PURE TIME MANAGEMENT

and its death

Time management definition by Wikipedia: Time Management is the act or process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity

Quite diplomatic definition, a?

Let’s simplify it!

Time management is the ability to utilize the available time in optimum manner to achieve one’s personal and professional goals

Bee VS Mosquito

The mosquito and the bee are busy all day long, but the end result of their busyness is different.

So, when the need of time management appears? When we are busy!

And if we are busy all the time? Then we need time management all the time!

Because busyness is often a criteria for not utilizing the time in optimum manner

But why?

SO WE NEED TIME MANAGEMENT NOT ONLY TO GET RID OF OUR BUSYNESS, BUT ALSO TO GET THE RESULTS WE NEED…FASTER

And still, the first step is to see what keeps us so busy!

- Inability to prioritize (lack of organizational skill)

- Inability to concentrate – if we don’t concentrate to complete a tasks at one time, it seems long and time consuming

- The ability to enlarge the tasks - Parkinson’s low - work expand to fill the time available for it. Be aware of this!

- Excessive detailing of the task – get rid of the need for perfection and stop thinking too long about doing something

*StartUp moto - Slow decisions kill people faster

- Procrastinating – if we do all small tasks that we delay, it will give us really big source of free time

- Distractions – unimportant colleague conversation, FaceBook, LinkedIN, mail

- Sometimes we just think we are too busy, because of the amount of the tasks, but in most cases when we sit and organize our tasks it turns out that we are actually not that busy (it’s about the feeling of control)

- The need to be a “wanna be” – sometimes our desire to feel important make us think and act like very busy person. The truth is that the most successful people have more free time than others

HOW TIME MANAGEMENT CAN HELP US?

- To have more control over our job responsibilities

- To increase our work output

- To reduce stress

- To have more free time

- To have more free mind

- To show us our value in money (our salary/man-hours worked per month)

MAIN FACTORS AFFECTING TIME MANAGEMENT:

- Personality / skills

- Influence of the colleagues and friends – you are the average of the five people, which are closest to you

- Management style of the superior/ organizational culture

- The nature of the job

OVERALL TIME MANAGEMENT:

- Setting lifetime goals helps you to chart your life course – every December write your most important goals for the next year.

*The purpose of life is a life with purpose

*Setting goals is part of Mediteranium diet, which is defined by the American Nutrition Association as the only proven beneficial diet in America

- Break up lifetime goals in smaller goals

- Make a daily to do list

- Revise your list and judge your progress

PROJECT TIME MANAGEMENT:

- Make and use lists (planning) for the tasks – using lists empty your mind (don’t relay on your memory), help you to identify where your time goes and how can you improve it. Try to organize your lists/tools. If you use papers to write down your tasks, try to separate them: for action, for reading, for information, etc. That will save time

„Remember that the things that get scheduled are the things that get done“ Robin Sharma

“If you aren’t making lists, you probably aren’t making a lot of money either”

- Prioritize – Is it important or urgent? Is it worth spending your time and company resources now or later? Urgent VS Important – don’t always tune out fire

- Right time for right activity – plan to make the best use of your time

- Delegation of responsibities – delegation saves time and develops subordinates. Don’ t spend time for something that can be done, to a satisfactory level, by your subordinate. Give people tasks by their skills. Delegation is a great motivator. It enriches jobs, improves performance and rises moral staff. But you need to delegate the right task to the right person – to know how to use your resourses

*In some big companies it is a culture when the executive director come in charge to starts to train somebody for his/hers deputy.

- Set deadlines – make a realistic estimate of how much you can do

- Preserve some contingency time to deal with unexpected tasks (no 100% utilization)

- Review and revise your list every day or on regular basis

DAILY TIME MANAGEMENT (WHAT SAVE US TIME AND HELP US TO GET

RESULTS):

- Make a plan for the day – Take control of your tasks. Don’t be busy being busy.

- Control the interruptions - Set a time limit for any interruption. Don’t always be available. Learn to say “NO”.

- Plan your calls - Practice not answering the phone just because it's ringing and e-mails just because they show up. Remove mail pop ups.

- Get over procrastination - when you catch yourself procrastinating, ask yourself – why am I putting this off? If there is no reason – Do it! And do not confuse reason with excuse.

- Pass on information - don’t fear of missing something.

- Ask questions

- Perfection, at times, becomes counterproductive

- Work concentrate and then take breaks – plan your breaks.

- Muddle makes work and waste time - strive for good order in your office. Your desk should be clear of all papers except the specific job on hand. It invites you to think one thing at a time and concentration is a big time saver.

