The most often mentioned management issue in any training program that I run is undoubtedly that of time management. I tend to automatically discount to some degree the ‘indispensibility factor’, which comes from managers assuming that they should have a time management problem to be seen as a really busy person. How many of your customers, when asked how they are, say that they have been rushed off their feet, are ‘flat chat’, hardly have time to scratch themselves etc! It is sometimes something that we perhaps all do at some time or another to build ourselves up a bit!
So, is having a time management problem a strength or a weakness? Undoubtedly it is something that we don’t necessarily want when we think in the sober light of day but telling people that we are just cruising or have everything under control is perhaps a message we don’t want to send – does that tell people that we aren’t busy enough? Other people’s perception tends to be what rules their attitudes and therefore behaviour, so we are all careful as to the messages we send.
Lets assume a real time management issue. We need to have a plan of attack to assist us in getting things done around our business just that little bit better.
The first thing that we have to consider is what wastes our time. Have you ever done a time log on yourself? Whilst often a difficult exercise to complete or collect meaningful information from, I would recommend at least monitoring time spent on the phone (incoming and outgoing), meetings where applicable, and on jobs that other people can and perhaps should be doing! From a time log comes our time wasters.
Here is a list of typical time wasters for those of us in the liquor industry:
- Phone calls (out going and incoming)
- Meetings – unplanned, going for too long or unnecessary
- Staff not turning up for work
- Equipment failure
- Untrained staff
- Procrastination
- Poor planning
- Managers doing other peoples’ jobs
- Jobs taking too long
- Poor use of productive time
- Lack of follow up
- Poor decision making
- Thinking we’re the best at every job
- Being a ‘control freak’
How do you stack up? I use a great definition of efficiency:
‘the right person, doing the right job, in the right time, at the right time’
You can use this to determine your efficiency or time management rating. You only need to consider an untrained person doing a job or some one restocking fridges when its busy or even trying the count money when you’re tired and you can see what I’m getting at!
The solution to Time Management is seldom a quick fix although planning and prioritizing can often do wonders. Unfortunately for most the answer is DISCIPLINE and constant reminders.
Time Management is actually a misnomer – in reality it should be called Self Management!
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