Managing Your
Time Effectively

Getting Started
Time management is a wide and
diverse area, with different issues
and challenges for each of us.
There is no ‘one-size’ fits all solution
to Time Management.
It is important to learn the general
principles of Time Management
and then see how best they can be
applied to our lives

Benefits of Managing Time
 Higher productivity and
satisfaction
 Improvement of quality of
work
 Implementation of important
goals
 Conservation of Energy
 Less Stress, Better Health

Becoming Aware
 The first step towards any learning is to establish
a baseline.
 Identify what aspect of your Time Management
do you most want to work on.

Analyze the use of your time
 Keep a time-log to the nearest minute of everything you do
over a typical working period of at least one day
 Include dealing with interruptions, travel and breaks.
 Highlight everything that was not planned, and make a note
alongside anything that was of special note, good or bad.
 How many of the activities that you completed were planned for?
 How many activities did you invest time in but had not planned to do so?
 Where did you spend the most time, in planned or unplanned activities
 How many important activities did you get done?

The pickle jar theory
A professor taking a time management class gave the following illustration:
“Imagine an empty pickle jar.
Now, put some large rocks in it. Put in as many as you possibly can. Until you think it’s
full. Now, I know you think it’s full, but put a couple more in anyway.
Okay, you’ve got a full pickle jar that you can’t fit anything else into, right? Now, put some
pebbles in. Put as many in as you can possibly fit, and raise your hand when you feel
your jar is full. Now, take your full jar and take sand and, you guessed it, fill that jar
until you can’t possibly fit anymore in, and then add some water.
I am sure the significance of this little exercise hasn’t escaped any of you. Each of us has
many large priorities in our life, represented by the large rocks. We also have things
which we enjoy doing, such as the pebbles. We have other things we have to do, like
the sand. And finally, we have things that simply clutter up our lives and get in
everywhere: water.
None of these are bad things. After all, we need the gamut of these objects—from large
priorities to times of rest—in order to feel truly fulfilled. No Time Management theory
should be without balance, and the Pickle Jar theory is all about balance. You make
time for everything, and everything simply fits well where it is supposed to fit.”

Learning to Prioritize
The
Time
Matrix

Important v/s Urgent
Urgent Not Urgent
I II
DO NOW PLAN TO DO
Important
III IV
REJECT RESIST AND
Not AND CEASE
Important
EXPLAIN

Quadrant 1 – Urgent and Important
DO NOW
 emergencies, complaints and
crisis issues
 demands from superiors or
customers
 planned tasks or project work
now due
 meetings and appointments
 reports and other submissions
 staff issues or needs
 problem resolution, fire-
fighting, fixes

Dealing with the activities in Quadrant 1
Subject to confirming the importance and the urgency of these
tasks, these tasks need doing now.
Prioritize tasks that fall into this category according to their
relative urgency.
If two or more tasks appear equally urgent, discuss and probe
the actual requirements and deadlines with the task
originators or with the people dependent on the task
outcomes.
Help the originators of these demands to re-assess the real
urgency and priority of these tasks.

Dealing with the activities in Quadrant 1
If helpful you should show your schedule to task originators in
order to explain that you are prioritizing in a logical way,
and to be as productive and effective as possible.
Look for ways to break a task into two stages if it's an
unplanned demand - often a suitable initial 'holding'
response or acknowledgment, with a commitment to
resolve or complete at a later date, will enable you to
resume other planned tasks.

Quadrant 2 – Not Urgent But Important
PLAN TO DO
 planning, preparation,
scheduling
 research, investigation,
designing, testing
 networking relationship
building
 thinking, creating,
modelling, designing
 systems and process
development
 anticipation and prevention
 developing change, direction,
strategy

Dealing with the activities in Quadrant 2
 These tasks are most critical to success, and yet commonly
are the most neglected.
 These activities include planning, strategic thinking,
deciding direction and aims, etc., all crucial for success and
development.
 You must plan time-slots for doing these tasks, and if
necessary plan where you will do them free from
interruptions.
 Break big tasks down into separate logical stages and plan
time-slots for each stage.

