Time Management

Dr. P. UDHAYA KUMAR

Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical
Engineering
K.L.N. College of Engineering
Pottapalayam – 630 611

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 Time Management

It is managing ourselves in relation

to time. It is setting priorities and
taking charge of your situation and
time utilization.

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 SYNOPSIS
Time Management will help you:
• To develop the personal feeling of time.
• To think about the future time, set goals and work
out new proposals and plans.
• To analyze how you spend time – where, how and
why you spend time now.
• To reduce the influence of time deficit.
• To get rid of hurry.
• To avoid excessive time spending.
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 SYNOPSIS
• To learn how to save your time through
delegating
• To redistribute your time for achieving the best
results.
• To study the techniques that would allow you to
save your time during the meetings, reading,
writing the documents, business trips,
telephone calls etc.
• To use more time for creative thinking.
• To make time your ally, not the enemy.
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1. The Present

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1. The Present
Yesterday is History

Tomorrow’s a Mystery

But Today is a Gift

That’s Why They Call it

The Present
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Time is a Non Renewable Resource

Once it is gone, it is gone.

You will never see this moment

again.

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 To Realize the Value of:

• ONE YEAR, ask a student who failed a grade.

• ONE MONTH, ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby.
• ONE WEEK, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper.
• ONE DAY, ask a daily wage laborer with kids to feed.
• ONE HOUR, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet.
• ONE MINUTE, ask a person who missed the train.
• ONE SECOND, ask a person who just avoided an accident.
• ONE MILLISECOND, ask the person who won a silver medal in the
Olympics.

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Benefits of time management

• Efficient
• Successful
• Healthy

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 Obstacles to effective time
management
Unclear objectives

Disorganization

Inability to say “no”

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 Obstacles to effective time
management
Interruptions

More interruptions

Periods of inactivity
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 Obstacles to effective time
management
Too many things at once

Stress and fatigue

All work and no play

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 What can we do?

Recognize that obstacles exist

Identify them
Employ strategies to overcome
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 Set goals
• Specific
• Measurable

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 Set goals
•Specific
•Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Time-based
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 Prioritize
• Do
• Delegate
• Delay
• Delete

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 Prioritize

1. Address the urgent

2. Accomplish what you can early
3. Attach deadlines to things you delay

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Organize

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Learn when to say “NO”
• You can’t do
everything
• Don’t undertake things
you can’t complete
• Remain consistent to
your goals

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Use your waiting time

• On public transportation
• At the doctor’s office
• Waiting for your plane
• On hold
• When you are early

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 Use your waiting time

Correspondence

Letters or memos

Books or tapes

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 Concentrate on the task at hand

• Focus on your goal

• Tune out interruptions

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Consider your personal prime time

• Morning?
• Evening?
• Late night?

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 How to plan your day
• Visualise your long term goal
• Try to do your planning at the same time every day.
• Use only one planner to keep track of your
appointments
• Write out a To do list every day
• Don’t jam your day full of activities.
• Do it now.
Always plan time for balance; include family, fitness,
recreation, Social and spiritual activities.
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Problems and Solutions for Proper
Time Management
Personal:
 Know priorities of doing things
 Be organized
 Spend some time as leisure time
Psychological:
 Have self discipline
 Learn to say “No” if it demands
 Believe in team work
 Have a watch on the work entrusted
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Problems and Solutions for Proper
Time Management
External:
 Maintain proper relationship with friends and
colleagues
 Never attempt indirect interactions
Social:
 Allot some time to spend with nature with
parents, to love, to listen, to dream to and to think
 Morning 4.00am to 9.00am is the best time for
work

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Problems and Solutions for Proper
Time Management
Postponement: Postponement or procrastination is
mainly due to a lack of interest or pleasantness
in work and the complexity of work.
 Unpleasant tasks
 Complex projects
 Fear of failure
 Lack of interest
 Perfectionism
 Distraction, lack of focus
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 TIME MANAGEMENT:
AVOIDING TIME WASTERS
PROCRASTINATION IS THE THIEF OF TIME
No one is perfect. Everyone wastes some time. The three
activities that waste the most time are long meetings,
interruptions, and telephone calls. Here is how you can
reduce each dramatically.

• MEETINGS
• Avoid setting or attending unnecessary meetings.
• Prepare a detailed agenda.

