Self-Management

Time Management

Bachelor of Computing Systems

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Top Time Management Tools

• Understanding your goals

• Identifying your tasks
• Prioritising your tasks
• Using Outlook to help - mails, calendar, tasks
• Avoiding time wasters (procrastination, lack of
focus)
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Understanding your goals

Do you understand your goals for:
• The day?
• The week?
• The year?

How do you spend your time?

Compare how you spend your time with your goals and ask these questions:
• What portion of my time is spent contributing to one or more of these
goals?
• What is the rest of my time producing?
• What/who are time wasters in my life and
what can I do about them?
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Identifying Your Tasks

The jar represents your tasks.

• The rocks are the important things that

have real value. They may have high
importance and/or high urgency.

• The pebbles are the other things that

matter, but don’t have the same urgency or
importance as rocks.

• The sand is everything else –

the small stuff.
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Identifying Your Tasks - Putting it into Action

• If you fill the jar up first with the sand, you

won’t have space for the pebbles or the
rocks.

• If you spend all your time and energy on

the small stuff, you will never have room
for the things that are important.

Take care of the rocks first – the things that

really matter.
Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.
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Prioritising Your Tasks

Important/Urgent Matrix

High Urgency

Urgency
Low Urgency

Low Importance High Importance

Importance
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Important/Urgent Matrix
1. List all your tasks required to achieve your goals, plus other tasks
you feel you need to do

2. Assign importance to each of the tasks, this is a measure of how

important the activity is in helping you meet your goals and
objectives. Don’t worry about urgency, as this helps get to the true
importance.

3. Evaluate the urgency of each activity.

4. Plot the listed items on the matrix according to the assigned

importance and urgency.
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Important/Urgent Matrix

High Urgency Interruptions Critical Activities

Urgency
Low Urgency

Distractions Important Goals

Low Importance High Importance

Importance
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Interruptions Critical Activities

Urgent but not important activities are things that stop you Two types: Ones that you could not foresee, and
achieving your goals, and prevent you from completing your others that you have left to the last minute.
High Urgency

work. You can avoid the latter by planning ahead and avoiding
Can be rescheduled, or can someone else do them. procrastination.
A common source of such interruptions is from other people in Issues and crises, on the other hand, cannot always be
your office. Sometimes it's appropriate to say "No" to people, foreseen or avoided.
or encourage them to solve the problem themselves. Leave time in your schedule to handle unexpected issues
Or, try allocating time when you are available so that people and unplanned important activities.
only interrupt you at certain times (a good way of doing this is Identify which of your urgent-important activities could
to schedule a regular meeting so that all issues can be dealt have been foreseen and think about how you could
with at the same time.) schedule similar activities ahead of time, so they do not
By doing this, you'll be able to concentrate on your important become urgent.
activities for longer periods of time.

Distractions Important Goals

These activities are just a distraction, and should be These are the activities that help you achieve your
avoided if possible. personal and professional goals, and complete important
Low Urgency

Some can simply be ignored. work.

Others are activities that other people may want you to Make sure that you have plenty of time to do these
do, but they do not contribute to your own desired things properly, so that they do not become urgent.
outcomes. Again, say "No" politely and firmly if you can. And remember to leave enough time in your schedule to
If people see you are clear about your objectives and deal with unforeseen problems.
boundaries, they will often not ask you to do "not This will maximise your chances of keeping on schedule,
important" activities in the future. and help you avoid the stress of work becoming more
urgent than necessary.

Low Importance High Importance

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Scheduling your work

• You must decide when during the month, the week, the day, you
will do your tasks.
• Schedule in your activities to your calendar, make a task in Outlook
or put it on your to-do list
• The best time to achieve key priorities is during the times you are
most productive, when there are minimal distractions.
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Managing Your Time & Schedule

• Learn to spend 30 minutes planning your next day before

you finish your current day (it is a stress relief to go home
with a plan for tomorrow and you’ll sleep much better!)
• Only have one calendar where all your commitments are
stored, including personal commitments (if you use a
smartphone, then ensure you synchronise it everyday).
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Managing Your Time & Schedule

 Include travel time in your appointments – this will help you

leave on time and arrive with fewer speeding tickets!

 Schedule time on your calendar for important projects and

tasks you need to work on.

 Create recurring appointments for regular events.

