George Sandford 

Guide to time management

1. What is time management?

Time management is all about how you manage your time. Of course, time is immovable and runs at the same pace for everyone so time itself cannot be managed, only our use of it.

Time management is really about managing yourself and your life overall. There are many different aspects of time management such as managing paperwork, telephone calls, meetings, interactions with others, prioritising, setting goals and meeting deadlines and, creating an effective work-life balance so that your work commitments do not destroy your family life. It isn’t easy but luckily, BEM is on hand to show you how to do it and in English too!

Immovable

Can not be moved

Runs

Moves, passes

Pace

Speed

Aspects

Parts, dimensions

Paperwork

Documents, files

Interactions

Contacts and conversations with others

Prioritising

Deciding which things are most the important

Work-life balance

Managing the conflicting demands of work and home

Destroy

Wreck, ruin, damage beyond repair

On hand

Here, available

Glossary

management – zarządzanie

immovable – nieruchomy

to run – mijać

pace – tempo

overall – ogólnie, całkowicie

aspect – aspekt, punkt widzenia

paperwork – robota papierkowa

interactions – wzajemne relacje

prioritising – wyznaczanie priorytetów

meeting deadlines – dotrzymywanie terminów

effective – efektywny, skuteczny

work-life balance – równowaga pomiędzy obowiązkami w pracy i w domu

commitments – zobowiązania, obowiązki

on hand – dostępny

2. Time management self-assessment quiz

How good at managing your time are you? Tick which answers apply to you, then add up your score.

Question

Never 

    1

Sometimes

      2

Often

    3

Always

    4

1

I have clear long-term goals

2

I balance work and family life

3

I set monthly, weekly and daily goals

4

I use ‘to do’ lists to help me plan my work

5

I meet the majority of deadlines

6

I am able to say ‘no’ to requests and negotiate deadlines and workloads

7

I prioritise my work

8

I delegate where possible

9

I use travel and waiting time efficiently

10

I manage paper and electronic files

11

I am in control of my email box

12

I make effective use of meetings

13

I keep my desk tidy

14

I am highly productive

15

I do what I say I will do and don’t make excuses

Score

31-40

Well done! You are on the way to becoming an excellent time manager. You are well organised and achieve most of what you set out to. Keep up the good work!

21-30

Not bad - you achieve some of what you set out to but  it’s a bit hit and miss. Become more self-disciplined and you will see improvements.

11-20

Oh dear! Time is getting the better of you and you constantly feel under pressure. Reduce your commitments and start prioritising.

0-10

Catastrophe! You are a slave to time and other people. Start taking control now or you will end up in hot water!

Long-term

Over a longer period of time, usually, greater than one year

‘To do’ list

A list of things you need to do!

Meet deadlines

A verb/noun collocation to describe achieving something on time

Workload

The total amount of work that you regularly have to do

Delegate

To distribute work to others

Waiting time

Time spent in receptions and travelling when you are waiting

Tidy

Without mess everywhere

Excuses

Reasons given for not doing things

On the way

In the direction

Keep up

Continue

Set out

Start, intend

Hit and miss

Inconsistent

Self-disciplined

In control of your actions

Get the better of

To defeat or dominate

Commitments

Things you are obliged to do

Catastrophe

Disaster

Hot water

Trouble

Glossary

long-term – długoterminowy

workload – obciążenie pracą

to delegate – przekazywać (część obowiązków)

efficiently – efektywnie, wydajnie

productive – wydajny, produktywny

to make excuses – tłumaczyć się, usprawiedliwiać

to be on the way – w drodze, zmierzać

achieve – osiągać

to set out to – nastawiać się na coś, planować

to keep up – utrzymywać na tym samym poziomie, podtrzymywać

hit and miss – ryzykowny, na chybił-trafił

self-disciplined – zdyscyplinowany

improvement – postęp, poprawa

to get the better of – wziąć górę nad kimś, zdobyć przewagę nad kimś

constantly – ciągle, stale

to be in hot water – mieć kłopoty

3. Time management techniques

Planning

In order to manage your time, you need to plan your time. Specifically, this involves setting goals. The trick is to start with long-term rather than short-term ones. Do you know where you want to be in five years or by retirement even? It may seem like a long way off but it should help you to decide the direction that you want to go in. Start by thinking about the big life picture first and this will help you to decide how your work fits in and whether you are actually in the right job!

