Personal effectiveness is the main secret of success in all matters, and it depends, inter alia, on the ability to correctly allocate time resources. Time management lends itself to scientific study and planning. There are special techniques that allow you to correctly distribute the time so that it is enough for everything.
Time management concept
A person at birth receives a unique, irreplaceable resource - time. Often how he disposes of it, often depends on the success of a person in business, his effectiveness. Time management, or time management, is a multi-stage process that includes skills in planning, analysis and organization of processes.
The idea of time management is not new at all, even in the first years of our era, the Roman philosopher Seneca wrote that time requires a special relationship, and formulated the first rules of time management: you need to keep a time diary, you need to evaluate how much time was spent and how The time period was saturated with events. Later, philosophers more than once thought about how to keep the flowing time, put forward theories and invented methods for its economy and rational spending.
But scientific management approach this resource appears only at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Frederick Taylor, an American engineer, proposed the concept of employee time management and associated this process with motivation and goal setting. At the beginning of the 20th century, Russian scientists created a whole field called the “scientific organization of labor” and laid a serious foundation for the modern theory of time management. The term "time management" appears only in the 70s of the 20th century, and by the beginning of the 21st century, this industry has become one of the most important and well-developed parts of management.
Types of time
In order to manage something, you need to understand the essence of the object. Time is a specific object of management, in order to correctly spend it, it is worth dividing it into types. The first classification is based on the concepts of work and leisure, in which case time is divided into working and leisure, or free. Managing the seasons allows you to distinguish species such as seasonal time: high and low season spending time.
You can also classify a temporary resource depending on the activity to which it is dedicated, then working, personal and social time are allocated. A worker is spent on the performance of official duties, planning, personal includes leisure, education, entertainment, and the public is spent on family, friends, the establishment of various communications. When it comes to planning, work time is usually taken into account, although, of course, it is necessary to apply the acquired skills of economical spending of time to all its types.
Time Management Features
Any management performs the main function - this is the rational use of resources. The functions of time management are the planning, distribution and expenditure of this non-renewable resource. Time management is necessary in order to make the most efficient use of the available time reserve, which directly affects the productivity of a person or employee. The main functions of time management are the planning of time use, the organization of processes for the use of time, monitoring compliance with the principles and fixing the time spent.
Benefits of Time Management
Time management gives a number of positive results.To achieve success in any activity, you need to learn how to properly spend your time. A person who has mastered the technology of time management receives the following benefits:
- faster and more often achieves its goals;
- he creates the circumstances of his life and can control them;
- able to achieve any goal and success in any activity;
- less nervous experiences, as in his life there is no place vanity and haste;
- has enough time for self-education and spiritual development;
- has an action plan for every day, becomes more disciplined and collected;
- rests more and therefore feels cheerful and healthy, has more opportunities for communicating with friends and relatives, for hobby classes;
- more productive in work;
- in the end, a person is more confident and happy.
Time Management Process Structure
The time management system includes several basic processes:
- analysis - in order to move somewhere, you need to know what you want and what resources you have;
- strategic planning;
- statement of goals;
- tactical and operational planning;
- goal achievement;
- control of spending resources and achieving goals.
There are other approaches to determining the structure of time management, it distinguishes 4 areas of the formation of knowledge, skills and habits, these include:
- goal setting, mastering goal setting techniques;
- ability to prioritize;
- the ability to use planning tools and their competent application;
- development, consolidation and application of skills of rational use of time.
Types of Time Management
Like any management, the main time management can be divided into strategic and operational planning. It can also be divided into types of management of this resource by time: long-term and short-term, which, in fact, duplicates the first classification.
Strategic planning is associated with the achievement of long-term, global goals, while the time is allocated for a year or more. It is associated with forecasting, based on a deep analysis of the situation.
Current time management is associated with achieving goals in the short term: from a month to six months. It is embedded in the strategic plan, but covers only its immediate part.
The operational allocation of time is associated with the preparation of plans for the week and day. Tactical resource allocation is associated with a real, current situation in which circumstances can make a correction.
General principles of time management
Time management processes are based on the main principles, these include:
- Correct goal setting. Its reachability and motivation to achieve it depend on this. There are various goal setting techniques, the most famous and effective is the SMART model.
- Motivation. Saving time should be conscious and associated with the satisfaction of some important needs, otherwise success from time management should not be expected.
- Saving. Time management is necessary in order to remove or reduce the time deficit, to increase productivity for the same time periods.
Time Management Methods
Today, various strategies and techniques for the distribution and use of time are known. The most famous time management methods are as follows:
- The Eisenhower Matrix. This method consists in filling in a matrix according to 4 characteristics: important, unimportant, urgent, non-urgent. All cases for the planning period are evaluated on this scale and ranked for implementation. First of all, urgent and important matters are carried out, less urgent and important matters are postponed to the second turn, the main thing is not to delay their implementation so that they do not go into the first category.Urgent and less important cases should be delegated to subordinates whenever possible, non-urgent and unimportant affairs should not accumulate, therefore they should be delegated or not performed at all and excluded from plans.
- Pyramid of B. Franklin. This solid model requires thorough preparation for the first time, and then is easy to use. The basis of the pyramid is global goals and life human values. The second level is long-term goals for 10-20 years. The third is a strategic plan, decisions on how to achieve global goals. Next is the plan for the coming year, then the short-term plan. Upstairs is a plan for the day. Such a pyramid should be periodically revised and updated.
There are other time management techniques, but all of them are based on the ability to separate the important from the unimportant, the skills of setting correct and achievable goals, and the motivation to save time.
Work time management: basic techniques and rules
The rational distribution of working time is the most important task for people striving to increase their efficiency. Methods of time management, management aimed at eliminating the shortage of working time. Therefore, it is extremely important to plan a working day based on the following principles:
- it is necessary to provide the ability to record the time spent on various operations;
- during the preparation of the plan, 60% of the time should be devoted to scheduled work, 20% to unforeseen affairs, 20% to spontaneous tasks;
- it is necessary to identify "time sinks" and eliminate them as much as possible;
- you need to rank work tasks by urgency and importance;
- time planning should be systematic, consistent, reasonable.
To manage time in an organization, the ABC method is often used, it allows you to classify company resources by degree of importance. It is built on three principles:
- the most important things are done by the leader; he spends 15% of his time on them;
- tasks of medium importance are delegated to managers, they are allocated 20% of the working time;
- less important tasks are delegated to performers who spend 65% of their time.
Organization time management
Time management in a company is a way to save up to 30% of a specialist’s working time. Therefore, due attention must be paid to this. Time management in the organization falls on the shoulders of managers who draw up operational and medium-term work plans for performers. Today there are many computer programs that allow you to plan the working hours of employees, as well as monitor the implementation of tasks and the time spent. For example, Toggl, Bitrix “Team” and “Project”. There are three main strategies for organization time management:
- Acceleration. It is necessary to minimize the time spent on performing typical, especially repetitive operations.
- Accumulation. It is necessary to identify reserves and priorities at each production stage, to form a reserve of time for performing unforeseen tasks.
- Streamlining. It is necessary to implement effective systems for planning and control of time spending.
Free time management
Any person always feels a lack of free time, and he needs to be planned as carefully as a worker. To do this, you need to learn how to strictly separate work from leisure, so that there is time to restore working capacity. During the holidays, you need to limit yourself from calls and messages at work in order to fully relax. Household work needs to be learned to organize with maximum time savings. It is necessary to develop the skill to identify the most important tasks, so that there is enough time not only for relaxation, but also for self-development. You should also learn to abandon the small routine, useless things, leaving maximum time to achieve priority goals.
