Time Management
Session 2
Judith Shawcross
jks45@eng.cam.ac.uk
Today’s Agenda
• Introduction
• Review Goal Setting & High Return Activities
• How do we spend our time
– Review logs
•
•
•
•
•
Break
Prioritising
4 Rules of Effective Planning and Organisation
Homework setting
2 Interesting things to try
Review Homework (1) Goals
Task: Write down your goals and make sure they
are SMART.
Example:
Submit a full draft of paper X to my PI by 4pm
on Friday 6th July 2012.
Is this SMART?
What questions should I ask to check?
Some SMART Questions!
•
•
•
•
Where am I now with this task?
How long has it taken me to date?
How long will it take me to complete this?
How certain am I about this – what are the risks
or uncertainties?
• Do I really have the time when I consider the
other commitments that I have in the time
allocated for this task?
• How important is this task compared with others
I have?
Reviewing Goals
• Working in small groups of 2 or 3 take it in turns
to explain your goals and seek feedback on
them. Are they really SMART?
• Time Allocated 10 minutes
Review Homework (2) High Return Activities
Task: Identify your top High Return Activities?
How can you test that you have identified a High
Return Activity?
Check that it is an activity that is directly
responsible for achieving your goals.
How can you measure whether you are doing them?
How can your PI measure whether you are doing them?
Review Activity
By table - share your High Return Activities.
• How similar / different are they? Is there a clear
reason why?
• Are they linked to your goals?
• How can you measure if you are doing them?
Researcher Maintenance
Conferences
Reading
Networks
Tools
Skills
Admin
Time Budget
Approx 44 working weeks / annum
Maintenance Time Allowance ?
1 week – training and development
2 weeks – travel to & conference attendance
1 week – seminar / network event attendance
1 week – admin / IT issues
2 weeks – essential reading
2 weeks – proposal writing, peer review papers
What about
play time?
9 weeks for maintenance
~ 20% of your time – 1 day/week – 1 hr 36 mins/day
Long Term
Short Term
Researcher
Maintenance
GOALS
To have my
research published
in Nature by July
2012
To co-author a book
on carbon nanotubes.
Milestones
1.
2.
3.
High
Return
Activities
Review your goals and high return activities
• Take a few minutes to individually reflect on the
conversations that have just taken place and
make a note of any goals that need a rethink /
rewording
Critical questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
Am I doing the right activities?
Am I doing them at the right time?
Am I spending enough time on these?
Am I doing these activities in an effective and
efficient way?
5. If no, why? What is stopping me?
Review Homework 3 – Time Log
Task – Record how you spend your time for a
minimum of 3 days
Analyse this carefully
- what activities should you eliminate, reduce?
- what activities do you need to do more of?
Group Task
Share your Time Logs in groups of 2 or 3.
Identify your three most significant time issues.
1. ...
2. ...
3. ...
How to deal with Key Issues?
1.
2.
3.
Effective Time Management – The 3 D’s
• Decision Making e.g.
– What are my goals / milestones?
– What do I need to do this month / week /day
– Prioritisation – what is most importance?
• Discipline e.g.
– Writing down and reviewing goals
– Planning – What activities need to be done & when
– Reviewing progress
• Determination e.g.
– Seeing a particular task through to completion
Self Discipline
Your rules for how you behave that support you
Examples:
• Exercise - I go for a run 3 times a week and play
football on Sundays
• Work - I don’t look at my email first thing - I do
my most important task first
• Coffee – I don’t drink coffee after 6pm because it
stops me going to sleep
Prioritising Activities
• Apply the 80 / 20 (Pareto) Rule
– 20% of your activities will account for 80% of your
results
• What are the consequences
– Long term thinking improves short term decision
making
• “Failures do what is tension relieving while
winners do what is goal achieving” Dennis Waitley
– Is what I’m doing contributing directly to my goals?
Prioritising Activities
Urgent vs. Importance Matrix
High
Importance
A = Critical
B = Important
C = Nice to Do
D = Delegate
E = Eliminate
Low
If you have more than
one A activity on your list
prioritise A1, A2, A3
Important
Activities
Distractions
Low
Critical
Activities
Interruptions
Urgency
High
What should High Return
activities be?
Goal
Planning
Sheets
GOALS
To have my
research published
in Nature by July
2012
To co-author a book
on carbon nanotubes.
