1. Time Management
Dr. Rafi Ashrafi
Associate Professor and Head
Information Systems Department
College of Commerce and Economics
Sultan Qaboos University
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
2. Agenda
• Why to learn about time management?
• What is the biggest Challenge in your life?
• Where to start? What to do?
• Self assessment -understating how you spend your
time
• Key to success
• Time management Matrix
• Organizing and planning your time
• Determining priorities
• Developing strategies
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
4. Why you need to learn about time
management ?
• Study a number of subject areas
• Do clinical rotations and calls
• Prepare for Exams
• Deal with crisis
• Need time for your personal life, study, health,
family, entertainment, and other plans/objectives
• Challenge:
How to balance your personal, social,
academic and professional life?
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
5. Time Management
is the art of
getting things done
effectively and
efficiently
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
6. Benefits of Time Management
• Less time spent on firefighting and responding
to crises
• Focus on things that produce results
• Help you how to work through problems and
challenges
• More time for family, friends, and leisure
• Reduce stress and fatigue
• Greater sense of achievement
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
7. Facts about Time
• Time is a precious commodity
• We feel we can do more if we have more time
• Allah Subhanahu Taala has given every one 24 hours
• The real differentiating factor is how we utilize our
time
• Most of us do not realize how we spend our time
• Try this for a week: Record a daily log of activities from
waking-up to going to bed at night
• You will be surprise to know that how much time
– you spent on important and productive activities
– you spent on unimportant activities and
– how much time Lecture you waste College
did presented at SQU Medical
Oct 29, 2011
8. Balancing the different elements of
your life
• Ask yourself:
• Are there elements of my life that are currently
taking a greater portion of my time than they
should? If so, what are they?
• Why have they become so excessively
demanding?
• What elements in my life should I be spending
more time on?
• What I should do to start adjusting the
balance between these?
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
9. Effective time management
• Right attitude – time conscious, commitment,
positive thinking, motivation
• Planning:
– Assessing your current working practice – time log
– Analyzing where time goes now
– Developing strategies how to improve time
management
• Implementing the strategies
• Monitoring and control – how are you doing?
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
10. Identify and control time wasters
• Loosing things
• Telephone
• Procrastination
• Reverse delegation
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
11. Identify and control time wasters
• Perfectionism
• Distractions
• Emails
• Surfing the Internet
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
12. Things which matter
most
must never be at the
mercy of things
which matter least
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Goethe
Oct 29, 2011
13. Self assessment
• Take a moment and write down a short
answer to the following two questions:
• Q.1. What one thing could you do (you
aren’t doing now) that if you did on a
regular basis, would make a tremendous
positive difference in your personal life?
• Q.2. What one thing in your professional
life would bring similar results.
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
14. Key to Success
• E.M. Gray spent his life in searching for the one
denominator that all successful people share.
• He found it wasn’t hard work, good luck, or astute
human relations, though those were all important.
• The one factor that seemed to transcend all the rest
embodies the essence of:
putting first things first
• The successful people have the habit of doing the
things failures don’t like to do.
• Key is to: Organize and execute around priorities
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
15. Four generations of Time Management
• 1st G: Notes and Checklists
• 2nd G: Calendars and Appointments books
• 3rd G: current time management,
• it adds to those preceding generations:
– the important idea of prioritization,
– of clarifying values and of comparing the relative worth
of activities.
– it focuses on setting goals - specific long term,
intermediate and short term targets
– It also includes the concept of daily planning, of making
a specific plan to accomplish those goals and activities
that are of greatest worth.
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
16. Four generations of Time Management
• 4th G: Emerging
• It recognizes that time management is really a
misnomer- the challenge is not to manage time,
but to manage ourselves.
• Rather focusing on things and time, the 4th G
expectations focus on preserving and enhancing
relationships and on accomplishing results.
• The essential focus of 4th G of management can
be captured in the time management matrix
diagram.
