Do You Have The Time? By Arthur Cooper (c) Copyright 2003 http://www.arthurcooper.com

How often do we hear the complaint in the workplace “I haven’t got time” ?

“I haven’t got time to explain it to you. You will have to work it out for yourself.”

“I haven’t got time to discuss that. You will just have to accept my word for it.”

“I didn’t have time to prepare for this meeting.”

“I can’t stop for lunch. I have too much to do.”

“ I never take all my vacation. I have too much work on.”

You must have heard every one of these statements at some time or another. You have probably made some of them yourself. And every one of them is a result of failure on someone’s part to organise their time or the time of their staff correctly.

Time is a resource like any other and it must be managed. If it is wasted, it is gone forever. Once it has been used, it cannot be re-used. It is finite and limited. You cannot make more of it, but you can use it better.

But let’s start by being realistic. In any business there will be times of overload. Activity within businesses is determined by the customer and customers are not all predictable. You cannot always plan ahead and anticipate every single fluctuation of workload. So times of stress and overwork will occur from time to time. This is normal. This is acceptable.

What is unacceptable is a general and sustained atmosphere of frenzy and crisis and lack of time to do things properly. So if you hear yourself or your colleagues or your staff repeatedly making the sort of complaint illustrated at the start of this article, you must, you absolutely must do something about it.

Let’s look again at these statements. You will see that they fall into three main types.

No time to co-operate. No time to prepare. No time for rest.

Considering each in turn:

No time to co-operate.

The first two statements more or less say “I haven’t got time to help you because I have too much to do myself”. This is an absolute killer of team spirit and co-operative working. A new member joining a team will naturally enough ask how certain things are done. He will ask once, twice, three times maybe. But after repeated brush-offs he will stop asking. The result will be at best a long protracted learning period of low work output, and at worst work that is of a poor standard or even faulty.

A team by its nature is not a group of isolated individuals. It is, or should be, an integrated group together producing more than the sum of each individual working on his own. If you are managing the team it is your vital responsibility to allocate the tasks and the rewards in such a way as to foster co-operation. And above all make sure that they have the time to co-operate. You will get more out of your team in the long run by not overloading them.

No time to prepare.

This is demonstrated by the statement “I didn’t have time to prepare for the meeting”. It is a feeble excuse and completely unacceptable. Unless summoned at the last minute by someone whose authority cannot be defied, no-one has the right to arrive at a meeting unprepared. It inevitably wastes time in the meeting, which means the time of everyone present. It shows a lack of respect and concern for the others at the meeting. It shows that you don’t care.

You must make time to arrive prepared for all meetings, whatever the type or subject. Whether it is a large formal meeting called to discuss a major topic, or a one-to one meeting with your boss or a member of your staff. Time spent in preparation is repaid later in time saved, knowledge and authority demonstrated, and increased likelihood of getting your hoped-for result.

And what goes for meetings goes for whatever job you have to do. Preparation always pays off. Make the time to prepare.

No time for rest.

The last two statements at the beginning of this article illustrate this. There is something seriously wrong when staff of a company consistently and regularly feel they have to work their breaks, or when a manager cannot take his vacations year after year. No-one can work continuously and unremittingly at their top efficiency. Inevitably productivity will drop. It is therefore in everyone’s interest that proper rests are taken. It is in the interest of the individual, of his colleagues, and his company.

So how to ensure that this is done? Give the vacations a level of priority in your planning. Stick to the planning. Don’t imagine that you are indispensable. You will be wrong. You will be surprised perhaps ( even disappointed ) to discover that the company continues to exist and function during your absence. Do the same for your team. Make sure that they are rested and refreshed for peak performance.

And now, in conclusion, just a few general rules for making the most of your time.

Don’t put off unpleasant tasks.

Don’t put them to one side because they are unpleasant. Do tasks in the order dictated by the importance of the result. Do unpleasant tasks early in the day to provide an incentive to finish them before moving on to something more attractive.

Chop up big tasks into small manageable ones.

A huge task lasting several days or weeks can be depressingly daunting. Divide it up into smaller sub-tasks of short duration ( a few hours, say ). Each time you finish one of the sub-tasks you will get a boost and a feeling of satisfaction. The overall huge task will be whittled away steadily and with relative ease.

Allocate time for specific minor tasks (phoning, messages, etc.)

These are the sort of things that can eat away at your day until you do little else. Give yourself a strictly limited time at the same time every day to deal with your mail, for example. Stick to the time, and stop when time is up. Then get on with something more productive. Apply this to anything that for you is routine, necessary, but not the principal object of your work.

Keep an organised desk.

This avoids the paper shuffling familiar to many people as they search amongst the documents strewn all over their desks, and it allows you to concentrate in a more effective way on what you are doing.

Try to keep on the desk at any one time just those papers relevant to the task on which you are working. Don’t let your eyes be distracted by piles of papers related to some other unfinished job. It will only make you think of the other job instead of the one in hand. Don’t let your desk become your filing cabinet.

If you really have to keep papers for several separate jobs on the desk together at the same time (maybe you are expecting a phone call concerning one of them), then put them neatly to one side away from your immediate line of sight.

Remember. Time that has gone has gone forever. Make the most of what you have got.