1. Time Management
Give the test of time management and assess.

3. “ We all have time to either spend or waste and it is our decision what to do with it. But once passed, it is gone forever.”
-- Bruce Lee
from “Zen in the Martial Arts” by Joe Hyams

4. Time Management Relevance of time management
Meaning of time management
Importance of time management to a Student
Relevance of time management
Primarily, our day is divided into 3 main activities - sleep, work and leisure. In today’s fast paced scenario, there never seems to be enough of time to do all that is to be done and we often have to comprise one for the other.
Most of us perceive the problem to be a paucity of time. However every person has access to equal amount of time i.e. 24 hours in a day, 365 days a year.
Meaning of time management
The only time that we have at our disposal is “NOW”. Time management helps us to put into focus our goals and their level of priority so that we have the time to do the things that we want to do.
Time management is about applying the “3 E’s” words apply to our daily routines :
Effective : the accomplishment of a task should have a definite or desired effect.
Efficient : the task should be accomplished productively with minimum waste of time.
Effortless : performance of the task should seem effortless, natural and easy.

5. Time Management Steps - Assessment of time usage
Maintain an Activity Log
Analyse the log
Identify time wasters
In order to appreciate the need for acquiring time management skills, we need to first assess how we presently manage out time. This involves the following steps:
Maintain an Activity Log
Analysing the log
Identifying time wasters

6. Time Management
In order to appreciate the need for acquiring time management skills, we need to first assess how we presently manage out time. This involves the following steps:
Maintain an Activity Log
Analysing the log
Identifying time wasters

7. Time Management Activity Log date __________ Time Slot Task performedB C D am am am am
9.30–10 am am am
Maintain an Activity Log :
A good way to keep track of how you spend your day is by maintaining an activity log. Most activities can be broadly classified as follows:
A – The right task was done at the right time.
B – The right task was done but the timing could have been better.
C – The Task could have been delegated to your subordinates.
D – The task was not important and could have been deferred to another day.
Divide your day into half hour slots. As you go about your day accomplishing your professional / personal duties, list them out in the Activity Log against the time slots. Classify each task as A, B, C, or D. For eg. If you have performed a task which could have been delegated to your subordinate, the task should be classified as C.
This activity log should ideally cover a week.
This activity log is just a suggested chart. You may devise your own chart in accordance with your requirements.

8. Time Management Analysis of the Log
Occurrences resulting in wastage of time :
Unplanned Activity
Casual Decisions
Unplanned interactions
Routine Work
Clutter
Approach to work
Time Consciousness
Analysis of the Log:
Once you have maintained the activity log for a week, spend some time analyzing the log. You will notice that a lot of the tasks performed by you fall in the B, C or D category. This goes to show that one has not fruitfully utilized time. On further analysis, you would be able to identify one of the following occurrences which have lead to a wastage of time.
Occurrences resulting in wastage of time :
Unplanned activity : Lack of careful planning leads to a haphazard manner of working resulting in wastage of time. You will be unable to distinguish between what should be done now and what needs to be done in the long run in order to achieve long term goals.
Casual decisions : work decisions taken casually or carelessly may produce wrong results leading to wastage of time.
Unplanned interactions :Time could also be wasted in the course of telephone calls, visitors & meetings.
Routine work : As the Proprietor/Partner, you are responsible for orchestrating the flow of work and motivating your staff. The burden of routine work reduces the time available to you for strategic thinking, demotivates your staff and sets a wrong precedent to your clients who keep insisting on dealing with you alone.
Clutter: A cluttered desk and piles of papers reflects a lack of control on the work resulting in wasted time.
Approach to Work : Your attitude and approach to work also influences the efficacy with which you manage your time. Some negative traits ensuing in time wastage are clock watching, lack of enthusiasm in the job, making decisions based on others reactions, doing things at the last minute, etc.
Time Consciousness : Very often one fails to keep track of how much time one spends on a particular task. Failure to do so leads to time wastage.

9. How would you deal with this ?
Time Management
Role Play
Your manager gives you work that is really his job and expects you to do this work and keep your work on schedule! Although there are people to whom you could delegate the work, you are expected to complete it yourself.
How would you deal with this ?
Analysis of the Log:
Once you have maintained the activity log for a week, spend some time analyzing the log. You will notice that a lot of the tasks performed by you fall in the B, C or D category. This goes to show that one has not fruitfully utilized time. On further analysis, you would be able to identify one of the following occurrences which have lead to a wastage of time.
Occurrences resulting in wastage of time :
Unplanned activity : Lack of careful planning leads to a haphazard manner of working resulting in wastage of time. You will be unable to distinguish between what should be done now and what needs to be done in the long run in order to achieve long term goals.
Casual decisions : work decisions taken casually or carelessly may produce wrong results leading to wastage of time.
Unplanned interactions :Time could also be wasted in the course of telephone calls, visitors & meetings.
Routine work : As the Proprietor/Partner, you are responsible for orchestrating the flow of work and motivating your staff. The burden of routine work reduces the time available to you for strategic thinking, demotivates your staff and sets a wrong precedent to your clients who keep insisting on dealing with you alone.
Clutter: A cluttered desk and piles of papers reflects a lack of control on the work resulting in wasted time.
Approach to Work : Your attitude and approach to work also influences the efficacy with which you manage your time. Some negative traits ensuing in time wastage are clock watching, lack of enthusiasm in the job, making decisions based on others reactions, doing things at the last minute, etc.
Time Consciousness : Very often one fails to keep track of how much time one spends on a particular task. Failure to do so leads to time wastage.