 Respect appointment times (both beginning and

end).
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Using Outlook to Manage Priorities

 Operate your inbox so that you control it and it doesn’t control

you
 Manage your Tasks so you become a finisher and not someone
who lets things drop between the cracks
 Manage your Calendar so you feel in control, prepared and
you’re not chasing your tail
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Managing Your Inbox – Who Manages

Who?

Are you swamped by emails on a daily basis?

 How many emails do you receive each day?
 How of those do you have to read and respond to?
 Do you check your emails first thing and then all through the day as
you leave your inbox open?
 Do you check your emails while in meetings? During the weekends?
On your phone when you are with your family?

Are you on top of your emails or are you

slowly being buried by them?
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Avoid Distraction by your Inbox

 Do not be an email ‘butterfly’ flicking through one email to
another without actioning the email somehow.
 Do not leave your email open on your screen, watching new
emails coming in can tempt us to be distracted from the task
at hand and tempt us into responding to something that
appears ‘urgent’ but is not important.
 Turn alerts and inbox sounds off, these can create
interruptions to our concentration.
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Managing Your Tasks

 Manage your ‘to-do’ list using the task database in Outlook.
 Only have one ‘to-do’ list (including noting all tasks from voice
mail messages, text messages, emails and phone calls).
 Prioritise your tasks with pre-designated options.
 Ensure your tasks are all date-activated.
 Do not schedule more tasks than you can accomplish in a day.
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Managing Your Tasks

 Create date activated tasks to follow up on outstanding
responses.
 Capture small tasks in the Task tool.
 Use this as a reminder of 5min tasks, setting a due date and
set a reminder. This will prompt you to complete the task on
the appropriate day/time.
 You can drag and drop emails directly into tasks, this is a
great if the email helps provide context to the action.
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Managing Your Calendar

 Your calendar should be a reflection of how you use your time.
 Use your calendar to record, plan and schedule any time
consuming activities or meetings with yourself or with others.
 Make sure you create “space to breathe” between meetings,
and intense activities. Make allowances for travel, debriefing
and preparation time around meetings.
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Useful Calendar Tools in Outlook

 Use the appropriate view.
− My preference is the ‘Work Week’ view, which allows
visual of activities and time taken for each.
 Drag and Drop emails from Mail into Calendar.
− This allows you to create an appointment with a duration
of getting the email actioned.
• Set recurrent appointments
− Example a weekly team meeting.
 Colour Code your Meetings
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Top Timewasters

1. Procrastination (decide, progress, act)

2. Lack of Focus (awareness, manage, get capacity)
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Stop Procrastination – 1. Decide

One Touch = One Decision

Make a decision as soon as you touch an email, or have an idea.
You do not need to action it then just decide if you will action it
and when.
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Stop Procrastination – 2. Progress

Read emails once then use the ‘4D Formula’

1. Do It Now
2. Delete It
3. Delegate It
4. Defer It
You’ll need to know how to:

 Convert an email into an appointment

 Convert an email into a task
 Use an email to set up a new contact
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Stop Procrastination – 3. Act

Don’t let the spark become an inferno
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Get Focused - 1. Awareness

Identify Interruptions and Distractions

It is important to understand the difference between Interruptions

and distractions so you can be aware of them.

An interruption is caused by someone!

Example: You are writing an important email and your phone rings
= Interruption.

A distraction is caused by you!

Example: You are at home with your children and you suddenly
remember an email you were suppose to have sent = Distraction.
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Get Focused - 2. Manage

Reduce Interruptions by active decision

Example: Walk up Interruption.

1. Politely ask the ‘interruption’ if they can explain what they

need in 20 seconds.
2. Decide if this is a good reason to accept an interruption, i.e.
Can this wait?
3. Communicate when you can address the interruption’s needs.

You do not have to be rude by saying “No” straight away.

Listen and then YOU make the decision.
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Get Focused - 3. Get Capacity

Create ‘non-interrupted’ time

When working on a key piece of work you need to give yourself

the best chance to focus. To create this time you might do one or
all of the following:
 Divert or turn your phone off
 Close your inbox
 Close any messaging technologies or set to ‘unavailable’
 Book a meeting room for yourself
 If in an open plan office put headphones on and place a flag
or ‘do not disturb’ sign on your desk.
 Work from home if you are able. Many managers now are
happy to do this when you show them the list of tasks you
intend to complete.
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Circles of Control

Circle of Concern

Circle of Influence
Circle of Control
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So…

• What will you do differently?

• What do you need help with?
• What do you need to practice?