2 Ways To Improve Time Management

There are just two things you can do to improve your time management skills - find out what they are and what you need to do here:

• Do less
• Be more efficient

Do Less

To do this you need to prioritise effectively. If you have trouble doing this, here’s an easy way:

Be clear what it is you are trying to achieve. Once you have identified that, then just ask yourself if what you are thinking of doing will help you to achieve it.

So, for example, if you need to increase sales in your department, before you do anything, ask yourself if doing that will increase sales. If it will, do it. If not, you should be questioning it.

That’s what prioritisation is all about –having an easy way of deciding if and when you should do something.

Be More Efficient

This is about doing more stuff in less time. It’s what most people want to do. Let me give you one little trick that will help you to focus your effort where it will really make a difference.

It will take you a bit more time initially but it will save you a lot in the long term.

Take a week to monitor where your time goes. Just use a simple spreadsheet and a stopwatch (pretty cheap these days).

Start the stopwatch off as soon as you start any task and stop it when you finish. Then enter the time into your spreadsheet. Very quickly you’ll start to see the categories that will make sense to you. Things like:

• Answering emails
• Filing
• Writing reports
• Meetings
• Telephone calls

I’m sure you will have specific things that fit in with your work.

Once you have done this for a week, sort the times into order - starting with what takes up most of your time and, if you can, get the spreadsheet to draw you a graph. You’ll end up with something like this:



Now you are in a position to look at efficiency savings. Start at the left hand end. Even if you make a small saving here, it will make a much bigger difference to you than a huge saving at the other end.

An Easy Way To Deal With A Difficult Person

Who is the most difficult person you have to deal with?

Is it someone who bullies or is it that annoying person who pours cold water on all your great ideas? Perhaps it's the one who is so thick-skinned they just can't take a hint. Or it may be someone who never makes a decision and dithers around driving you mad. Or it may be the nitpicker who just can't see the big picture.

But are you making it worse?

The dreadful truth is that you probably are.

I used to work with a team whose members all looked forward to "DFD"s - "Dave Free Days". They would pass around a date when their boss, Dave, was going to be out of the office for any reason at all so that people didn't waste holidays or meetings out of the office on days when Dave was not there.

I met Dave and I can certainly see why they did it. He embodied almost all the annoying characteristics of all the difficult people I have ever worked with.

If you have to put up with anyone difficult, then see below for how Deal With Difficult People in Five Steps

So you’ve got a difficult person to deal with. Here’s a simple strategy to use that will help. Just follow the steps.

Step 1: Identify what you want your difficult person to do

This can be a very hard question to answer because when you are faced with a difficult person you generally tend to think about what you want them to stop doing.

Think about your interactions with the individual and work out how you like them to behave.

If you are struggling with this step, think about someone else who is easy to deal with and identify what that person would do in the same situation. That should give you the information you need.

Step 2: Make it specific.

Something like ‘Show me respect’ is no good, because it’s too open to interpretation.

You need to state it in terms of what you want them to do, not what you don’t want them to do. So, not
‘Stop shouting at me’
instead
‘Speak to me at a normal volume.’

Step 3: Work out what to say

Once you have done this, you can speak to them using this structure:
If you would like me to XXXX please YYYYY

‘If you would like me to finish this report by Friday, please just say ‘Nancy, would you finish this report by Friday?’

Very often people have no idea how badly they are behaving. Just asking them to behave more appropriately (as above) can really make them stop and think.

Here’s another example (for an annoying ‘wet blanket’ type person):
‘When I bring an idea to you I’d like you to consider the idea and the benefits before giving me any concerns you may have.’

Or (in response to vague criticisms and insults)
‘’It would help me a great deal if you could give me a list of the specific changes you would like me to make in the document, then I will have them done by Friday.’

Step 4: Practise

This may sound silly, but it’s really worth practising this till you feel confident you are going to get it right, and it flows quite naturally.

Step 5: Do it

It may be you want to try it out in an easy, low risk situation. Or you might want to try it out on a friend first to see how he or she thinks it comes across. Once you feel confident, do it for real.