Time management is a crucial skill. It can enhance productivity, allow IT leaders to focus on priorities and

ultimately act directly to improve the effectiveness of individuals and the profitability of the organisation. But if time management is so much common sense and so useful, why is not everyone a time management expert? Sadly the bad news is that time management is difficult – but there is good news to come.

The inherent difficulties

G. K. Chesterton once wrote that the reason Christianity was declining was ‘not because it has been tried and found wanting, but because it has been found difficult and therefore not tried’. So too with time management. There is no magic formula and circumstances – and interruptions – often seem to conspire to prevent best intentions from working out. Some people, perhaps failing to achieve what they want, despair and give up.

That said, you cannot allow perfection to be the enemy of the good. Few, if any of us, organise our time perfectly, but some are manifestly better at it than others. Why? Simply because those who are more successful have a different attitude to the process, seeing it as something to work at. They recognise that the details matter. They consider the time implications of everything, and work to get as close to their ideal of time arrangement as they can.

Little things do mount up. Saving five minutes may sound insignificant, but do so every working day of the year and you save nearly two-and-a-half days. If time can be saved across a range of tasks, and for most people it can, then the overall gain may well be significant. The best basis for making this happen is to make consideration of time and its management a habit.

Habits are powerful. Ones that need changing may take some effort to shift, but once new ones are established, they make the approaches they prompt at least semi-automatic. Getting to grips with managing time effectively may well take a conscious effort, but by establishing good working habits the process becomes easier as you go on.

The ubiquitous meeting

Perhaps nothing makes a better example of wasted time than that of business meetings, especially internal ones. Which of us cannot remember a meeting that we emerged from saying ‘What a waste of time’? First there is the question of the time it takes most meetings to get underway. Scheduled for 2pm, people dribble in over the ensuing 10 minutes, before a start is made only to be interrupted five minutes later by a late arrival. There is a pause, a recap and the meeting begins again. We all know the feeling, and – be honest – are sometimes the cause.

Yet there is surely no reason for it to be like this. Some meetings can and do start on time. For instance, being seen by customers to be productive is equated with giving value for money, and meeting skills are a taken as a sign of professionalism. An effort is usually made here – so why not always? It is only a question of someone setting an example and insisting that good habits develop and are maintained. It makes a difference if such things are done correctly, but someone has to believe it and act accordingly.

This is a very good example of the effect of culture and habit in an organisation combining to save people significant time. Meetings need:

- A start time

- A finishing time, so people can plan what they can do afterwards and when

- A clear agenda, maybe with timing for different topics and certainly circulated in advance

- Good chairmanship, to keep discussion on track

- No distractions, to allow concentration – so organise refreshments beforehand and switch off telephones

Above all else, meetings need clear objectives. Ban any meeting with a time in its title – ‘the monthly administration review meeting’ – they can become dangerous routines. Never have a meeting about something. Convene a meeting to explore ways of reducing administrative costs by five per cent in the last quarter of the year, but not one just to ‘discuss productivity’. With clear intentions, good time keeping and a firm hand on the tiller, most meetings can be productive.

This attitude and approach can be taken in many areas: respecting how things must be done if they are to be effective, and organising so that the best way of working becomes a habit for everyone.

Plan the work and work the plan

The principles of good time management are not complex. They can be summarised in three principles:

- List the tasks you have to perform

- Assign them priorities

- Do what the plan says

It is the last, and to some extent the second too, that causes problems, so some other thoughts here may help.

It may be useful to categorise tasks, putting everything that must be dealt with on the telephone, say, together. It is certainly useful to plan time for tasks as specifically as you schedule appointments. For example, in conducting training on presentation skills I am regularly told by participants that there is never enough time to prepare. Yet this is a key task. Skimp the preparation, make a lacklustre presentation, fail to convince and significant time and work may go down the drain. Putting the preparation time in the diary, setting aside a clear couple of hours or whatever it takes and sticking to that in a way that avoids interruptions must be worthwhile. This demands discipline – more so if it is a team presentation and colleagues must clear time to be together – but it can be done, and it pays dividends.

It is a prime principle of time management that time must be invested to save time in the future. Sound preparation of a presentation may take two hours, but how long is involved in replacing a prospect if a customer sales presentation goes wrong? No contest. And the same principle applies to systems, including computer systems. Sorting something out so that it works well on a regular basis is also likely to be time well spent.

The last of the three main principles above is the one that needs most effort.

Staying on plan

There are two main influences that combine to keep you from completing planned tasks. They are other people and events, and you. You first: you may, for example, put off things because you:

- Are unsure what to do

- Dislike the task

- Prefer another task

- Fear the consequences.

Or time can be wasted in the reverse way. What tasks do you spend too long on, or resist delegating, because you like them? Be honest. Often this is a major cause of wasted time, as is flattering yourself that no one else can do something as well as you can. Perhaps you do not delegate in case someone proves more able than you – a thought worth pondering.

Such things may be a one-off or, worse in their potential for wasting time, regular. Certainly there are principles to be noted in this area: a main one is the fallacy that things become easier if left. Virtually always the reverse is true.

Faced with sacking a member of staff, to take a dramatic example, many people will constantly prevaricate. They may want to ‘see how things go’, ‘check the end of month results’ or some such excuse, when swift action, with all the checks having been done, is best all round.

The second area of problems that keep you from key tasks are interruptions. We all have some colleagues who, when they stick their heads round the door and say, ‘Got a minute?’ mean half an hour minimum is about to vanish unconstructively.

Saying no is an inherent part of good time management

Telephones can also be the bane of our lives – though think carefully about how voicemail in all its forms can damage relationships. But there are moments to be unavailable – some tasks can be completed in a quiet hour, yet take much longer if we are constantly interrupted. This applies especially to anything that requires some real thought or creativity. Indeed creativity is a key casualty of poor time management.

A major asset

Good time management is an attribute that can benefit everyone’s productivity, effectiveness – and career. It is worth exploring the possibilities, instilling the right habits and avoiding any dilution of your organisation’s intentions; and it works best when everyone in a group is similarly motivated. And another thing … brrr, brrr… Sorry, the telephone is ringing.

Patrick Forsyth runs Touchstone Training & Consultancy, which specialises in work in marketing, sales and communications skills. He is the author of ‘Successful Time Management’ published by Kogan Page.

Best practice: time management

There is no magic formula and effective time management is in the detail, but the following are vital:

- Think ahead: invest some time to save more and allow yourself thinking and creative time

- Strike a balance between quality, cost and time: perfection is not always required and can lead to wasting time

- Sort out persistent interruptions: be firm, set limits

- Eliminate the unnecessary: is everything you do really necessary?

- Do not be traumatised by email: stop the copy everyone philosophy and keep things organised

- Make full use of the WPB (waste paper basket): have courage – be prepared to throw things away.