Milestones
1.
2.
3.
Tasks
Time
Resource
Risks
Goal Planning Sheets
1. SMART Goal
2. Benefits to be gained / Losses to be avoided
3. Potentials Issues / Problems and potential
solutions
4. List activities and identify order, duration and
deadlines
5. Identify ways to measure progress
6. Identify others involved
4 Rules of Effective Planning & Organisation
1. Have one system only for planning and
organising.
2. Plan, review & schedule – monthly, weekly,
daily
3. Do, Diarise or Ditch for communications
4. Stay tidy and organised
One minute of planning saves ten minutes
in execution – Brian Tracy
RULE No. 1
HAVE ONE SYSTEM ONLY FOR PLANNING
AND ORGANISING.
Why?
You can use meeting /
note books but make
sure you transfer all
your actions / tasks.
• You don’t miss anything
• No double bookings
• Enables you to see everything all together
Your system needs to be able to capture your goals,
tasks and schedule
RULE No. 2 Plan, Review, Schedule
Monthly
•
•
•
•
•
Set aside 2 to 3 hours at the end of each month
to plan, review and schedule the next months
and the immediate month in detail.
Review your goals – what are the key goals for
this month?
Prioritise - which of these are most important?
Plan how to achieve each of these in detail.
What will your high return activities be?
How can you measure if you are on track.
RULE No. 2 Plan, Review, Schedule
Scheduling
• Use a big picture of time – month to view
• Ensure all your timed commitments are there
– Meetings, training, seminars, teaching,
• Schedule blocks of time to achieve your goals
and work on your high return activities.
• Don’t fill up your schedule completely
• If a task is going to take 1 hour or more then
schedule it
REVIEW – DOES THIS LOOK ACHIEVABLE?
RULE No. 2 Plan, Review, Schedule
Weekly
•
•
•
•
Set aside ½ hour at either the start or end of
every week to review planning and schedule for
week ahead
Review your progress – did you achieve
everything you planned? If not, why not?
Review your commitments for the following week
and ensure you have allowed sufficient time for
any preparation / travel etc.
Review your priorities – put them in order.
Revise schedule as required.
RULE No. 2 Plan, Review, Schedule
Daily
•
•
•
•
Spend 5 minutes at the start and end of each
day reviewing planning
Ensure you have a detailed time plan for the day
and remind yourself what it is
Ensure high priority tasks are done first –
schedule these for when you work at your best
Group small tasks – e.g. Communication
Review what you have achieved at the end of
the day
RULE No. 3
DO, DIARISE OR DITCH - for communications
• Set yourself some time each day to deal with
correspondence
– This could be twice a day / once a day
– This should not be first thing in the day
• If the task arising is short and important i.e. less than 15
minutes then DO it.
• If the task arising is longer and important i.e. An hour or
over then DIARISE it – schedule it in your calendar.
• If the task arising is not important then DITCH it.
RULE No. 4
STAY TIDY & ORGANISED - If it takes you
more than 2 minutes to find something then you
need to be more organised.
Goal Planning Sheet Example Exercise
1. Individually look at the example and review the
Task Description section on page 2
2. In groups discuss how this would help you in
scheduling this project
3. In groups discuss what problems there might
be and how you would overcome them
Homework
1. Develop your own (single) system for planning and
organising yourself.
2. Complete Goal Planning Sheets on some key goals to
enable you to populate your planning and organising
system.
3. Put into practice strategies for dealing with one or more
of your most significant time issues.
4. Prepare an Annual Time Budget
Two simple/interesting things to try
• Listen to Baroque music e.g. Bach
– Helps to improve concentration and creativity
• Use SCORE technique by Jim Fannin
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–
–
–
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Self-discipline
Concentration
Optimism
Relaxation
Enjoyment
Ref: Simon Reynolds
A thought
management
system that
improves
productivity
Key Messages
SMART Questions will enable you
to check whether your goals are
ACHIEVABLE & REALISTIC
FOUR RULES................
1. Have one system only
for planning and
organising.
2. Plan, Review, Schedule
Monthly, weekly, daily
3. Do, Diarise or Ditch
4. Stay tidy and organised
GOALS
A = Critical
B = Important
C = Nice to Do
D = Delegate
E = Eliminate
Decision Making, Discipline, Determination
Researcher
Maintenance