Timing is Everything

Tips for better workplace productivity

By Mary Bresnahan
the Bresnahan Group

Have you ever gone home at the end of a day and felt like you did not accomplish anything? Despite your best intentions, perhaps you were interrupted repeatedly, spent too much time on lowprionty tasks, were not organized, or set your goals too high. Whatever the reason, there is hope for you and your employees. A few simple techniques can help you to manage time better and improve your workplace performance.

Setting Goals

Goalsetting is an important strategy that helps to identify priorities and commitments. To be effective, goals should be specific, measurable, realistic, timed, and written. The more concrete the goat, the easier it is to reach. An example of a well-stated goal is: "Fifty percent of my employees will have completed a cross-training prograin by July 2000." When writing goals, be sure to include the steps necessary to achieve them, and revisit and modify the steps and goals as needed.

Daily Planning

One of the simplest ways to get more done is to plan each day. When making a list of things to do, be sure to factor in interruptions like necessary phone calls, personal visits, and unscheduled meetings.

When working with the list, try to determine when your energy levels are high and when they are low and match tasks to those times. For example, if you are a moming person, you may want to write reports or work on the budget before lunch. After lunch, when you have less energy, take care of mail and go through paperwork until your energy level picks up again.

Planning allows you to prioritize tasks. As a result, things get done on time or ahead of time. After a couple weeks of working with a to-do list, review it to determine whether you are trying to accomplish too much. If so, it may be time to start delegating some of the items on the list.

Establishing Priorities

Priorities are established based on a variety of criteria, including what is enjoyable, what is quick and easy, others' demands, and deadlines. Prioritize activities according to the results that they will achieve. It is not what you do that is important; it is what you accomplish.

Activities fall into four categories:

1. Important and Urgent

2. Important but not urgent

3. Urgent but not important

4. Neither important nor urgent

Important activities contribute to achieving goals and usuallv have long-term consequences. For example, it is important to train employees to run a particular piece of equipment because they will become more skilled, thereby producing a quality product that in turn will lead to higher profits for the company. Another example of an important activitvy is keeping equipment well-maintained.

Urgent situations usually have short-term consequences. An exarnple of an urgent situation is when a piece of equipment breaks down and customer orders cannot be filled by the expected date. Urgent situations are more demanding, than important ones.

Remember: When important activities are neglected, they become urgent ones. If the broken machine had been rnaintained properly, there WOUld be no emergency downtime and a customer order deadline would not be jeopardized.

Controlling Interruptions

According to time management experts, interruptions occur every 10 minutes. To get some control over them, track them and record who is interrupting, when they are interrupting, how long the interruptions last, and what the interruptions are about. Once the unnecessary interruptions have been identified, determine how to handle them. Some techniques to consider are:

1. Allot a time when your phone calls are picked up by voice mail or by someone else.

2. Close your office door or put up a "Do not disturb" sign.

3. End long-winded calls by saying that you need to get back to work.

4. Rearrange your office so that you do not face the door or traffic flow.

5. Meet outside of your office so that you can end the meeting.

6. Keep conversations focused and on track.

Delegating

Delegation means sharing responsibility and authority with others and holding them accountable. The delegation process ranges from having someone gather information for you while you remain the decision maker to empowering that individual as both information gatherer and decision maker.

Using delegation effectively to rid yourself of low-priority tasks frees time for more important activities. If you feel that you are not good at delegating, find out why. Some reasons may be that:

1. You are nor cornmunicating the specifics of the project and your expectations to your employee.

2. You are unwilling to hand off certain tasks.

3. You lack confidence in others' abilities.

4. You fear that others may perform better than you.

5. You are unwilling to understand the benefits of delegation.

6. You believe that things are going well, so there is no reason to change.

7. You have a harried schedule and, as a result, do not communicate assigments to the employee clearly and are disappointed when they are not cornpleted I as desired.

If you want to delegate but are uncomfortable, start by delegating to someone whose work you know and choose a small task. Be sure to communicate what you want clearly and let the person know exactly how much authority and accountability accompany the task. If the task is completed successfully, move on to a larger task. When working with those whose work you do not know. ask to be kept posted on their progress and always make yourself available for questions.

Handling Paper Flow

Despite the digital age, paperwork is increasing at about 20 percent a year and is expected to double in five years. In addition, e-mail adds to the accumulation of correspondence. Paperwork piles up for two reasons: You fail to act on it when it arrives and you have no systematic way to handle it.

Four things that you can do are dump it, delegate it, do it, or delay it. Consider setting a regular time to sort through your paperwork. Act on it, read it, trash it, or file it. Tips to consider are:

1. Handle each piece of paper only once (do the same with each e-mail message).

2. Answer what you can immediately by making notes in the margins of letters and memos and returning them to the sender.

3. Set up a tickler file to handle important papers at a stated follow-up time. Tickler files are used to remind you to act on a piece of paper on a particular day. An easy system to use involves setting up expandable file folders. The first one contains individual folders numbered from 1 to 31 to correspond to the days of the month. The other folder contains 12 folders to correspond to the months of the year. The current day's file should always be at the front of the folder. File those papers that need to be acted on under the proper date or a couple of days in advance. When the day is over, move that file to the back of the folder.

Turning Behavior into Habit

These tips help to increase productivity, which adds up to doIlars saved. Keep in mind that changing any behavior is a process that must be put into place gradually. Set up a reasonable time frame, perhaps several months, to achieve the best results.

To bring about behavior change:

1. Identify the habit that you want to change.

2. Identify the new habit that you wish to develop.

3. Begin the new behavior with a strong desire and commitment.

4. Never deviate from the new behavior until it is firmly established.

5. Ask others to help you.

BE REALISTIC WHEN DEALING WITH EMPLOYEES:

SOME BEHAVIORS THAT BOTHER YOU MAY NOT AFFECT THEIR PRODUCTIVITY. IT IS IMPORTANT TO RECOGNIZE WHERE EMPLOYEES' STRENGTHS LIE AND NOT EXPECT THEM TO BE LIKE YOU.

Helping Employees

If you have employees who could benefit from better time management, share the behavior change steps.

Ask them to identify areas that they feel need improvement. This will get them started with the right attitude. You may get farther if the employees feel that their quest for improvement is self-motivated. They should determine what their goals are and what steps they need to take to achieve them. Work with them. This process may even be a part of their performance review.

Be realistic when dealing with employees. Some behaviors that bother you may not affect their productivity. It is important to recognize where employees' strengths lie and not expect them to be like you.

You or your emplovees may be part of a team that needs to improve its effectiveness and productivity. Proper time management techniques such as goal setting and prioritizing may help. Even if you and your employees are good at managing your time in general but would like to improve your productivity, personal profiles are available that help to identify specific areas for improvement.

Conclusion

With a little planning and prioritization, you can learn accomplish more. Controlling the duration and timing of interruptions, delegating lower-priority tasks to employees, and managing paper flow will free up your day and allow you to concentrate on the important tasks at hand.

Mary Bresnahan is president of the Bresnahan Group
She can be contacted at:
P.0. Box 393, Wheaton, Illinois 60189-0393
Phone 505-922-1973
BresGroup @ 4u.net
www.bresnahangroup.com

The Bresnahan Group works with a variety of companies in the areas of human resources, training, and organization development.

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