Once you have established your long-term goals you can incorporate something that will contribute to your main life aims every day and that way, you will make progress towards them.

In order to

To be able to

Trick

Secret, technique

Short-term

In the near future

Where you want to be

What reality you want

Retirement

The time at which you finish working due to age

A long way off

In the distant future

Fit in

Match, connect

Incorporate

Include

Contribute

Give something to

Glossary

specifically – szczególnie, zwłaszcza

involve – zawierać, wiązać się (z czymś)

short-term – krótkoterminowy

retirement – emerytura

a long way off – daleko stąd

fit in – pasować, mieścić się

establish – ustalać, określać

incorporate – włączać, wprowadzać

contribute – wspierać, wnosić, przyczynić się (do czegoś)

Write down your goals

Become a list builder. This will make your objectives more tangible and help you to see the extent of what you want to achieve. In work, make goals annually, quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily. It may seem like a lot of extra work but it will stop you from running around like a headless chicken just reacting to situations.  You should break large projects down into lots of smaller parts through chunking and this will make them more achievable. As you achieve your goals, you can cross them off the list. Of course, new things will crop up all the time and you may find that by the end of the day your list is longer than it was at the beginning! That’s why it’s important to prioritise.

Tangible

visible, concrete

Annually

every year

Quarterly

every three months

Monthly

every month

Weekly

every week

Daily

every day

To run around like a headless chicken

to rush around without purpose

Reacting

act instinctively without thinking

Break down

reduce

Chunking

reduce into smaller parts

Cross off

remove, write a line through

Crop up

appear, occur unexpectedly

Glossary

objective – cel, zamierzenie

tangible – rzeczywisty, namacalny

extent – rozmiary, zasięg

annually – corocznie

quarterly – kwartalnie

to run around like a headless chicken – biegać jak kot z pęcherzem (najczęściej przy pracy)

break down – rozłożyć, podzielić

achievable – osiągalny

cross off – skreślić

crop up – wypaść, zdarzyć się

Prioritisation

Prioritising involves deciding which things are most important. A common mistake is to confuse urgency with importance. Also, people often judge how important or urgent something really is. One way of prioritising is by using the single priority method; you simply ask yourself, if you could only do one thing today, what would it be? Then, you ignore all other tasks until that one is completed. Afterwards, you can look at the next most important thing and so on. It requires a lot of self-discipline but it does ensure you get the most important things done first. People often start the day by checking their emails and doing small lower priority jobs then find that they run out of time for the really critical work.

Glossary

confuse – mylić, mieszać

urgency – pilna potrzeba

importance – ważność

single priority – sprawa nadrzędna, najważniejsza

and so on – i tak dalej

require – wymagać

ensure – zapewnić

to run out of – wyczerpać się, skończyć

critical – najważniejszy, istotny

Deadlines

Many people feel oppressed by the constant pressure of deadlines but in fact, these are your greatest allies in time management. Rather than fear them, you should learn to love them as they are the best way of getting things done. You should know what the due date is for any piece of work and not leave it until the last minute but build in some slack. Most work takes longer than expected. Never accept a.s.a.p. as a deadline as this is too vague; get people to be more specific. Where you are overloaded, negotiate deadlines to see if they can be put back to a later date. You can increase your efficiency still further by creating mini-goals and micro-deadlines, for example, decide what you want to achieve in the next fifteen minutes - this will really help you to get cracking!

Glossary

oppressed – udręczony

constant – ciągły, stały

ally – sojusznik, sprzymierzeniec

due date – termin zakończenia, wymagalności

slack – spowolnienie, luz

vague – niejasny, nieokreślony

specific – konkretny, ścisły

overloaded – przeciążony

to put back – przełożyć, odłożyć (na inny termin)

to increase – zwiększyć, polepszyć

efficiency – skuteczność, wydajność

to get cracking – zabrać się do pracy

Confuse

To mix up, not to understand correctly

Urgency

How soon something needs to be done by

Importance

The worth and impact of something

Single priority

One important goal

Ignore

To discard, take no notice of

And so on

Etc., continue in the same way

Run out

Have no more of something

Oppressed

Pushed down, dominated

Constant

Continuous

Allies

Friends, supporters

Due date

Completion date

To leave something to the last minute

To leave something until the latest time possible

Slack

Spare capacity and time

A.s.a.p.