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
17. The Time Management Matrix
Urgent Not Urgent
I II
ACTIVITIES: ACTIVITIES:
Important
Crises Prevention, PC activities
Pressing problems Relationship building
Deadlines-driven projects Recognizing new
opportunities
Planning, recreation
III IV
ACTIVITIES: ACTIVITIES:
Not Important
Interruptions, some calls Trivia, busy work
Some mail, some reports Some mail
Some meetings Some phone calls
Proximate, pressing matters Time wasters
Popular activitiesLecture presented at SQU Medical College activities
Pleasant
Oct 29, 2011
18. II
I RESULTS:
IV
• Stress
• Burnout
• Crisis management
• Always putting out fires
III
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
19. I II
IV
III RESULTS:
• Short-term focus
• Crisis management
• Reputation
• See goals and plans as
worthless
• Feel victimized, out of
control
• Shallow or broken
relationships
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
20. I II
III IV
RESULTS:
• Total irresponsibility
• Fired from jobs
• Dependent on others or institution for basics
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
21. I
II
RESULTS:
• Vision, perspective
• Balance
• Discipline
• Control
• Few crises
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
22. Determining Priorities
• Quadrant I: Urgent and important
– Need immediate attention
• Quadrant II: Important but not urgent
– Spent as much time as possible on these tasks
• Quadrant III: Urgent but not important
– Don’t let these items draw your attention away from
those in Quadrant II
– Such tasks may be delegated, or say no
• Quadrant IV: Nor urgent neither important
– Don’t waste time on theseMedical College
Lecture presented at SQU tasks
Oct 29, 2011
23. Self assessment
• If you were to fault yourself in one of three areas,
which would it be:
• 1) the inability to prioritize
• 2)The inability or desire to organize around those
priorities
• 3)The lack of discipline to execute around them,
to stay with your priorities and organization?
• Most people say their main fault is a lack of
discipline.
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
24. Key to success: Self Management
• You need a tool that encourages you, motivates you,
actually helps you spend the time you need in
Quadrant II,
• So that you are dealing with prevention rather than
prioritizing crises.
• The best way is to organize your life on weekly basis.
• You can still adapt and prioritize on daily basis, but the
fundamental thrust is organizing the week.
• The key is not to prioritize what’s on your
schedule, but to schedule your priorities.
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
25. Self Management
• Selecting Goals:
• Think one or two important results you feel you
should accomplish in each role during the next
seven days.
• These would be recorded as goals
• At least some of these goals should reflect
Quadrant II activities
• Ideally , these weekly goals should be tied with
your long-term goals you have identified in your
mission statement.
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
26. Self Management
• Scheduling:
• Look at the week ahead with your goals in mind
and schedule time to achieve them.
• A good habit is to set aside a block of one or two
hour time on a day and work on it.
• Thursday or Friday or other day of the week is
often the ideal time to plan your more
personally uplifting activities, including weekly
organizing.
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
27. Self Management
• Daily adapting:
• With Quadrant II weekly organizing,
– daily planning becomes a function of daily prioritizing
activities and responding to unanticipated events.
• Taking a few minutes each morning to review
your schedule will put you in control of your daily
activities
• As you overview the day, you can see your roles
and goals provide a natural prioritization to
balance your long term life goals.
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
28. A week in Clinical rotations
Sat Sun Mon Tues Wed
8-9 AM Morning Morning Morning Morning Morning
report report report report report
9 AM-2 PM CTU CTU CTU CTU CTU
2-3 PM Seminar Radiology Bedside Seminar Seminar
Breathlessnes CXR&HRCT procedures Jaundice Hepatitis
s
3-4 PM Clin Seminar Spirometry Biochemist Mx of
Physiology Management Interpretation Hepatitis
of LFTs
PFT
4 PM On-call On-call On-call On-call On-call
onwards Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
29. Mission
Roles Goals
Statement
LONG-TERM ORGANIZING
Schedule
Mission
Roles Goals
Statement Delegate
WEEKLY ORGANIZING
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
30. Draft personal mission statement
Register for a seminar on time
Individual- management
Personal Development.
