Many of you have heard me talk of the 'big rocks of life' story that came out of Boeing headquarters many years ago. But I want to start by reminding you about it. It was about the management expert who took a bucket and put the big rocks in first, then he put in the gravel, then the sand and then finally filled it with water until it was full. Each time he asked the management students whether it was full and pointing out that it wasn't when they said that it was. Finally when it was full with the water, he asked them what the point of the illustration was. There is usually a smart aleck in the class, and this one put up his hand and said, "The moral of the story is – however busy your schedule is, you can always find time for more." That usually elicits a laugh from us but it's so true of our lives. Very often we look at our day and say, "Where did the day go? It's over and done with and I haven't completed the things that I really wanted to accomplish in this day." We either long for more hours in the day or long for better time management skills to be able to do what we need to do in the time that is allotted to us.
Carter McNamara said that 3 of the biggest time-wasters are:
· Interruptions. In our day, we have so many interruptions, phone calls, emails, reminders to do things, people stopping by our desks to talk about stuff.
· Hopelessness. We just give in, we 'numb out' and find out that we are not able to do what we are supposed to do and so we just go through the motions.
· Poor delegation skills. We do stuff that could be done by other people. Instead of giving it to people around us who could do it and optimize what we alone can do, we end up doing a lot of the stuff that other people can do.
So I thought that I would just throw out some thoughts on time management and how important it is for us to manage the time that we have efficiently and effectively. We all know that being busy is not a yardstick for good productivity. We can be extremely busy through the whole day and then find that it had nothing to do with what we actually needed to do for that day.
I thought of giving you a hands-on thing to try as you think about time management today. I want you, sometime in the course of the day, to carve out 15 or 20 minutes and then look at yesterday and what happened yesterday. Put down a goal that you had yesterday – what was it that you intended to do yesterday? Here's the thing: if you went in yesterday and didn't have a goal for the Monday, then you are really going to be doing a whole lot of things, because you end up doing everything that crosses your desk. A lot of things can cross your desk that really have no bearing towards what and why you are in that place, holding that kind of position that you have. So, every day that we come into the office, we must have a goal. We must have an agenda for that day and an agenda is different from a schedule.
So look at what you had yesterday and write it on a post-it. Put it on your table. Now look at your Day-Timer and then write down everything that you did yesterday on post-its, right from decision making to a 10-minute talk that you had with a colleague or a phone call or a personal message, something to do with a meeting; whatever you did, just put it all down on post-its in front of you. After you've done have, have 3 buckets in front of you that say, High priority items; Medium priority items; and Low priority items. Then look at the Post-its and say, "This particular post-it was important towards the goal that I set or the agenda that I had for the day." Put it in the High priority bin. This could be anything from work spent on increasing profits, on the new business, key projects, strategic planning, whatever! If it had anything to do directly with your goal for the day, put it in high priority. Secondly look at your remaining post-its and see where they fit in. look at Medium priorities – did it have a project meeting, something to do with cost reduction, administrative stuff, everyday kind of business that had nothing to do with your goal but was important for you as a person. Put it in Medium priority. Then put the rest in Low priority, because this will be stuff that you did that had very little to do with looking at your agenda.
After having put them into these 3 buckets, add up the time that you've spent on High priority, Medium priority and Low priority and look at the percentage of time that you have spent. What percentage of time did you spend on high priority stuff? What percentage on medium and what percentage on Low? That will be a good indicator whether or not you are really managing your time well in your area of work. If you are not spending a significant amount of time on high priority, then you are not really achieving your goal. Also note that the time that you spend on high priority should be at your individual peak performance period.
All of us have a peak performance period; for some it is early in the day, for some it is afternoon and for some it is as the day closes out. Did you keep your high priority items in that particular time frame? Or did it fall into that part of your day where you don't have high energy levels?
So as you look at it through this perspective, it will give you a good indication of what kind of work you are doing, whether it is focused work or buckshot-cannon kind of work or whether it is strategic – moving very particularly towards why it is that you occupy that seat in your office. Remember too, that you have to have a goal, whether it is a goal for the day, the week, the month, quarterly or yearly. Even if your goal is yearly, you need to break it right down to what you will achieve in a day.
You've all heard about SMART goals but I'm going to throw it out just in case you have forgotten or don't know it. SMART stands for the acronym
S – specific:
· Well-defined,
· Clear to anyone who has a basic knowledge of the project.
M – measurable:
· Know if the goal is obtainable and how far away completion is,
· Know when it has been achieved.
A – agreed upon
· Agreement with all the stakeholders what the goals should be.
R – realistic
· Within the availability of resources, knowledge and time
T – time-based
· Enough time to achieve the goal.
· Not too much time, which can affect project performance.
I love this quote from American philanthropist Elbert Hubbard. He says, "Many people fail in life, not for lack of ability or brains or even courage, but simply because they have never organized their energies around a goal."
So, if you are seriously looking at time management, you need to make sure that you have a daily goal, a weekly goal, a monthly goal, a quarterly or a yearly goal. Only then can you effectively manage your time towards that goal.
Lastly, something that I read and found so good. It came out of Stanford University in their instructions to students. "When distractions knock, answer the door. If you give a moment of your full attention to something that has you worried or distracted, it is more likely to be quieted." How true! We're doing something and kept our phone on silent, but we can hear the buzzing of that phone. It's incessant; it's persistent and intruding into our time. We try to ignore it but are unable to get back to our work because it is still buzzing. All we need to do is pick up the phone, tell the person that you will call back and immediately that distraction has been taken care of.
So, my friends, just a thought for you today. Look at your time. Is it being well managed? Is it being well spent? Is it moving towards attaining the goals that you have set for your life? Our Holy Book says this: "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time." My prayer for you and for me is that today we will really be intent on making sure that we use our time well.
Let me pray with you. Almighty God, on each one of us this morning, give us the spirit of wisdom that comes from you, to allow us to use the time that you have given us well. I pray that as a blessing over each one on this call. In the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
• Carter McNamara, "Stress Management & Time Management." http://managementhelp.org/personalproductivity/time-stress-management.htm
• Shirley Lee, "Improved Time Management Prioriudes Setting Three Priorities." http://www.smallbusinessdelivered.com/improvedtimemanagementincludessettingthreepriorities.html
• Duncan Haughey, "SMART Goals." http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/smart-goals.php
• "TimeManagement," http://web.stanford.edu/dept/CTL/Student/studyskills/time_manage.pdf
• Bible quotes: Eph. 5:15 http://www.openbible.info/topics/time_management
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