Abbreviation for as soon as possible

Vague

Not clear or specific

Overloaded

Having more work than you can do

Put back

Delay, postpone

Micro-deadlines

Very short deadlines

Get cracking

Get started

Personal organisation

You can’t manage your time if you work in a state of chaos. Good time managers tend to be tidy workers and keep their desks clear of clutter. The untidy worker claims that by having all paperwork out he can easily lay his hands on what he’s looking for but in reality, this is rarely the case. Paperwork should be handled as little as possible to avoid aimless paper shuffling and filing systems should be kept in order too. These principles need to apply equally to electronic formats by using appropriate labelling and keeping documents in logically located folders. Hoarding should also be avoided and only essential items should be kept to prevent your office from becoming a paper storage room. A regular spring-clean on a quite day is always a good idea. Remember to shred sensitive documents. Keep diaries and calendars up to date, particularly if other people need to make appointments on your behalf. This will avoid any embarrassing double-bookings.

Clutter

Many things in a space

To lay his hands on

To get hold of, find, locate

Handled

Picked up, touched with hands

Shuffling

Rearranging papers or cards

Hoarding

Keeping everything

Storage room

A room where things are kept

Spring-clean

A thorough clean and tidy

Shred

Cut paper into strips with a machine

Sensitive documents

Documents containing confidential information

Up to date

Current, accurate

On your behalf

Done by somebody else for you

Double-bookings

Two commitments at the same time

Glossary

clutter – bałagan, nieporządek

untidy – nieporządny

lay hands on – znaleźć, natrafić

handled – obsługiwany, chwytany

aimless – bezcelowy

shuffling – przerzucanie

labelling – znakowanie, etykietowanie

hoarding – gromadzenie zapasów

prevent – zapobiegać, nie dopuszczać

storage room – magazyn, skład

spring-clean – gruntowne porządki

shred – niszczyć niszczarką dokumentów, drzeć

sensitive documents – dokumenty zawierające poufne informacje

up to date – aktualny, najnowszy

on behalf of – w imieniu (kogoś)

double-booking – podwójna rezerwacja

Procrastination

So now it’s time to get down to work but maybe we’ll make a coffee first. There’s that call to make to the grumpy client to tell him his order will be late - put it off until later. Start on the report perhaps? No, not enough time before the morning meeting to do much on it. Better to check the emails and Facebook instead. There are so many ways of procrastinating and it’s the best way to feel busy without actually doing anything but it’s certainly not good time management. The best way to overcome this vice is to just do it, even if you don’t feel like it. Also, do the jobs that you are trying to avoid first and get them out of the way; afterwards, you can reward yourself by doing a more pleasurable task.

Procrastination is the thief of time

Procrastination

Thinking about things rather than starting or doing

Get down to

Start

Grumpy

Miserable and bad tempered

Put something off

Delay

Vice

Bad or immoral habit

Get something out of the way

Complete a task

Glossary

procrastination – zwlekanie, odkładanie wszystkiego na ostatnią chwilę

to get down to – wziąć się za, zabrać się do

grumpy – zrzędliwy, narzekający

to put off – odłożyć (na później), odroczyć

overcome – przezwyciężyć, zwalczyć

vice – wada, słabość

to get something out of the way – skończyć (trudne lub nieprzyjemne) zadanie

pleasurable – przyjemny

Interruptions

Maybe you think that it’s not your fault that you can’t get on with your work. The problem is people are always interrupting you with phrases like, ‘can you spare a moment?’ But how long is a moment? It always seems longer than expected. Each time they ask even a small question, it disturbs you and you need time to remember what you were doing. If you have a door, close it, if not, book a room where you can do uninterrupted work. Use headphones to indicate that you are busy. Don’t always give people an answer straight away but ask them to come back later; 50% of them will never return. It’s up to you to manage interruptions. Reserve time in your dairy each day for quite time to complete important tasks.

Glossary

interruption – przerwa, przerywanie

to get on with – zabrać się do, kontynuować

disturb – przeszkodzić, niepokoić

to book – rezerwować

indicate – wskazać

Be assertive

To manage time you need to be assertive so that you are not at the beck and call of other people and you are in control of your own destiny. Recognise your needs as important too and learn to say ‘no’ without feeling guilty. Show respect for other people’s time too. A good technique to get people not to use too much of your time is to stand up when they come to you, then, when you sit down, it will suggest that the conversation is over. Make your body language open but confident and decisive. Even with bosses you need to be assertive and negotiate workloads. If they insist that you drop everything else to focus on a new task, that is their prerogative but explain the consequences and the possibility that deadlines for other work may not be met, then it is there responsibility if there’s a problem.