- Block your time - Most people’s schedules only have their locked-in-stone appointments with others. But we should have locked-in-stone appointments with ourselves. Meet yourself and let the romance begine

World №1 time saver is establishing a daily routine.Habits save us time and energy. It gives us momentum to do recurrent tasks quicker and without much energy, so that we could use our best capacity for doing harder or new tasks.

Do not count on your self discipline and willpower. They are overrated. Defining routines and systems is more effective than relying on self-discipline. Routine works because with it we do things automatically, and we don’t tax our very limited supply of willpower. So, make your personal routine.

World №1 time waster is Procrastination. Banish it from your life with the “first 10 minutes rule” – if you don’t want to do something, commit yourself that you will start to do it for 10 minutes and then if you want to stop – go ahead and stop without quilt. There is research which shows that in 90% of cases, for these 10 minutes, the task is already done, or it become interesting to us and we finish it.

TIME MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES FOR BETTER PRODUCTIVITY:

- Pareto principle: 20% of your time will produce 80% of your productive output. Can you detect which are those 20% in your daily job?

- Parkinson’s low: work expand to fill the time available for it. Be aware of this!

- The 2 minute rule : If you can do it for 2 minutes – do it immediately – it will save you time later

- “Eat that frog:” biggest task first

- Small task first: completing small tasks first gives us sense for success and then we are more motivated to handle the more hard tasks

- Rest actively: have work-breaks to overcome fatigue. Plan no-working days. Sleep enough. Be interested in field different than yours. Try to do more of what you love. *in some companies, if the employee worked for 5 years, he/she have the right to have 6 months rest in which to travel, to sport, to find her/himself;

THE POWER OF BREAKS (THEY CAN MAKE YOU HAPPIER, MORE

FOCUSED AND MORE PRODUCTIVE)3 Scientific Reasons to Prioritize Breaks at Work:

1. Breaks keep us from getting bored (and thus, unfocused) - the human brain just wasn’t built for the extended focus we ask of it these days. Focusing so hard on one thing for a long time isn’t something we’re ever going to be great at (at least for a few centuries). The fix for this unfocused condition is simple - all we need is a brief interruption (aka a break) to get back on track

2. Breaks help us retain information and make connections - Our brains have two modes: the “focused mode,” which we use when we’re doing things like learning something new, writing or working and “diffuse mode,” which is our more relaxed, daydreaming mode, when we’re not thinking so hard. You might think that the focused mode is the one to optimize for more productivity, but diffuse mode plays a big role, too. Studies have shown that activity in many brain regions increases when our minds wander and daydream. That is why breakthroughs that seem to come out of nowhere are often the product of diffuse mode thinking. Also the diffuse mode, it turns out, is what you often need to be able to solve a very difficult, new problem

3. Breaks help us reevaluate our goals - When you work on a task continuously, it’s easy to lose focus and get lost in the weeds. In contrast, following a brief intermission, picking up where you left off forces you to take a few seconds to think globally about what you’re ultimately trying to achieve. It’s a practice that encourages us to stay mindful of our objectives

*A study discovered that even though 66 % of employees spend more than eight hours a day at work, more than a quarter of them don’t take a break other than lunch. One in five employee respondents said guilt was the reason they don’t step away from their workspaces. It’s become normal to think that if you never take a break from work, you’ll get more done, get promoted and be more successful. But actually without any downtime to refresh and recharge, we’re less efficient, make more mistakes, and get less engaged with what we’re doing.

FOUR “WORK – BREAK” METHODS TO TRY:

1. Pomodoro method - set a timer for 25 minutes, and when it goes off, take a short break for 5 minutes. Stretch your legs, grab a drink, or just sit back and relax. After you’ve done four Pomodoro sessions, take a longer break of 30 minutes or so. Working in such compact time periods helps you get rid of distractions and focus more intently.

2. 90-minute work blocks - Working in 90-minute intervals has long been a favorite method of maximizing productivity because it works with our bodies’ natural rhythms. Sleep researchers William Dement and Nathan Kleitman first discovered the 90-minute pattern while studying the cycles by which we progress into sleep, but it persists when we’re awake, too, as we move from higher to lower levels of alertness.

4. Two 15-minute breaks per day - If a time-blocked day doesn’t appeal to you or work with your job, consider a simpler, but still quite effective solution: blocking out two planned 15-minute intermissions in your day—one in the mid-morning and the other in the mid-afternoon. Around 3 p.m. is the least productive time of day, so definitely don’t skip that break!

*if that doesn’t work for you – find your timing for work and rest

3. The 52-17 method - 52 minutes work at a time, then break for 17 minutes before getting back to it. The reason this technique is productive is because users treat this short period of time as sprints. They try to get the most done of those 52 minutes by working with intense purpose, but then rest up to be ready for the next burst. In other words, they work with purpose. And purpose is a great motivator.

