ACCA BT Syllabus E. Personal Effectiveness and Communication in Business - Effective Time Management - Notes ^{2 / 3}

THE BARRIERS OF EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT AND HOW THEY MAY BE OVERCOME

Three keys to effective time management are:

remembering
setting priorities
motivation

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking "I won't forget that."

But the important thing is not just to remember it, but to remember it at the right time -- a time when you can take the first step in doing it.

Some people say they do not need to spend time planning. That may be true.

If you have a list of things to do that are all about equally important, and if you are sure that the most important things are on the list, then you do not need to spend any time comparing them.

Just start doing one of them, it does not matter which one.

But for most people most of the time, some of the things are more important than others, so it is worthwhile taking a few minutes to read over the list and choose the most important to do first.

John Adair in his book “How to manage your time”, suggests that there are 5 problems common to almost all managers.

Procrastinating
Delegating ineffectively
Mismanaging paperwork
Holding unnecessary meetings
Failing to set priorities

Apart from working to plans, checklists and schedules, organizations might be improved by the ABCD method in-tray management.

Act (immediately)
Bin (it)
Create (a plan)
Delegate

The main influences of effective time management are:

Culture
Colleague’s Influence
Staff Demands
Individual’s Personality
Individual’s Personal Skills
Nature of Work
Management Style

Internal Barriers

Discipline
Procrastination (Putting off)
Lack of Motivation

External Barriers

Workload Issues
Available Resources

overcome the internal barriers	overcome the external barriers
be assertive – identify your time wasters and resolve to deal with them, learn to say no, delegate.	do the right thing right – doing the right thing is effectiveness; doing things right is efficiency. focus first on effectiveness (identifying what is the right thing to do),
identify and make use of your personal biorhythms, or ‘up’ time and ‘down’ time.	then concentrate on efficiency (doing it right).
conquer procrastination – find out what causes you to put off doing something and	eliminate the urgent – urgent tasks with short term consequences often get done
remedy it, e.g. a feeling of inadequacy could be due to lack of information, lack of a particular skill or lack of training.	to the detriment of the important tasks – those with long term, goal related implications.
promise yourself a reward.	break big jobs into little steps.
	use negotiation to improve the use of time.