Time Management
"9-Steps" is an insightful series of "How To's" that addresses vital issues that any business owner can benefit from. They are:
4) TIME MANAGEMENT
"So little done - so much to do," were the last words
of Cecil Rhodes, who although born of modest parents, died leaving a vast
fortune. He was a man who accomplished a great deal in his lifetime, and yet, at
his end, he wished he could have done more with his time.
Many business managers express
the same thought: as each day ends, they ponder the rapid flight of time and
regret their level of daily achievement. Unfortunately, time is finite. There
are only 24 hours in a day. Since we cannot add or subtract from that number,
the only thing we can control is how we choose to spend that time.
The following suggestions have
proven to help managers get more out of that same finite amount of time - more
in terms of their own sense of accomplishment - by helping them to more clearly
define their own priorities.
Each of us even at leisure
instinctively establishes priorities for time. At day's end, we may decide to
use the next ten minutes to either watch TV, read another article in our
favorite magazine, or another chapter in the book on our night stand, or go to
sleep. We know that we can do only one of these things at a time, and so we must
assume responsibility for how we use our time.
Stressed out managers can become
less frenzied if they know exactly what they must devote themselves to and what
is not absolutely essential. Too many managers never a learn to stop making
"paper clip decisions." If the head of a company that employs more than two
people is involved in selecting the quality of paper clips purchased,
no matter what decision is made,
it is wrong because of how much it cost to make that decision.
There are companies doing
business in millions of dollars and employing thousands of workers, but their
exhausted chief executives are still involved in "paper clip decisions." When an
owner who is earning $ 100,000 a year responds to an inquiry as to whether a 60
or 75-watt bulb should replace the one burnt but in the back room fixture, the
one minute interruption cost that company 84 cents.
If the person responsible for
maintenance had been permitted to make the decision on such a small matter,
whatever decision he made would have cost less than having to waste the time of
the key person.
Since time is money, effective
scheduling of time is vital. The first step is to find out how you spend your
time. Start out one Monday morning with a piece off paper listing the time in
10 minute increments: 8:30 a.m., 8:40, 8:50, and so forth. As your regular
business day progresses, make entries showing what task you performed and a what
decision you made during each of those 10-minute intervals.
If you do this diligently for a
whole week, you will find out how many "paper clip," "toilet tissue," and "fight
bulb" decisions you are actually involved in. The next step will be to assign
responsibility for those tasks to a subordinate.
Managers who learn to respond
only to the decisions that they alone must deal with, and who learn to delegate
all other responsibilities to subordinates whose time is less costly, will soon
feel as if they were granted an eighth day each week.
They must, however, help
subordinates do the same thing so ultimately, the minor responsibilities are
handled by the lowest paid employee. At $4.80 per hour, a 10-minute task costs
80 cents. That same task performed by a $60,000 per year manager, costs
$4.64.
By Gerard
Major
Mr. Major's firm Confidential Practices, Inc. offers free consultations. Their Web site can be reached by clicking here.
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