Effective time management

Good day...

Today I would like to share with you one of the key capability of a project manager and of any leadership and managerial role. It is about time management.

I'm sure that you have read and heard many times before regarding time management. On the other hand I am also sure that practicing a good time management is not as easy as it seems. For that reason, I would try to share some tips based on my experience on an effective time management:

Picture credit: OpenClipart-Vectors

1. All of your to do things will fall under one of below criteria, either it is important and urgent, important but not urgent, urgent but not important. not urgent and not important. Among the criteria it is very understandable that you will put the urgent matters into the highest priority. However, bear in mind that you need to secure some time to do the things that are important but not urgent, before they become urgent.

2. Never over promise. From time to time you will find people and tasks are competing for your time. Think carefully before you commit on the things you will allocate your time to (meetings you will attend, business trips you will make, coaching sessions you will do, etc). It is always better to under promise and over deliver.

3. Once you commit on allocating your time to do something, block your calendar immediately. If it is a meeting you are going to arrange, send an invite immediately to block yours and others' calendars. If it is a task you can complete on your own, block your calendar. You will learn that you might need to move the schedule along with other tasks with higher priority. It is completely alright, at least you already have a reminder in your calendar that you committed to a task.

4. Arrange you calendar with different color indicators. This will let you easily focus on the important things. In my case, I mark high priority meetings with red, lower priority I will attend with yellow, a higher priority overlapping with the yellow schedule with orange, and the meetings I set my self with green. I will then know that it is easier for me to move my own meetings rather than ask the meeting organizer of another meeting to move theirs.

5. Try to take the initiative to send the invitation for a meeting rather than wait for others to invite you. With this trick, you will find that it is easier to move your meetings whenever necessary.

Well, hope that helps, I will share some more as available.

Edwin