10. Time Management PRINCIPLES
Pareto’s 80/20 Principle
One of the time management principles which effectively bring out how we need to channel our energies more productively is the Paretto’s principle.
Pareto’s 80/20 principle : This principle was discovered by an Italian economist, Vilfredo Pareto in It is also known as the theory of predictable imbalance wherein it states that the relationship between input and output is rarely, if ever, balanced. When applied to work, it means that approximately 20% of your efforts produce 80% of the results. Hence according to this rule, in anything, a few (20%) are vital and the many (80%) are trivial. Learning to recognize and then focusing on that 20% is the key to making the most effective use of your time as most of the results come from the minority of effort.
Now that we better understand where to focus our energies, we should now look at how to focus our energies :

11. Time Management Developing the right skills Managing Time Planning
Contingency Plans
Prioritization & Procrastination
Decision Making
Monitoring Conversations
- Leading, Motivating & Delegation
Reading Skills
Changing Work Attitudes
Stock Taking
These are some of the methods you may employ to manage your time better We shall cover each of these aspects in greater detail.

12. MANAGING TIME Planning Contingency Plans Planning :
As mentioned above, our day primarily involves sleep, work and leisure. Prior to the commencement of any activity, we should determine in advance how we are intend to accomplish the same. Planning helps us achieve a balance between these three primary activities. Once plans have been drawn up and options laid before us, decision making becomes easier. Failure to plan is planning to fail.
Contingency Plans:
Although plans may be devised with care, there is always a possibility that plans may go awry. There may arise unforeseen circumstances / events that may disrupt plans. Thus alternate plans should always be available which could be resorted to such circumstances.

13. Time Management Managing Time
Prioritization & Procrastination
Quadrant – I
Urgent and Important
DO IT NOW
Quadrant – II
Important but not urgent
DO IT LATER
Quadrant – III
Urgent but not important
DELEGATE / DO IT LATER
Quadrant – IV
Not urgent and not important
POSTPONE
Procrastination & Prioritsation :
Since it is not possible to do everything now, one needs to first determine what tasks should be done now and which tasks can be postponed to a later date. Prioritizing is the key to efficient time management. Tasks should be listed out in the order of their importance and urgency. Calculated procrastination can help to effectively manage one’s time. Work can be prioritized by resorting to the Four Quadrant Approach :

14. How would you deal with this ?
Time Management
Role Play
Your director is a fine person but keeps recounting stories. Everything seems to remind him of some incident he must share. These stories are encroaching upon your time reserved for important tasks.
How would you deal with this ?

15. Time Management Managing Time
Decision making
Identifying the problem
Finding alternate solutions
Considering the consequences
Decision making:
Making decisions whether spontaneous short term ones or conceptual long term decisions and perplexing managerial problems are a part and parcel of every professional’s life. You can optimise decision making by :
identifying the problem :
we first need to ask ourselves
What the problem is ?
Why is it a problem ?
Who is it a problem for?
How is it a problem?
finding alternate solutions :
Problems can often be solved in more than one way. Identifying alternate solutions can be best done by way of a group discussions where persons with different view points can contribute effectively to providing alternatives.
considering the consequences:
Only after considering and evaluating the consequences of the alternate solutions, can one take the right decision.
For eg. If we take the case of a company manufacturing washing machines :

16. Identifying the problem
MANAGING TIME
Identifying the problem
Alternate Solutions
Consequences
What is the problem?
Poor after sales service
Why is it a problem ?
Shortage of personnel in the service dept. and delay in procurement of spare parts
Who is it a problem for?
Customers
How is it a problem?
Dissatisfied customers and drop in sales
Expand the service team
close monitoring of stock of spares
Increased costs to the company for hiring & training of personnel, and set up of a department to monitor stocks.
Outsourcing the after sales service to a third party
Lower costs but this will result in lack of personalized service to the customer
As you can see, the table clearly shows the problem, the possible solutions and the consequences of those solutions if implemented.