Quadrant 3
REJECT AND EXPLAIN
 trivial requests from others
 apparent emergencies
 ad-hoc interruptions and distractions
 misunderstandings appearing as
complaints
 pointless routines or activities
 accumulated unresolved trivia
 boss's whims or tantrums
 Scrutinise and probe demands. Help
originators to re-assess. Wherever
possible reject and avoid these tasks
sensitively and immediately.

Dealing with the activities in Quadrant 3
3 - REJECT (DIPLOMATICALLY)
Scrutinise these demands ruthlessly, and help originators - even your
boss and your senior managers - to re-assess the real importance of
these tasks. Practice and develop your ability to explain and justify to
task originators why you cannot do these tasks.
Where possible reject and avoid these tasks immediately, informing
and managing people's expectations and sensitivities accordingly;
explain why you cannot do these tasks and help the originator find
another way of achieving what they need, which might involve
delegation to another person, or re-shaping the demand to be more
strategic, with a more sustainable solution.
Look for causes of repeating demands in this area and seek to prevent
re-occurrence. Educate and train others, including customers,
suppliers, fellow staff and superiors, to identify long-term remedies, not
just quick fixes. For significant repeating demands in this area, create a
project to resolve cause, which will be a quadrant 2 task. Challenge
habitual systems, processes, procedures and expectations

Quadrant 4
RESIST AND CEASE
 'comfort' activities, computer games, net
surfing, excessive cigarette breaks
 chat, gossip, social communications
 daydreaming, doodling, over-long breaks
 reading nonsense or irrelevant material
 unnecessary adjusting equipment etc.
 embellishment and over-production
 Habitual 'comforters' not true tasks. Non-
productive, de-motivational. Minimise or
cease altogether. Plan to avoid them.

Dealing with the activities in Quadrant 4
4 - RESIST AND CEASE
These activities are not tasks, they are habitual comforters
which provide a refuge from the effort of discipline and
proactivity. These activities affirm the same 'comfort-
seeking' tendencies in other people; a group or whole
department all doing a lot of this quadrant 4 activity creates
a non-productive and ineffective organizational culture.
These activities have no positive outcomes, and are
therefore demotivating.
The best method for ceasing these activities, and for
removing temptation to gravitate back to them, is to have a
clear structure or schedule of tasks for each day, which you
should create in quadrant 2.

Your Daily Time Matrix
 Maintain a diary of your daily time matrix for a
minimum period of 7 days.
 Classify the activities that you have do into one of
the 4 columns
 At the end of the week, find out which quadrant
do you spend most of your time in
 What can you do to make it better

The “How to’s” of Time
Management
How To Use E-mail Effectively
How To Plan Your Day
How To Stop Procrastinating
How To Say No
How To Prepare For
How To Prevent Interruptions
Meetings
How To Get Cooperation from
How To Delegate
Other Departments

Tips to Tame Time
 Write down your long-term goals.
 Every day, divide your tasks into A, B and C priorities. Always
start with a high priority "A" task, even if you can only
accomplish a small part of it.
 Block off time for activities that are important.
 Stop spending time on trivia.
 Have the courage to say no.
 Always start meetings on time.
 Slow down.
 Avoid procrastination by completing unpleasant tasks first.
 Create time for balance in your life.

The bad news is… time flies.
The good news is… you're the
pilot."
-- Michael Altshuler

Remember!! The keys to effective time management
is knowing where you want to go (objective) and
knowing how to get there (planning)
“Cheshire Puss” Alice began, “Would you tell me, please,
which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where want to get to” said the
Cat
“I don’t much care where…” said Alice
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go” said the Cat
“… so long as I get somewhere” Alice added as an
explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk
long enough”