Effective time management: Prioritising time

prioritising time management Peter Crocker

With so many different things seeking your time and attention, it is not always easy to determine the best way of prioritising time. Do you have effective time management skills?

Recently, I was talking to a friend who described his excavation business as a ‘time-hungry beast’. It sits by his side all day, every day, at night and on weekends with its gaping mouth drooling for time and attention. But I realised “That’s life.”

Wherever you turn there’s family, friends, customers, television, kids, telemarketers, books, chores, telephones, advertisements, daydreams, meetings, Gordon Ramsay and exercise all wailing at you for a piece of your time.

Some of these distractions are welcome, while others are life-sucking. But they’re all hungry and determined to chew up your time. No matter how hard you work or how productive you are, you cannot satisfy them all.

I’m a sucker for those smash-hit business books that seem to be multiplying every day. Two that I’ve really enjoyed are Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy (see How to stop procrastination) and The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss.

Both books are full of interesting ideas on effective time management, but the main thing I took from them was the importance of being ruthless about how you spend your precious time.

They stress the importance of knowing your top priorities and making sure you focus on them. This is not about being a selfish, driven workaholic. It’s about consciously prioritising time and deciding who and what gets your attention, rather than just tending to the squeakiest wheel on your to-do list.

By all means, be generous with your time, but be clear that no matter what you’re doing and how beneficial it is, this time could be spent doing something else. Helping one person means you can’t help someone else.

I think the really hard part about prioritising time is accepting that it’s okay to say no and that some things on your list will not get done. Inevitably effective time management means some people will be disappointed because you cannot please everyone.

Perhaps the question needs to be “Who will I disappoint today?” or “What can I add to my not-to-do list?” Otherwise, it’ll end up being high priority tasks and people that miss out.

I’d love to hear your views on effective time managment . If you’ve got time, that is!

Until next time,

Love your work.

Peter Crocker is a director of Flying Solo responsible for the areas of marketing and advertising. He is a business copywriter specialising in websites, videos and marketing communications.

24 Jun 08

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Pete, thanks for your views today. Yes working on your own can be a time hungry beast also. Why, well it is so easy to get side tracked and not finish the work you know must be done. At least when someone else is in the office there is someone to bounce ideas off and hopefully keep on track. cheers, must get back to work, again I have been distracted!! Chris Gallagher from nsw
My pears of great price are my time and my health. In which case I refuse to cast my pearl before a s-winey beast. CPW All Occasion Civil Celebrant Catherine White from Sydney
Peter,
Being ruthless with your priorities can help you better manage your time. But in my view it is not a sustainable strategy. Much better, i believe it is acknowledge that not having much time is the new reality for anyone running thier own business.
I believe a better strategy is to learn to think better, faster or what i call Speed Thinking.
It can help you create ideas, solve problems and make decisions quicker, literally in minutes . In a time-poor, knowledge based world wouldn't this be a better idea than old-fashion time management systems? ken hudson from sydney
Hi Ken, I definitely agree that working and thinking faster is valuable and will let you accomplish a lot more, but ultimately your time will still run out. I suppose if you can focus on your priorites AND work a lot faster then things will really start cranking! Peter Crocker from Flying Solo | Read my articles
Thanks Peter,
Long time reader, first time poster - and this could not have come at a better time!
(As I sit her procrastinating, doing no planning, and preventing my bookkeeper/husband off the computer to do my books)
Made lots of sense, like it when things are put like that. Now, enough procrastinating, I'm off ... thank you :) Mad Cow from Melbourne
Someone once told me that one of the BEST ways to split up your day is to remember the 80/20 rule ... 20% of your to do list yields 80% of your results. Everything else is diminishing returns. So, if you have a list of 10 things to do today, highlight the 2 things that will give you 80% of your result. Forget about everything else - until tomorrow ... if it falls below your top 2 for more than a week - ask yourself if it's REALLY necessary ... and if it is, consider outsourcing it. Leela Cosgrove - Information Product Creation Specialist from Sydney

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