Visit Grandfather in hospital
Confirm concert tickets
Help my son/daughter in his/her science
Spouse/Parent project
Get Abeer’s bike fixed
Visit Uncle/aunty
Prepare for test
Student /Intern Complete round reports
Attend seminar on cancer
Review progress with your advisor
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
31. Week of: Saturday Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
The WEEKLY SCHEDULE
Roles Goals Weekly Today’s Priorities
Priorities
Draft personal mission Prepare for Concert Seminar Mission 1 Ahmed’s Visit
test ticket registration Statement Science Grand- 3
4 project father
statement 7 8 2 5
Individual- 1
Personal
Register seminar Abeer’e bike
Development 2 1
6
Visit grandfather in 3 9 0
hospital
Appointment/Commitments
Confirm concert
8-9 morning 8 -9 morning 8-9 morning 8-9 morning 8-9 morning 8-9 8-9
tickets 4 report report report report report Private time private time
Spouse/Parent
Ahmed’s science 5
project 9-2 9-2 9-2 9-2 9-2 9-11 am 9: 10
6 CTU CTU CTU CTU CTU Ahmed’s Reading
Abeer’s bike
Science 5 Quran
project
Prepare for Test 2-3 pm 2-3- pm 2-3- pm 2-3- pm 2-3-pm 11-12 10 -11
7 Seminar Seminar Bedside Radiology Seminar Abeer’s bike study
Hepatitis Jaundice procedures CXR&HRCT Breathlessnes 6
s
Student/Intern Complete reports 8
Mx of Biochemistry Spirometry Seminar Clin 11:30 12:30 11-12
Hepatitis Interpretation Management Physiology Gym private time
Review progress of LFTs PFT
9
4:00 pm 4:00 pm 4:00 pm 4:00 pm 4:00 pm 2-5 prepare
Attend cancer seminar
1 onwards onwards onwards onwards onwards for test
7
0 On-call On-call On-call On-call On-call
Evening Evening after Evening Evening after Evening after Evening 4- 6 pm
after 5:00 7 5:00 pm 8 after 5:00 5:00 pm 5:00 pm after 5:00 Visit
pm pm 4 2 pm Grand-
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
9 1 1 private time father 3
Oct 29, 2011 0
32. Organize your time
• You may download a preplanning journal:
http://www.kztraining.com/timekeepingjournal/
pdf/Timekeeping%20Journal.pdf
• Analyze your daily activities and find out:
– What proportion of your time is currently spent on
unimportant tasks (Quadrants III and IV )
– What could you do to reduce the number of tasks
appearing in these sectors (Quadrants III and IV ),
unimportant.
– Was enough of your time spent on tasks in Quadrant
II (Important and not urgent)
– How can you increase time devoted to tasks in
Quadrant II (Important and not urgent)
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
33. Planning your time
• Develop a personal Mission Statement
• Short term and long term goals
• Plan your daily activities for the next day at
the end of the day, or the first thing in the day
• Plan for next week activities at the end of the
week
• Plan for next four month (semester): block
time for major projects/activities.
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
34. Suggestions
• At the end of the week, evaluate how well
your plan achieved your goals
• Commit yourself to start organizing on weekly
basis and set up a regular time to do it.
• You need to do it regularly for at least 3-4
weeks in order to develop a habit of doing it.
• Either convert your current planning tool into
a fourth generation tool or secure such a tool
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
35. Planning and tracking tools
• Notebook and a diary to Palmtop computers and
Smart phones
• Choose that best suite your preferred lifestyle
• Most of the planners and organizers contain:
– Year planner, Diaries
– Daily planning sheets- appointments and things to do
– Monthly objectives and project planning sheets
– Telephone and address book inserts
– Budget planning and expense planning (if needed)
– Pages for notes (for reference etc)
• The idea is that all necessary working information is
contained in one convenient folder or place.
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
36. PC – based Personal Information
Managers (PIMs)
• Outlook, Lotus notes (IBM)
• Typical contents:
– An address book to manage contacts
– ‘To do’ list that can be arranged under subject categories
– Simple project planning and tracking in terms of date,
person responsible, planned duration and percentage of
the tasks completed.
