Today's economy is forcing most of us to try to do more with less. One resource that managers definitely do not have more of is time. Your work week — whatever it is — sometimes 60 hours or more — is a finite resource. Time is kind of like land: "They're not making any more of it!" So how do you utilize this precious commodity more efficiently?
In this issue we delve into effective time management. While we know there have been many books, seminars, websites and studies devoted to time management, we also feel it's an important topic to keep top of mind.
Working with college students, we find time management is one of the areas that many young people need help with. Some success in this area comes with maturity and the need to juggle more tasks as we get older or take on more responsibilities at work, home or in other organizations. However, there are always things that all of us can do to improve time management — even those of us mature folks!
Managing your time is something that takes constant attention. Some approaches — like avoiding procrastination, which we will discuss in more detail below — can tend to become good habits if practiced and reinforced. However, there are nefarious time wasters such as not being able to say "no" to things (we'll discuss this too) you are asked to do. So we invite you to take the time to read this month's column — and hope that you find it isn't a "waste of time!"
Planning
In our focus on time management, let's start with a discussion of planning. Good planning is perhaps one of the most important techniques for effective time and project management. In discussion of management, experts point to strategic planning as a key step. Strategic planning is the broader, more general overview that you should perform every couple of years. The planning we discuss here is the specific operational planning done on a quarterly or monthly basis to achieve shorter-term objectives — and it is critical to time management.
Planning can be defined as preparing a sequence of action steps to achieve a goal. If done effectively, planning can help reduce the time and effort of achieving your goal. Some business management gurus argue that the 80/20 "rule" applies to some aspects of management in that for unstructured activities, 80% of the effort gives less than 20% of the valuable outcome. The reason for this is that much time is spent deciding what to do next or that perhaps your company is taking many unnecessary, unfocused inefficient steps. Planning helps to avoid this problem.
However, planning is just the first step in the process where planning is the discussing of objectives and laying things down on paper. Putting these plans into action is the important next step.
Action plans
Broken down into its basic steps, action planning involves:
1.) Setting or picking your objective and clarifying your goal. For example: selling an additional 2,000 tons of hog feed in the coming year.
2.) Determining the approach and methods of achieving your objective. This involves writing a list of all of the actions your feed and grain firm will need to achieve your goal. Look at this step as a mini "brainstorming" process — come up with as many options and ideas as possible — don't be analytical or judgmental.
Continuing with our example, the strategy for an increase of 2,000 tons of hog feed might include: promoting a specific hog supplement at a reduced margin to encourage trial and use; utilization of feeding trials/split tests to develop proof of performance; targeting a list of "Top Prospect" hog producers with regular sales calls and/or promotions; hosting a BBQ lunch or dinner at your feed mill to include a tour of your facilities and brief presentations by your key personnel (such a step invites personal contact and interaction of your employees with prospective customers and this almost always has good results); and finally perhaps hosting a series of management workshops targeted at your best customers and prospects.
3.) The next step in the action plan process is to analyze, prioritize and cut your list down. What actions are absolutely necessary and effective to achieve your goal? What action items can be dropped from your plan without significant consequence? Remove the latter ones from your list.
4.) The next step is the assignment of the people that will follow up with the strategy. This would include you as the manager asking for feedback and reports on a weekly or biweekly basis; salespeople continually focusing on the objective and reporting both success and roadblocks; perhaps even involving other personnel (such as periodic calls from your plant manager or commodity buyers to prospective customers) to involve them in the process.
Delegating/Outsourcing
All of the myriad tasks associated with managing your grain and feed business do not have equal value — particularly if you look at them in terms of your Personal Return on Investment (ROI). We often think about ROI for investment of your dollars in an asset. However, Susan Ward, an online blogger who writes about management, says we can use this same concept to look at what you get in return for time spent on different activities.
With the above in mind, think of all of the different management related tasks you do in a week. List them if you need to or take several weeks to track how much time you spend on different types of "jobs." Once you have done this, attempt to categorize these tasks by type — personnel, advertising, sales and marketing, merchandising of grain, financing, etc. Then, tally the number of hours by type and then determine the "cost" of these activities. If you spend 10 hours/week (average of 2 hours/work- day) on advertising, and your salary is $75,000/year (approximately $36.00/hour — assuming 52 weeks at 40 hours/week), then the cost of this activity is $360/week or $18,720/year.