Glossary

assertive – asertywny, stanowczy

be at the back and call – być na każde skinienie

destiny – los, przeznaczenie

confident – pewny

decisive – zdecydowany

prerogative – przywilej, prawo

Telephone

It’s easy to become a slave to your phone, particularly if you have an iphone. Learn that you don’t have to answer every call immediately. In fact, the more you do so, the more people will expect it. Plan calls and do them in blocks. Also do not ramble on the phone but be concise. For incoming calls, ask people straight away how you can help them and offer to do so provided that it is quick. Be brisk but polite and other people will adapt their behaviour to yours.

Interruptions

Things that stop you doing something

Get on with

Start, continue

Disturbs

Disrupt, breaks the flow or peace

Book

Reserve

Indicate

Show

Up to

Your choice, responsibility

Assertive

Strong in expressing your needs

At the beck and call

Available whenever wanted

Destiny

Fate

Guilty

Negative emotion after doing something bad

Drop everything

Stop doing everything else

Prerogative

Choice, right, decision

Consequences

Effects, results

Blocks

Groups

Ramble on

Talk for too long

Concise

Short and to the point

Incoming calls

Calls from others to you

Brisk

Quick

Glossary

ramble on – rozwodzić się, mówić bez składu i ładu

concise – zwięzły

incoming call – połączenie przychodzące

provided that – pod warunkiem, że

brisk – szybki, energiczny

More telephone tips

Incoming calls

Surgery hours (do you have to be on call all the time?)

Shared responsibility – in a shared office, take it in turns to field enquiries

Be prepared – Have pen and pad ready

Announce clearly who you are

If you have to call them back, agree a specific time and check they will be in

Outgoing calls

Plan the call – have pen, paper, information and be clear what you want to say

Make calls a few at a time rather than throughout the day

Be concise; you may be someone else’s timewaster!

Surgery hours

Limited set times

Take it in turns

Work is shared on a rota basis between people

To field

To deal with - often questions or enquiries

To call sb. back

To return a phone call

Glossary

surgery hours – wyznaczone godziny, godziny przyjęć

to be on call – mieć dyżur (telefoniczny)

to take it in turns – zmieniać się kolejno

to field – odpowiadać na

pad – notes

announce – zapowiadać, oznajmiać

Meetings

Senior executives in large corporations spend up to 80% of their time in meetings yet many workers would agree that a lot of time is wasted in inefficient and often, pointless meetings.

Here are some simple guides to waste less time in meetings and make them more effective.

Prepare

Gather, organize and distribute appropriate information

Arrange  a suitable venue

Give adequate notice

Plan the agenda

Purpose

Know why the meeting is being held. (If you don’t know, perhaps the meeting is unnecessary)

Ask - is a meeting the best way to achieve the objective?

Include the purpose of the meeting in the advance information

State the purpose of the meeting again at the beginning of the meeting

People

Are the right people at the meeting? Are key decision makers absent and replaced by deputies who have no authority?

Is the meeting relevant to the people attending or does only part of the agenda involve them?

Are some of the participants destructive or disruptive? They will need managing.

Participation

The chairperson needs to ensure that quieter people are encouraged to participate whilst the more dominant characters do not hog the limelight.

Some people like the sound of their own voice and talk long and hard on everything. They need to be told to be concise.

Participation involves listening as well as taking. Mutual respect for other peoples' contributions should be encouraged and there should not be two or three conversations happening at once.

Process

Most good meetings have some form of structure even when they are informal.

Structure involves having a clear beginning, middle and end to each point and the meeting as a whole.

The chairperson will also need to establish or negotiate processes for how outcomes will be achieved. For example, if the objective is the generate ideas, how will this be done?

If it is to reach a decision; will there be a vote?

Processes need to be established and agreed upfront otherwise people may use this as a way of challenging decisions they do not agree with.

Agreeing processes, procedures and ground rules is particularly useful in multi-agency meetings where the chairperson may not have natural authority over someone from another organization.

Product

It would be possible for a meeting to be run, for everybody to participate and it still be a complete waste of time. Good meetings have outputs and something is different as a consequence.

Chair people need to summarise and confirm agreement after each point and at the end of the meeting.

They may also instruct a minute taker by saying "so what we have agreed is...."

