Book : Time Management
Publisher: Harvard
Business Essentials
Read this book to understand how to effectively use time to achieve your goals. This books lays emphasis on the following:
Using your time to
achieve your goals not other's.
Delegating effectively.
Adopting work based structure like a project manager.
Delegating effectively.
Adopting work based structure like a project manager.
Make most of your time
my understanding how productive you are and how much time you are wasting time.
Mr. Johnny Depp is an employee of an MNC. He comes to office everyday at
08:30;checks his mail for an hour; starts working on the most urgent thing to
be delivered by EOD. He receives an another unexpected mail from his supervisor
or his colleagues to fix something. He leaves the present task in middle and
starts working on the boss's mail. After half an hour into this, Depp receives
another popup from outlook to check out new collection in Myntra. He quickly
gazes it and gets back to work; to get to the point where he was; he spends 30
mins and finishes the task by 03:00 P.M. Before moving onto another task he
once again opens his mailbox; quickly replies to few mails and winds up for the
day. At the end of the day he thinks, "Did I achieve my goal today?"
what's his goal in the first place ? - Is your work day is in the lines of Mr.
Depp’s then it is time to spend some time on your goals. Setting up SMART goals
is the first step towards time management. Everything that you do in your day must
help you to get closer to your organization or your personal goal. How can you
do this ? Harvard business management essentials give many templates to keep
track of your time. You can find many goods templates on net as well. Once you
keep track of your time for exactly for three days , you would get a complete
idea on your work style and what's eating into your time.
Delegation is yet
another important step that helps in utilizing your time effectively. Effective
delegation is two
sided coin; it reduces the burden on oneself and helps to
build talent around. Let us take Johnny Depp again. He is a very hard working
and dedicated person. On Monday team meeting a new action item comes every now
and then. Everyone knows that Mr. Depp volunteers for it 90% of the times
because of his nature or willingness to put that extra mile. Do you have the
same urge as Johnny. Depp. It has double disadvantage : first other team
members in the team would not know much about the tasks as long as Mr.Depp is
working for them . Far more threatening problem.is Depp would never get promoted. But why ? As he ismore
valuable to his immediate manager. Managers are very reluctant to promote their
most dependable associates.
Work base structure is
another important tool being used effectively by project managers to utilize
time effectively. The concept behind this is to divide a major chunk of work
into small pieces that could no longer be divided. From time to time we come
across a major project or task like improving your organization profit by 10%,
delivering a new solution or releasing a new car into market . Let us consider
manufacturing a car. The four main things involve: Getting an innovative design
from engineering team, build the stasis and engine, complete manufacturing ,
and finally perform quality tests. Break these further to an extent that these
can no longer be divided or each task can be completed in a day. With this you
could effectively track your big project or task and can effectively use your
time to achieve your goals. If you are thinking of becoming a manager in future
you are likely to check these links that provide templates for WBS http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/work-breakdown-structure-TC001141726.aspx.
In sum, read this book
on sunny weekend you would enjoy and you would familiarize yourself with time
managements techniques to achieve your goal.