17. Time Management MANAGING TIME
Monitoring conversations
100% attention
Unbiased listening.
Screen telephone calls and visitors.
Encourage visitors to make prior appointments.
Monitoring Conversations :
The time robbers arising out of conversations are telephone calls, drop in visitors and unplanned meetings. One needs to restrict the same only when they take up a disproportionate amount of time and exceed parameters.
100% attention : Whilst engaged in a conversation, it is very important that your entire focus is on the conversation itself. Giving a 100% to the conversation enables you understand and analyze the information better and reciprocate accordingly.
Avoid second guessing the other person : When listening to another person, it is important not to have any preconceived notions about what the other person is trying to convey.
Unbiased listening : Very often, when participating in a conversation, we permit hearsay to influence and screen what the other person is saying. Keep an open mind.
Screen telephone calls and visitors: You can arrange to have visitors to the office and telephone calls screened by a subordinate. More often than not, most calls and visits can be taken care of by the subordinate and you need not get personally involved.
Encourage visitors to make prior appointments: Since planning involves scheduling your entire day, visitors who drop in without fixing prior appointments may disrupt the work schedule. Unless it is absolutely urgent, gently but firmly dissuade such visitors unless prior appointments are fixed.
Ensure that all relevant matter is available : When participating in a conversation / discussion, you need to ensure that all the requisite information is available with you. This would prevent a breakdown in the conversation due to lack of information and avoid wasting time.

18. Time Management MANAGING TIME
Leading
Lead by example
Motivation
Provide challenging work
Participation in decision making
Recognizing work well done.
Leading, Motivation :
Leading :
The best way to encourage your people to adopt time management techniques is to first do it yourself.
Motivation: A motivated employee performs his duties in a more efficient manner and hence does not waste valuable time. Employees can be motivated by :
Giving them challenging work in consonance with their skills and capabilities. However they should also be given the freedom to set reasonable time frames which need to be monitored.
Providing them with an opportunity to participate in the decision making process, contribute to organizational goals and to grow within the organization.
Recognizing work well done and not just criticizing them when they falter.

19. MANAGING TIME Reading skills Fast Reading Selective Reading
Building up vocabulary
Taking care while reading :
1. Where the job involves a lot of reading, fast reading should be practiced. This entails reading a sentence / paragraph just once, absorbing the meaning thereof and moving on. Initially it will have to be a conscious effort, but as one keeps on practicing, it grows onto you.
2. Selective reading - Gauge by reading the initial sentences of a paragraph, whether there is any necessity in reading the entire paragraph.
3. Build up your vocabulary. Unfamiliar words slow down your comprehension of the content. It is a good idea to have a dictionary ( for general usage or technical terms depending upon the matter being read) available at hand for ready reference.

20. Time Management MANAGING TIME
Changing work attitudes
Avoid working at the 11th hour
Unbiased decision making
Stock taking
Changing of work attitudes:
1. Time management is to be practiced right from the inception of an activity and not at the 11th hour. Doing tasks last minute only results in doing in haphazard work.
2. Decision making should be based on the objective and unbiased analysis of the situation. Decision making involves a certain logical cycle –
a. understanding the information being conveyed.
b. analysis of this information and choosing the appropriate manner of response.
c. Reciprocating your response.
Quite often the manner and tone in which the information is being conveyed to us influences our decision making. We react to a situation and convey our response without carefully analyzing it. This leads to irrational decisions with consequent loss of time and even money.
Stock taking:
Time management is an ongoing process. Periodic reviews on how you manage your time will help you identify time wasters which need greater focus and attention.

21. Time Management Avoiding time traps Health is wealth
Recharging your batteries
Learning the art of living
Charting time norms :
Apportioning time to a particular task. A big task can be broken down further into measurable tasks for setting a time frame. Time norms should provide flexibility for unforeseen circumstances.
Avoiding time traps:
1. Health is wealth – important to follow a healthy diet, do regular exercise, periodic physical checkups, sufficient sleep is very important for good health and physical fitness which in turn affects our mental fitness.
2. Recharging your batteries – one needs to take periodic breaks from the daily hustle and bustle of life by taking vacations, developing hobbies.
3. Learning the art of living – learn to handle stress and tensions through relaxation techniques like yoga, meditation, having a positive in your outlook in life, taking one day at a time, establishing a balance between work and recreation.

22. How would you deal with this ?
Time Management
Role Play
A co worker begins to talk to you about yesterday’s cricket match; you do not wish to listen.
How would you deal with this ?

23. Time Management PRINCIPLES
Pickle Jar Theory :
Rocks
Pebbles
Gravel
Sand
Water
Pickle Jar Theory : Take a pickle Jar. Put some rocks inside. Put as many as you can. Now that it is full, add some pebbles. You notice that although the jar seemed full, pebbles could also be accommodated. After you think that there is no more place inside, now put in some sand. The jar now seems completely full. Put in some water. Miraculously, there’s place for water too.
What is the significance of this little exercise ?
The rocks in the jar represent the large priorities in our life. We also have things which we enjoy doing i.e the pebbles. We have other things which we have to do i.e the sand. And finally there are things that simply clutter up our lives and get in everywhere like the water.
None of these things are bad. After all we need the gamut of these objects – from large priorities to times of rest – in order to feel truly fulfilled. However there needs to be a balance in our lives and the pickle jar theory is all about achieving this balance. You make time for everything and everything fits well where it is supposed to fit. You need to first ensure that your large priorities i.e the rocks are tackled, scheduled and done for the day and then let the smaller but less important things in, until you have somehow allowed time in your day for everything you needed to do, yet while still relaxing and having fun.

24. ROCKS

25. PEBBLES

26. GRAVEL

27. SAND

28. WATER

29. THANK YOU