Post-meeting

Perhaps more common and worrying than a lack of outcomes is that nothing happens afterwards. Meetings can end with firm commitments to action but are followed up at next meeting by excuses and apologies.

Often people find time to attend meetings but are too busy to implement what has been agreed. People need to be allocated tasks and held to account.

Gather

Collect

Venue

Any place for meeting or event

Notice

Informed in advance

Agenda

List of meeting items

Absent

Not here

Deputy

Second in charge

Authority

Power of decision making

Relevant

Connected, meaningful

Disruptive

Causing disorder

Hog the limelight

Get all the attention

Like the sound of their own voice

Enjoy talking and expressing their own opinion

Mutual respect

two-way respect

At once

At the same time

Generate

Create

Vote

To formally register your opinion

Upfront

In advance, at the beginning

Challenging decisions

Question and disagree

Ground rules

Informal agreement about behaviour

Multi-agency

Involving different organisations

As a consequence

As a result

Post

After

Firm

Strong, definite

To follow up

Action following another event

Implement

Do, put into action

Allocate

Give, delegate

To hold to account

To be identified as responsible

Glossary

executive – dyrektor, kierownik

inefficient – nieudolny, nieskuteczny

gather – zbierać, gromadzić

venue – miejsce (spotkania)

notice – zawiadomienie, powiadomienie

agenda – program, porządek

purpose – cel

absent – nieobecny, brakujący

deputy – zastępca

authority – władza, uprawnienia

relevant – odpowiedni, istotny

disruptive – zakłócający spokój

chairperson – przewodniczący

to hog the limelight – skupiać na sobie całą uwagę

mutual respect – wzajemne poszanowanie

outcome – rezultat

to generate – tworzyć, przygotować

vote – głosowanie

upfront – z góry

to challenge – kwestionować, podważać

ground rules – ogólne zasady

summarise – podsumować, streszczać

firm – mocny, konkretny

to follow-up – kontynuować, uzupełniać

to implement – wprowadzać w życie, realizować

to be allocated – być przydzielony

to hold to account – rozliczać kogoś, czynić kogoś odpowiedzialnym

Delegating

If you are lucky enough to have people working for you, you have the opportunity to delegate work. Some managers are reluctant to delegate because they think ‘if you want a job doing well, do it yourself.’ This is not a very wise time management strategy and is usually the approach of a control freak or perfectionist. Also people often don’t delegate because they think:

Staff are already busy

Takes to long to explain

Quicker to do it your self

Don’t trust employee to get it right

Tried it and it didn’t work

These factors may be true but delegation is a key management skill and one that needs to be mastered. Managers will have their own styles ranging from “just do it” to excessively detailed instruction.

Here are some ideas:

Think of the idea of time-span of discretion. How long is it before you would normally supervise or check on somebody’s work? Try making it gradually longer and you will be delegating by exception, by not supervising so much.

When you have a specific task to delegate, do the following:

Explain the task

Explain the reason

Specify the deadline

Ask the employee how they would go about it and offer suggestions if necessary.

Try to prompt thinking rather than just giving the answer

Ask the employee how much time they think they need

Ask the employ what impact this will have an existing commitments

Negotiate extra time or reprioritisation if necessary

Invite questions from the employee

Summarise including milestones and report back times

Tell the employee they can come back and ask questions if they think of something later.

Control freak

Someone who feels the need to control everything

Perfectionist

A person who wants everything to be perfect

To master something

Become skilled

Excessively

Too much

Time-span of discretion

How long you leave someone unsupervised

By exception

Do something by not doing something else

Go about something

Proceed, way of working

Prompt

Suggest, coax

Impact

Effect

Reprioritisation

Reorder priorities

Milestones

Small targets on the way to the main goal

Report back

Tell about progress

Glossary

reluctant – niechętny, oporny

control-freak – osoba lubiąca kontrolować wszystko

factor – czynnik

mastered – opanowany do perfekcji

range from – obejmować

excessively – nadmiernie

time-span of discretion – okres pozostawienia kogoś bez kontroli

gradualny – stopniowo

specify – określić

employee – pracownik, zatrudniony

to go about – postępować, zajmować się

to prompt – motywować, wyzwalać, zachęcać

impact – wpływ, efekt

reprioritisation – zmiana priorytetów

milestone – kamień milowy, istotne zdarzenie

report back – przedstawiać raport