure to implement and Monitor
solutions.
 Take control of your own time - evaluate the
usage.

Is Your Jar Full?
 When things in your life seem almost to much to handle, when 24 hours in a
day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar......and the drink.
+ + +
 The point is this: Put the Big Rocks in First
 There is always some space for your WANTS but think, do you really need it?
 LEARN to distinguish between “Wants" and “Needs".

Biggest Mistake
The Biggest Mistake people can make is try to
use each second fully, which is impossible. So,
“Don’t try to achieve every goal you want to
achieve, achieve only the goals you need and
stay focused on the important things in life.”

Conclusion
“If you waste your time, you waste your life.”
“If you value and are stingy with your time,
investing every second wisely, you are getting
the most out of life”.
Manage Time - Exploit Technology

Resources
 Books
– Stephen Covey: 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
 Time Management Kit
– Franklincovey Stores
– Even a notebook. (A page a day)
 Internet Resources
– www.balancetime.com
– www.timedoctor.com
– www.franklincovey.com

Decide to be on top the situation
rather than be part of the mess
Wish you all the Best