Idea 98: Six organizing ideas to improve time management

The killing of time is the worst of murders.

Daniel Defoe

1. Arrange your office or office space for ease of work, comfort and efficiency. Few people give this any thought at all.
2. Operate a clear desk policy – concentration is helped by doing one thing at a time, so your desk should only have on it the specific job that you are tackling at the time.
3. Write effectively, keeping it short and simple by thinking of the main point first and ordering your thoughts for logical expression.
4. Telephone – keep a log to see how time efficient you are now! Then get used to planning for each call you make (the salient points you want to make); grouping incoming and outgoing calls (usually for the end of the day when people are less verbose); and use a timer (e.g. an egg timer, to keep all calls to a maximum of four minutes). Do not be afraid to put a block on incoming calls to reduce interruptions.
5. If you have an assistant, use him or her to deal with or to redirect (helpfully) any mail or callers (whether in person or on the telephone), where he/she or someone else could better deal with them. Strive for excellence and not perfection through your assistant.
6. Apply these principles to emailing, to avoid your day becoming too fragmented by responding to a steady drip of incoming messages.

How do you value other people's time?

It is vital to develop not only a personal sense of time, but also a sense of the value of other people's time.

For example you shouldn't frequently interrupt other people's meetings or assume that your telephone call to them is a welcome interruption. Missing deadlines, keeping people waiting, talking at great length at meetings – all these indicate that you don't view other people's time as precious.