• A calendar and appointments scheduler, may be
integrated with the address book and ‘to do list” and
– offers reminders and recurring appointments
– time spent and expense tracking
– free note space
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
37. Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs)
and Smart Phones
• All PDAs incorporate standard PIM features-
address book, calendar/appointments scheduler,
task lists
• Also include email, e-book readers and pocket versions
of standard office software
• What system is best?
• Depend on your preferred life style, System must
include:
– ‘To do’ lists
– Scheduling your time- Estimating time requirements
– Slot tasks into the day – commitments, appointments,
meeting, regular scheduled tasks and flexible ones.
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
38. Organize information
• Separate the important information from the
junk
• Maintain a systematic approach with all incoming
information
• Handle all incoming information as carefully as
possible
• Take steps to reduce unnecessary incoming mail
• In order to increase your productivity:
– Build up your reading speed and comprehension
– Use memory techniques and review to assist your
recall
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
39. Other strategies
• Organize your desk space
• Get rid of the piles on the desk
• Organize and use a filing system
• Use technology effectively
– get training in using outlook, PDA or SMART
phone effectively
• A small investment of time in training will
save you lot of time later.
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
40. Procrastination
• We postpone tasks for a number of reasons:
– Fear of failing or making mistakes
– boredom
– Uncertainty over how to go about a task
– Anxiety about the possible consequences of
an action
– Perfectionism-unwilling to start a task
unless it can be completed perfectly
– May need more information
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
41. Strategies for overcoming
procrastination
• Clarify in your own mind the consequences in terms of loss
of control over your life
• Feel pleasure of completing it
• Take seriously your ‘To do prioritized list’
• Don’t allow postponement of tasks to become a habit
• Schedule specific time for tasks that you don’t like or are
resisting to do
• Tackle boredom by allowing your self short breaks
• Do a good job. Don’t strive for perfection
• Look for an easy point of entry – the key is to start it
• Divide large complicated tasks into bite-size chunks
• Set your own deadlines
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
42. Summary
• Analyze your current use of time
• Define Mission of your life
• Identify your roles and long-term term goals
• Translate your roles and goals into plans
• Prioritize your goals and tasks
• Identify time wasters and interrupters and
control them
• Develop effective time management habits
• Plan and organize your time
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
43. Summary
• Use effective strategies to mange your time
better
• Use a time management system
• Use technology for planning and
implementing your time management system
• Organize all information effectively
• Have fun, short breaks, find time for
enjoyment and relaxation
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
45. References
• Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch gave a lecture on Time
Management. Randy Pausch Lecture: Time Management –
YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTugjssqOT06 Feb 2008 -
76 min - Uploaded by Carnegie-Mellon.
• Stephen Covey: The 7 habits of highly Effective people, Free Press,
2004. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Habits-Highly-Effective-People
• Caunt, J. Organize Yourself, The Sunday Times, Kogan page, 2nd ed., UK,
2006.
• Forsyth, P. Successful Time Management, revised 2nd Ed, The Sunday
Times, Kogan Page, UK, 2010.
• Manktelow, J. Manage your time, DK publishers, UK, 2006.
Lecture presented at SQU Medical College
Oct 29, 2011
Notas del editor
Attending this lecture will not help you, unless you do some efforts to utilize all or some of the tools and techniques discussed in this lecture.
Cut the fat. Most of time wasters become habit. When completing a time log, you will be surprised to know that how much time you waste. This is a list of most common time wasters, we make you own list. You need to develop a habit of controlling your time wasters and utilizing that time for other important activities. Loosing things: how much time we spent on finding a document, an address, an email, or a telephone number. Telephone: How many times a day we are distracted from important work by the telephone ringing? What is the average length of each call. What proportion of theses calls are really necessary?Procrastination: What tasks have we been avoiding over the past few weeks? What excuses have been used to delay action. What is usually the end result of our procrastination? Reverse delegation: Do we respond to request for help by saying “leave it with me, I’ll tackle it later?” Is there work on desk that our subordinates have left of our input?