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 MEETINGS
• Get someone to monitor time and inform the
participants if they are falling behind the
schedule.
• At the start of meeting obtain agreement on the
objective(s) to keep a focus and avoid time-
consuming discussions on unrelated topics.
• Record ideas on a flipchart to reduce repetition.
• People receive biggest part of the information
through the eyes, not through the ears. The
Chinese say: «The picture is worth a thousand
words». Therefore, visual aids(Slides,diagrams,
charts) can save your time if they are simple and
easy to understand.
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 MEETINGS
• Avoid dealing with items that are not on the agenda. If
someone goes off on a tangent:
• Politely ask what the matter has to do with the agreed-
upon objective.
• Ask if the item can be dealt with later or outside the
meeting.
PREPARATION TO THE MEETING
-Goals determination
-Topic study
-Discussion Scheme
-Final preparation
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 MEETINGS
Goals Determination
• For example, to involve consultants of the
company.
• Improvement of the production process.
Topic study
• Collection of the facts and information.
• Determination of the main discussion subjects
• Discussion of the different view points.
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 MEETINGS
Discussion scheme
• Setting of the ultimate goal.
• Consideration of the intermediate goals.
• Discussion questions.
• Planning of introductory speech before
the beginning of discussion.
• Making the meeting agenda.
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 MEETINGS
Final preparation
• Printing and distribution of the invitations.
• Preparation of the conference hall.
• Preparation of the handouts, slides,
transparencies etc. These materials should be
distributed before the meeting starts. Clear
questions should be set at the beginning and at
the end of agenda. This way the meeting will
be started and finished on a high note. The
most important issues should be discussed at
the beginning when the minds of participants
are not yet overload..
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 OFFICE INTERRUPTIONS
• Stand when people come in to chat. This will
prevent them from getting comfortable.
• Ask them if it’s important.
• Ask them if you can talk later in their office, a
place where you can control the length of the
conversation.
• Walk out long enough to get them out of your
office and then sneak back to continue your
work.
• Close your door.
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 TELEPHONE
• Leave complete messages for people who
are not available so they won’t have to call
back.
• Install a voice-mail system.
• Return calls to people’s voice mail after
business hours.
• Train your associates to deal with routine
issues on your behalf and to screen your
calls when you are under pressure.
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 TELEPHONE
• Avoid unnecessary chitchat by answering with
your name followed by a question such as
“How may I help you?”
• Increase your chances of speaking to someone
after you are told that the person is “away from
the desk” or “in a meeting” by asking: “Could
you find her for me?”
• “Can he be interrupted?”
• “I’m returning her call, which was important”.
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 PAPER WORK
• Keep your desk clean. Put things where
you can find them. Don’t put documents
in temporary places.
• Deal with each piece of paper once. File
it, respond to it, or dump it.
• Reduce time by responding to
correspondence in writing on the letter.
Fax it back, or photocopy it and send it
back.
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The Big Rocks of Life

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 Is The Jar Full?
• Stephen Covey in his book, First
Things First, shares the following
story experienced by one of his
associates:

I attended a seminar once where

the instructor was lecturing on
time. At one point, he said, "Okay,
time for a quiz." He reached under
the table and pulled out a wide-
mouthed gallon jar. He set it on
the table next to a platter with
some fist-sized rocks on it. "How
many of these rocks do you think
we can get in the jar?" he asked.
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•After we made our guess,
he said, "Okay. Let's find
out." He set one rock in the
jar . . . then another . . .
then another. I don't
remember how many he
got in, but he got the jar
full. Then he asked, "Is this
jar full?" Everyone looked
at the rocks and said,
"Yes."

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•Then he said, "Ahhh" He
reached under the table
and pulled out a bucket of
gravel. Then he dumped
some gravel in and shook
the jar and the gravel went
in all the little spaces left by
the big rocks. Then he
grinned and said once
more, "Is the jar full?"

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•By this time the class was
on to him. "Probably not,"
we said. "Good!" he
replied. He reached under
the table and brought out a
bucket of sand. He started
dumping the sand in and it
went into all of the little
spaces left by the rocks and
the gravel. Once more he
looked and said, "Is this jar
full?" "No!" we roared.

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•He said, "Good!" and he
grabbed a pitcher of water
and began to pour it in. He
got something like a quart
of water in that jar. Then
he said, " Well, what's the
point?" Somebody said,
"Well, there are gaps, and
if you work really hard you
can always fit some more
things into your life."

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"No," he said, "that's not really
the point.

The point is this:

Put the
Big Rocks
in First
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Celebrate your success

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 Tips for Successful Time
Management
 Doing things with concentration, dedication conflicts and
commitment and not in a careless manner.
 Trust others and distribute works to others
 Never think about unnecessary things and never interfere in
others matters
 Postponement of planned events is an avoidable bad habit
 Breakdown your goals into smaller task with manageable steps
 Be punctual
 Hurrying up is to always the best way of doing a thing faster
 Don’t forget or misplace things
 Use a calendar/ Get organized

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Imagine the luxury of having more
time:-

To spend with your family

To go on that “special” vacation
To take up a new hobby
To read that latest, popular book
Or just to relax and live a little.
Yes, all of this is possible but you
must use time management
techniques to organize your
personal and business activities 47 .
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