SO WE PROVE, THAT WE NEED BREAKS, BUT WHAT TO DO IN OUR BREAKS?

- Take a walk

- Eat – sugar VS slow carbohydrates - The brain works best with about 25 grams of glucose circulating in the blood stream. To get those 25 grams of glucose into your blood stream is pretty easy. For example you can eat a donut. Or you can eat a small bowl of oats. In short term, for your brain there is no difference what you will eat. But in long term, there is big difference based on the influence of glucose, leptin and glycemic index. With the donut your energy gets low faster, makes you feel fatigue and hungry quicker. Bottom line, sometimes what really matters with eating is when, where, and who you’re with If you a woman eating with a man -You’ll eat less .

- Daydream

- Read: Read a (non-work) book–especially fiction

- Get a coffee: are you timing your coffee breaks correctly? For people who wake up between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m., the optimal times for consuming caffeine fall somewhere around 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

- Doodle: Let your mind wander as you put pen to paper for some creative free time

- Look at adorable animal photos: Only baby animals will do the trick here

- Listen to music- Nap: A nap of even 10 minutes has been shown to improve cognitive function and decrease sleepiness and fatigue

- Exercise- Talk to friends or coworkers- Meditate- Plan something fun: Like a future trip or vacation

- Go outside and see some nature- Exercise your eyes: Use the 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes, take a break for at least 20 seconds and look at objects that are 20 feet away from you

- Mess Around Online

Let’s see the common tasks in the very successful people’s schedule:

- Morning ritual - They rise early (early morning is when you’re most disciplined) and have a morning ritual (focus on the goals - people who construct their goals in concrete terms are 50 % more likely to feel confident they will attain their goals and 32 % more likely to feel in control of their lives; set a mood - If you start the day calm it’s easy to get the right things done and focus. Our brains are literally hardwired to perform at their best not when they are negative or even neutral, but when they are positive).*no matter if you are morning or evening person – just focus on your most productive time- Important Work First Thing — With No Distractions - Many people arrive at the office and immediately get busy with email and meetings, leaving real work for later in the day… error. Research shows that 2.5 to 4 hours after waking is when your brain is sharpest. All distraction in the work place makes you stupid and it ends up that work doesn’t happen at work . Stop focusing on just getting lots of random things done to pretend you’re making progress. Get the important things done.- Regroup When You Slow Down - Get a snack or a power nap if you can and track your progress (mini-version of your morning ritual. Harvard research shows nothing is more motivating than progress. Comparing people who tend to give up easily with people who tend to carry on, even through difficult challenges, researchers find that persistent people spend twice as much time thinking, not about what has to be done, but about what they have already accomplished, the fact that the task is doable, and that they are capable of it.)- Meetings, Calls and People Stuff In The Afternoon - When energy is high - focus on creative, challenging work. When energy is low, do busy work. Research shows the afternoon really is the best time for meetings — specifically, 3PM.- A Relaxing Evening - Before dinner, Tim Ferriss recommends writing down your big goal for tomorrow. This will get your mind off work and allow you to relax. According to the American Psychological Association, the most effective stress-relief strategies are exercising or playing sports, praying or attending a religious service, reading, listening to music, spending time with friends or family, getting a massage, going outside for a walk, meditating or doing yoga, and spending time with a creative hobby. (The least effective strategies are gambling, shopping, smoking, drinking, eating, playing video games, surfing the Internet, and watching TV or movies for more than two hours.)- Sleep well - The bottom line is that sleep loss means mind loss. Sleep loss cripples thinking, in just about every way you can measure thinking. Sleep loss hurts attention, executive function, immediate memory, working memory, mood, quantitative skills, logical reasoning ability, general math knowledge.

Are these advices really work?

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’S SCHEDULE:

AND WHAT DO YOU THINK PEOPLE FIND OUT IF THEY FOLLOW STRICTLY THESE KIND OF SCHEDULES?

They find out, that even with a plan, sometimes you still didn’t get everything done

But the important thing is that you know this is an exception, rather than a habit

SO IF PURE TIME MANAGEMENT IS SO HELPFUL, THEN WHY IS DEAD?:

Because our days are determinate mostly not by our time, but by our energy!

Our energy, not time is the most precious asset of every one of us. So before setting our time management routine, first of all we need to be concern about our high levels of health (physical, emotional, mental and spiritual) as:

- Eat well

- Find some physical exercises that excites you

- Concentrate to your possibilities, not to your constraints

- Make your obstacles, your resources

- Go to a non-complaining diet

- Surround yourself with people with proper attitude

- Rest and sleep well

Time is the only victim who takes revenge on her killer after his death

Homework: What time management tips will you give to the mosquito and the bee to improve their time and result?