4.1 Time management

There are entire courses devoted to time management; in this section, though, you will look at one or two headline ways to manage your time when you have a lot of commitments.

You have looked at how you currently spend your time and what your priorities are. So far, this course has helped you with delegating activities and deciding which activities you can give up. Once you have decided what you need to do and what you can delegate, you need to work out how you will fit everything in. This involves planning and recording.

1. Get a diary and use it

   You are going to need an electronic or paper diary/calendar. An online calendar can be synced from your smartphone and other devices. All your commitments (and anybody else’s commitments that you are responsible for) will be recorded in your calendar, so you’ll need to have this available at all times (a calendar at home on the wall won’t work).

2. Planning time

   As well as recording the times of your commitments and making sure they don’t overlap, you need to plan and record the time that you need in order to prepare any more complicated work or organisational work. Allow contingency time; as discussed earlier, unforeseen events (such as family illness) can change your plans.

3. No procrastinating

   One way in which time can easily drain away is through procrastination. We all put off work that is unpalatable for whatever reason and there are so many different ways to procrastinate.

   When any work (domestic or paid) is passed to you, either do it there and then or make a note of when you are going to do it. If you delegate the work, then make a note in your diary of when you need to check the work is completed.

4. Focus

   At home and at work, there will be interruptions. Depending on your role and other commitments, it may be that these are necessary. If you know that you have work that requires you to focus then you need a system that will give you a spell of uninterrupted time. One suggestion is to turn your email off completely and make sure your phone is on silent – beeping devices have a way of pushing themselves to the top of our priority list, even though they may not be urgent or important at all. There are times when you need to give yourself the space to focus on the task in hand.

It is important to leave aside a piece of time each week or month to think about how you are managing your time. As scheduling and planning becomes more natural to you, you should find you can achieve more with the time you have:

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Transcript: Scheduling

ANNE

I think when I was working part-time, trying to get the maximum in the day, I was much more hardheaded about just getting on, less chit-chat, getting on with things. I do know now-- I'm working full-time. Part of my role as a business analyst is really to engage with people, so that chit chat is vital.

And then outside of work, things like online shopping are vital, organisation, lists, and then trying to also spread the workload. I think one thing I was miles too hung up on was trying to do my own housework. Once I got a-- well, I think since I started working full-time and I found that my Saturday mornings were going cleaning the house, I thought, this is ridiculous. Everyone would say, oh, we'll help. We'll do our share. No. So just don't feel guilty about buying in help when you need it.

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Scheduling