Perfectionism: Do we spend extra time getting things 100% right when 95% would do? Does our attention to detail on one project mean that something else more important doesn’t get done? Distractions: in the middle of one task, do we often find our attention being grabbed by other work?How do these distractions affect our work flow?Emails: Do we answer our emails as soon as they arrive?Do we read all our emails, regardless of how many are junk and should be deleted unread?Do we print our emails instead of storing them?Do we send emails when a phone call or note would be more appropriate?Do we write long emails when of a short one would do? Surfing the internet: How many times do we search the Internet for Information that could be obtained more quickly by looking in a book or asking somebody?Do we use Internet as a way of avoiding other work?When surfing the Internet do we get side-tracked by interesting or irrelevant sites?Working through our own personal list of time wasters, we should ask ourselves how much time we waste in each category during the typical week. You should be able to say at least one to two hours every week by controlling the time wasters.
The essential focus of the fourth generation of management can be captured in the time management matrix. Basically we spend time in one of the four ways.
Urgent means it requires immediate attention. A ringing phone is urgent. Most people can’t stand the though of just allowing the phone to ring. Urgent matters are usually visible . They press on us; they insist on action. They are often popular with others. They are usually right in front of us. And often are pleasant, easy, fun to do. But so often they are unimportant. Importance : on the other hand has to do with results. If some –thing is important, it contributes to your mission, your values, your high priority goals. We react to urgent matters. Important matters that are not urgent require more initiative, more procreativity. We act to seize opportunity, to make things happen. If we don’t practice to be proactive, if we don’t have a clear idea of what is important, of results we desire in our lives. We are easily diverted into responding to the urgent. Look for a moment at the four quadrants in the time management matrix. Quadrant 1 is both urgent and important . It deals with significant results that require immediate attention. We call these activities crises or problems. We all have some Quadrant I activities in our lives. But we Quadrant 1 consumes many people. They are crisis managers, problem-minded people, deadline-driven producers.
As long as you focus on Quadrant 1, it keeps getting bigger and bigger until it dominates you. A huge problem comes and knocks you down. You struggle back up only to face another one that knocks you down and slams you to the ground. Some people are literally beaten up by problems all day every day. The only relieve they have is in escaping to the not important , not urgent activities of Quadrant IV. SO when you look at their total matrix, 90% of their time is in Quadrant 1, and most of the remaining 10% in IV. With only negligible attention paid to Quadrants II and III . That’s how people who manage their lives by crisis live.
There are other people who spend a great deal of time in “urgent, but not important” Quadrant III, thinking they are in Quadrant 1. They spend most of their time reacting to things that are urgent, assuming they are also important. But the reality is that the urgency of these matters is often based on the priorities and expectations of others. People who spend time almost exclusively in Quadrant III and IV basically lead irresponsible lives.
Effective people stay of Quadrant III and IV because, urgent or not, they are not important. They also shrink Quadrant 1 down to size be spending more time in Quadrant II.
Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management. It deals with things that are not urgent, but are important. It deals with things like building relationships, writing a personal mission statement, long range planning, exercising, preventive maintenance, preparation – all those things we know we need to do, but somehow seldom get around to doing, because they aren’t urgent. According to Peter Drucker, effective people are not problem minded; they are opportunity-minded. They feed opportunities and starve problems and crisis. They think preventively. They have genuine Quadrant I crises and emergencies that require their immediate attention, but the number is comparatively small. They keep “Producing desired results” and “production capability” in balance by focusing on the important, but not urgent. High leverage capacity-building activities of Quadrant II. With the time management matrix in mind, take a moment now and consider how you answered the questions I asked you earlier.What quadrant do they fit in? Are they important ? Are they urgent?My guess is that they probably fit into Quadrant II. They are obviously important, but not urgent. And because they aren’t urgent, you don’t do them.
Organizing on a weekly basis provides much greater balance and context than daily planning.
With quadrant II weekly organizing, daily planning becomes more a function of daily adapting, of prioritizing activities and responding to unanticipated events, relationships, and experiences in a more meaningful way. Putting a few minutes each morning to review your schedule can put you in touch with the value-based decisions you made as you organized the week as well as unanticipated factors that may have come up. As you overview the day, you can see that your roles and goals provide a natural prioritization that grows out of your innate sense of balance.
