Updated: March 1, 2024
Ask ACE
Ask ACE: How do I fit in everything I need to do in a day?
By Bob LaBrie, LaBrie Training and Consulting
Q: There are only 24 hours in a day, and occasionally I need to sleep. How do I fit in everything I need to do in the time that’s left?
ACE advises: Time management is easy to talk about and hard to master. Improving your planning and time management will achieve positive results more quickly than improving any other single aspect of your job. You need to approach it with intention.
A major goal of time management is to maximize productivity. Time studies have revealed that 20% of the tasks that people spend time doing produces 80% of the results they achieve. If you are a manager, you need to teach yourself and your employees how to identify those key 20% activities on an ongoing basis. Once you know where you should spend your time, you can develop an intentional plan what of needs to be done, then schedule, prioritize and reprioritize daily activities as needed.
Planning is the thought process that precedes action. It includes studying patterns, routines and programs so that you can change old unproductive work habits into new productive ones. Proper planning ensures that your time is used to best effect.
To put your plan into action you need to tackle each day’s activities intentionally, methodically, systematically, and flexibly. If you are working on anything other than the 20% of activities that achieve results, you are not acting intentionally. Multi-tasking is neither methodical nor systematic. Unless you are flexible enough to reprioritize and reschedule, you will miss an important task or critical appointment.
We are all under pressure to do more with less, including less time. The old cliché — “Proper planning prevents poor performance” — is especially important today.
Bob LaBrie, an ACE member, is principal at Gorham-based LaBrie Training & Consulting. He can be reached at bob@maxpo-nlp.com
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