CHAPTER 2: SETTING OBJECTIVES, GOALS AND PRIORITIES
I imagine that you may have a goal in mind in reading this book: perhaps to improve your time management and effectiveness? At work, whatever our responsibilities, we have goals, objectives and targets that we have to meet. The place to start when improving your time management is to be clear about your key performance indicators. These are the criteria by which your performance will be measured. They outline what you have to achieve, how to achieve it and by when.
This chapter will help you clarify your goals and objectives. In it, I will also introduce a practical process for prioritising the tasks you have to achieve to meet your objectives.
One of the symptoms of poor time management is being trapped in a cycle of having too much to do. The result is that we tend to micromanage tasks, often applying a scatter-gun approach and spreading ourselves too thinly. In order to be effective time managers, we need to be able to stand back, take a helicopter view and focus on the macro goals we are working towards.
In order to be an effective time manager, you need to be clear about what you need to achieve and by when. You may find it helpful to do this on a monthly basis, before focusing on what you need to achieve each week and each day.
Take a moment to consider and make a list of the goals you need to accomplish in the next month. Make sure that these are SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. For example:
- To have completed Phase 1 of the software installation project by the end of the month.
- To have undertaken a project implementation review for the integration project by 20th of the month.
- To have held appraisals for all staff by the end of the month.
- To have organised a team away day by the end of the month.
If your list is very long, ask yourself:
- What are the key goals, the ‘must achieves’ this month, rather than the ‘nice to achieves’?
- What are the key performance indicators that need to be accomplished?
- Does everything on your list have to be achieved this month?
It is far better to have three to six key goals that you can achieve in the month than 20 that you are unlikely to accomplish.
Having established your goals for the month, now turn your attention to the tasks you need to accomplish in order to achieve your goals. You will probably end up with a long list of tasks that you need to do, but which are your top priorities?
To establish priorities, you need consider two elements:
- The URGENCY of the task in relation to TIME, e.g. when does the task need to be achieved?
- The IMPORTANCE of the task in relation to the ORGANISATIONAL NEED, e.g. is the task related to one of your key objectives?
Having listed your tasks, use the following ranking system to set the order of priority:
A = Urgent and important tasks – these need to be completed within a short deadline and are vital to the achievement of your objectives.
B = Important, but not urgent, tasks – tasks which are vital to the achievement of your objectives, but where you have a longer time to achieve them.
C = Not important, but urgent, tasks – activities which need to be completed in a short time span, but which are not vital to the achievement of organisational objectives.
D = Not important and not urgent tasks. These are activities which are not critical to the achievement of your objectives and for which time is not of the essence.
This system can be represented graphically as follows:
Figure 2: The priority ranking system
Using the priority ranking system
If, after prioritising your list, you have a number of tasks in each category, allocate an order of priority to each of the As, Bs, Cs and Ds – e.g. A1, A2, A3, A4, etc.
The temptation is to start working on C tasks – the not important, but urgent, ones. However, the best time managers work through all the As, then the Bs and then the Cs. This means that they concentrate on the few critical tasks, rather than the too many less important ones.
Why start the B tasks – the important but not urgent tasks – before the C tasks? The danger with important tasks that are not required to be completed immediately is that you delay them until they become A tasks – both important and urgent. By planning and tackling important activities before their deadlines, you will avoid last-minute pressures and stress.
Ds are tasks that are not important or urgent, so you can either dump them or, if appropriate, delegate them. Certainly, these should not be the focus of your energies.
When new tasks appear, slot them into your ranking system.
Remember to review your list of tasks, using the ranking system, on a regular basis, to ensure that you focus on your key priorities.