The point of this exercise is this: Would it be more profitable or productive for your company to outsource this activity? Hire someone part-time to perform this task? Delegate this responsibility to another employee in your business who is "under-employed" from a time standpoint, or paid less (as you have $18,720 that you could potentially pay to have this work done)? This frees you up to focus on more relevant, bigger issue projects or goals, which makes better use of your time.
Establish Routines
One strategy that we as humans employ is that we develop habits. Habits occur when we routinely or repetitively do something. Sometimes this can be bad — as in chewing our fingernails when we're nervous — and then you end up doing it all the time, and this bad habit is hard to break. However, the opposite is also true. That if we are careful, we can find routines that are time-saving, which can become good habits.
Marcia Ramsland, author of the book Simplify Your Time: Stop Running and Start Living, recommends several daily time-saving habits. She offers the advice that you can cut your work in half by putting things away NOW instead of putting them down to come back to later. This applies to mail, files and handling e-mails. One of the biggest time wasters is to say, "I'll deal with it later." Thus, she says that it pays to put everything away now! She also suggests setting the pace for your day by arriving early or at least on time at your first event. We agree with her when she says, "Have you ever noticed that your arrival time at the first event sets the pace for the rest of your day?"
Setting Time Limits
A good way to help manage your time is to set time limits for certain tasks. Some tasks tend to expand if we do not limit the amount of time we allocate to them. For example, while e-mail is certainly an important and effective communication tool, it can also consume a lot of time. Some experts suggest setting a limit of one hour a day for this task. Restricting the amount of time you are willing to dedicate to certain projects can help you become more aware of time spent, and hopefully help you become more efficient.
Another strategy that can be quite effective is to estimate beforehand the expected amount of time for a given activity. Then structure your day so that you must complete the activity in that period of time. For example, preparing documents for a meeting could take several hours if you allow it to; but if you structure the activity so you have 45 minutes before the meeting you will complete it in the 45 minutes.
The key here is being honest with the estimated amount of time to completion. Don't let yourself get carried away finishing a report and end up staying at the office until midnight.
There are other tasks that use up a lot of your time — meetings are another example. Start meetings at the designated time, use an agenda and attempt to keep them to the allotted time. Many meetings can be kept to an hour in length if you keep the discussion moving and pay attention to the clock.
Learn To Say No
Many people find it difficult to say no when asked to take on a task or add something additional to an already full plate. This is particularly true in your role as manager, as you try to fill all of the "gaps" in the "to do" list. Management consultant Christine Scivicque states there are many circumstances where you can, and should, say no. The key is to do so in a respectful, professional manner (this is true even when you are the boss).
You should feel free to say no when:
1.) You feel the work is irrelevant or unnecessary to your job;
2.) You believe the work would be more appropriately handled by another individual;
3.) You are feeling overwhelmed and unable to keep up with your existing workload; and
4.)You feel your workload is unfair or inappropriate. The best way to say "no" is to be straightforward and honest. Explain your situation and respectfully offer an alternative.
A Cool Tool
In putting together this column, we came across a "cool tool," developed by "Mind Tools," a website that touts "essential skills for an excellent career." While not an endorsement of their services, their "Interactive Time Management Quiz" raises some interesting questions and scores the test taker on their time management ability. The results/interpretation section of the quiz page outlines areas that people may have problems with regarding their time management and discusses issues such as prioritizing your work and handling interruptions. The quiz is found at: https://www.mindtools.com/aavjrgg/how-good-is-your-time-management
Time Is of The Essence
Time is an essential ingredient in all that we do. Prioritizing, delegating, planning, saying no to projects, and working hard to be efficient are all ways to be more mindful of how you spend your time and the impact that it has on your productivity and that of your company. Learn to manage time well, and you will find that you have more of it to spend productively, which should have a positive influence on the profitability of your business.
