Manage Your Time Effectively

Welcome to this course!

My name is Charlotte Travers, and the course writer Katie Walker and I manage change for a living, helping people and companies go with the flow of change and connect the dots of what is possible. I'm guiding you in the videos, but it's Katie who will be sharing her experience throughout the course text!

Throughout my career, figuring out how I can optimize my time management has not been an exact science and the lines between my personal and professional lives have definitely sometimes been blurred. But, I've realized that there isn't a blanket right or wrong way of doing things. Instead, I needed to try and see what worked for me, and adapt and adjust when it stopped working. Like everything in life, time management is a journey that changes over time.

So go through this course, digest, test, and see what tools and tips work for you.

Now, when I tell you that managing your time well means getting up to twice as much done in a day without working more, you might think I sound like one of those ads for miracle products you find in your spam folder. But believe me when I tell you that it’s absolutely not a joke, and anyone can do it by adopting best practices for managing time effectively!

Practice Regularly

To help you make progress, I recommend that you apply a routine like this one:

1. I learn something.

2. I test what I’ve learned.

3. I assess what went well and what I can improve for next time.

Don’t just read this course from start to finish without practicing as you go along.

Managing your time effectively is a bit like starting a new fitness regimen. At first, it doesn’t feel natural and requires discipline. But over time it becomes more and more enjoyable, and eventually you no longer feel like skipping out on it.

I started applying methods like “Getting Things Done” and it took a while to get to grips with it. Like any habit, you have to force yourself to do it for the first few weeks. – Lawrence, training manager

Do a Self-assessment

Answer Each of the Following Questions With “Often,” “Sometimes,” or “Never”

1. I arrive on time to meetings and appointments.

2. When I take a five-minute break, I stick to that time limit.

3. I’m usually able to finish what I have to do before the deadline.

4. When someone asks me to do something, but I don’t have the time, I’m able to tell them so.

5. I don’t accept more work or responsibility than I am capable of taking on.

6. I know my own limits and I’m able to express them.

7. I stay focused on what I’m doing; I don’t jump back and forth between tasks.

8. I’m able to see a task through to the end, even if it’s tedious.

9. I’m open to changing my work habits if I think a new method might be more efficient.

10. When I have a large project, I know how to break down everything I have to do into smaller steps and actions to make them easier to complete.

Tally Your Score

Often = 3 points.
Sometimes = 2 points.
Never = 1 point.

• 30: You are superb at managing your time. This course should be a walk in the park!

• 25-29: You are already pretty good at managing time. Next stop: a perfect 30!

• 20-24: You should progress very quickly, but don’t skip any steps!

• 10-19: You have plenty of room to grow and should start seeing benefits from this course right away. 

Discover the Advantages of Continuously Improving Your Productivity

The ability to manage time is what we call a soft skill. In the field of human resources, it’s known as a transferable skill, because you can apply it to any job you may have. That makes it a great skill to have on your resume.

But more importantly, it’s extremely precious to you personally. Whether consciously or not, certain issues such as stress, anxiety, or having trouble sleeping are rooted in mismanagement of the 24 hours we have in each day. The first gift to give yourself is the ability to do the same amount of work in less time than it took you yesterday. You can become more productive in your work or your studies by managing and optimizing your time.

You’ll be progressing step by step. When you apply a method and it bears fruit, you won’t want to go back again. And each new step will cost you less time and effort as you gain productivity.

Simply put, if a given task needs to be carried out to a certain level of quality and it takes one day to complete the task, productivity could be increased by either:

• doing the task with the same level of quality, but more quickly.

• doing the task in the same amount of time, but with higher quality.

Generally speaking, when you repeat a task, you’ll do it faster or better than the first time you did it.

Accept Laziness as a Virtue

In a sense, productivity is a kind of “know-how” that’s attained through a state of mind. The mindset you’ll need to develop for this course can be broken down into two parts. First, try to view laziness as a virtue. Whenever you find yourself working on a recurring, tedious, or low-value-added task or problem, ask yourself:

Avoiding, anticipating or automating certain tasks by thinking like a slacker will help you a lot. Second, set aside your preconceptions and be ready to try out some behavioral changes.

Someone once told me that working standing up helped some people work more efficiently. I tried it, and it worked for me!

Based on that same principle, I want you to try out some slacker methods with an open mind, then adopt the ones that work best for you.

Take Care of Two-Minute Tasks Right Away

The first best practice for gaining time and efficiency is the two-minute rule.

Here’s an example of a scenario where you have a lot of tasks on your plate:

• Respond to the emails piling up in your inbox

• Write a thank-you note

• Return a client’s call

• Schedule a dentist appointment

• Drop off your dry cleaning

• Write the minutes for your last meeting

• Pay a fine

*Sigh*... not the most thrilling stuff. But let’s look at the list and take all the little things that take less than two minutes to do:

• Writing a thank-you note—that’s quick and easy, just drop it in the mail tomorrow.

• Scheduling a dentist appointment—use an online form and done!

• Dropping off your dry cleaning—I hang it inside the front door and take a two-minute detour to drop it off on my way to work or when I go to the store.

• Pay a fine—aggravating, yes, but that’s done too.

Just do it: stop procrastinating. The rest of the tasks will be scheduled because they take much longer than two minutes, but if you still have time, apply this same method to your emails that are piling up. Any email that takes less than two minutes can be answered or archived, and the others can be “marked as unread” or scheduled to be dealt with tomorrow.

The magic of this first method is that it helps us realize that many of our tasks can be done in under two minutes.

Let’s Recap!

• Good time management isn’t necessarily natural or innate, but there are methods, techniques, and laws of physics and mathematics to help you.

• It’s not the goal of this course to turn you into a workaholic, but to help you free up time and reduce your stress.

• Managing your time effectively makes you more productive and enables you to do a better job on your professional and personal tasks.

• Take care of tasks that take under two minutes immediately and put the others on a to-do list.

Now you know who I am and what this course is about, and you know a couple basics. In the next chapter, we’ll find out how to organize your desk and computer to boost your productivity.