1. Managing Time and Stress13
Managing Time and Stress
The most important thing I’ve realized is that if you overcommit yourself to your work, you become valueless to your company.
—Steven Wynne, president and CEO, Adidas America

2. Time Management Time is the only resource we all have in equal shares.
Supervisors who are in control of their time find that their jobs are easier and that they can get more done.
Time management
The practice of controlling the way you use time.
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3. Understanding How You Use Time
Keep a time log for at least one typical week, then ask yourself the following questions:
How much time did I spend on important activities?
How much time did I spend on activities that did not need to get done?
How much time did I spend on activities that someone else could have done (perhaps with some training)?
What important jobs did I not get around to finishing?
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4. Planning Your Use of Time
Make sure that the most important things get done each day before you move on to less important activities.
Set priorities.
Establish objectives for the year.
Specify when each must be completed.
Figure out what must be accomplished when—each quarter, month, and week.
Review objectives regularly, using them to plan weekly and daily accomplishment objectives.
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5. Making a “To Do” List
Record all activities that must occur at a set time.
Find times for your remaining A-level activities.
Schedule the most important activities for the times of day when you are at your best.
Learn to use electronic scheduling tools.
Schedule time for thinking as well as doing.
Don’t fill up every hour of the day and week.
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6. Common Time Wasters 13-6 McGraw-Hill/Irwin
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7. Controlling Time Wasters
Additional time wasters:
Working without a plan
Working with fuzzy goals or too many goals
Oversupervising
Worrying
Excessive socializing
Pursuing perfectionism
Putting off delivering bad news
Correcting your own mistakes or those of others
Waiting
Dealing with those who don’t put in a full day’s work
Getting angry
Giving poor instructions
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8. Meetings When chaired by another person: When you call a meeting:
Encourage careful use of time by being prompt.
Bring along reading material or work to do if you know you’re probably going to wait for others.
Help others focus on the goal of the meeting.
When you call a meeting:
Start promptly.
Focus on the goal of the meeting.
Set an end time for the meeting.
Schedule a follow-up meeting if necessary.
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9. Telephone Calls and E-Mail
Remember you are not a slave to the telephone.
Schedule time each day for making calls, and be prepared.
Call to confirm meetings.
Be sure to get precise directions to all meetings.
Prioritize your s.
Delete junk mail unread.
Limit the number of messages sent and the number of recipients.
Avoid responding to nonbusiness correspondence.
Consider scheduling one time a day to check s.
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10. Paperwork and Reading Material
Try to handle each item only once.
Set aside time each day.
Determine the most efficient response.
Evaluate the publications you receive and cancel subscriptions that are not useful.
Review tables of contents first rather than reading every page of a publication.
Ask to be removed from distribution lists that send information that is not useful to you.
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11. Handling Unscheduled Visitors
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12. Procrastination Force yourself to jump in.
Focus on one step at a time.
Reward yourself for completing each step.
Pick one area at a time in which you tend to procrastinate and attack it.
Compartmentalize your work and force yourself to get through the task one task at a time.
Do the biggest job first, when you have the most energy.
Give yourself deadlines.
Don’t pursue perfectionism.
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13. Perfectionism and Failure to Delegate
Determine the highest standard you realistically can achieve.
When you find yourself avoiding a difficult task, remember your realistic goals and give it your best.
Perfectionism often underlies the failure to delegate work.
Supervisors may resist delegating because they believe only they can really do the job right.
Learn to delegate effectively.
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14. Inability to Say No
When you take on too many things, you cannot do your best at any of them.
Tell requestors that you will consider the offer and will reply later at some specific time, then assess your present commitments and priorities.
Ask yourself, “What activity am I willing to give up to make time for this new one?”
If your supervisor asks you to take on an urgent task, request help in prioritizing your workload or ask what should be given up to accomplish the new task.
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15. Stress Management
Stress refers to the body’s response to coping with environmental demands such as change, frustration, uncertainty, danger, or discomfort.
Stress can be a response to a problem, or can result from challenges that stimulate you and from the happy changes in your life.
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16. Work-Related Causes of Stress
Job stress can result from the organization’s:
Policies
Structures
Physical conditions
Processes
Downsizing
The stress-related $200-$300 billion annual cost to employers consists of:
Absenteeism and turnover
Medical costs
Worker’s compensation and other legal costs
Accidents
Diminished productivity
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17. Personal Causes of Stress
Personal Factors
General feelings of negativism, helplessness, and low self-esteem
Type A personality
The inability to let work go in off work hours
Work-family conflict
Women are particularly vulnerable
Not associated with what they achieved or how hard they worked but with the degree to which they felt a conflict between career and family
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18. Consequences of Stress
On the job, employees tend to perform best when they are experiencing a moderate degree of stress.
Performance falls when the amount of stress moves from moderate to high.
Stress can hurt employees as individuals.
Burnout
The employee feels emotionally exhausted.
The employee’s perceptions of others become calloused.
The employee views his or her effectiveness negatively.
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19. Possible Signs of Stress
Decline in work performance
Increase in use of sick days
Increase in number of errors and accidents
Moodiness and irritability
Fatigue
Loss of enthusiasm
Aggressive behavior
Difficulty making decisions
Family problems
Apparent loss of concern for others
Feeling that it’s impossible to help other people
Feeling of inability to get your job done fully or well
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20. Personal Stress Management
Time management
Positive attitude
Exercise
Biofeedback
Meditation
Well-rounded life activities
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21. Organizational Stress Management
Behavior of the supervisor
Prepare employees to cope with change
Foster a supportive organizational climate
Make work interesting
Encourage career development
Changes in the job
Environmental changes
Wellness programs
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22. A Word About Personality
The degree to which a person will succeed at using any particular technique depends in part on that person’s personality.
Knowing your personality type (Myers-Briggs) can suggest suitable techniques for managing your own time and stress.
Recognizing different personality types can help you understand the behavior of other people.
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23. Summary A practical way to evaluate time use is to keep a time log.
A supervisor can plan the use of time by making a list of things to do for the day or week, then rating each item on the list.
Certain activities and attitudes lead to wasted time, thus supervisors must learn how to best control them.
The environmental demands that cause stress may arise in the workplace, in people’s personal lives, and in the conflicts that may arise between the two.
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24. Summary (continued)
On the job, employees tend to perform best when they are experiencing a moderate degree of stress. However, too much stress brings problems, especially when the sources of stress are negative.
Supervisors and others can manage stress by using time management, having a positive attitude, getting exercise, using biofeedback, meditating, and leading a well-rounded life.
A supervisor who knows about any stress-management measures offered by the organization is in a better position to take advantage of them and to recommend them to employees.
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