Managing Time: Working smarter, not harder, is key to effective management

Managing Time

Working smarter, not harder, is key to effective management

By Bill de Decker

May 2000

We have all known them — managers who always complain that there are not enough hours in the day to get everything done. Some even seem to think the only solution is to put a cot in their office! And we also know the other type — the ones that get everything done in an eight-hour day and have time for family, hobbies, and relaxation. You would think that the first group would be the more effective managers, but, usually, they are not. So what's the difference? It is simple. The latter group knows how to manage their time.

The working life
As workers, whether in an office or a hangar, we don't have to worry too much about managing our time because it is managed for us. When we are handed our assignments, we normally also are told how much time we have to accomplish the task. If that is not enough time, we might ask for more time. And, if it is too much time, we might also say something. Once the assignment is started, all we have to do is pace ourselves to meet the assigned deadline. In addition, there are not very many memos, meetings, calls, and e-mails that interrupt our work.

Management matters
Once you are a manager, it is a very different story. There is no one to tell you what assignment to work on. Others expect you to tell them what to work on, and, as if that wasn't bad enough, there are also constant interruptions and other demands on your time.

The only solution is to learn to manage your time. There are many time-tested techniques for accomplishing this, and we'll use the rest of this column to talk about three of them: Delegation, Minimizing Meetings, and Prioritizing Tasks.

Delegation
Delegation is the single most effective technique for creating more time for yourself. For example, think of a job that will take you two days. If you delegate the job, you will only spend perhaps one quarter of that time to provide the necessary explanations, support, and assistance. And when the person to whom you assigned that job does another one, you may only spend a few hours. Of course, many new managers will feel that there is no one to assign the task to, since no one will do the job as well or fast or inexpensively as they can. That may well be true, but that is not the point of being a manager. Any management book that you pick up will tell you that the tasks of a manager are to plan, organize, direct, and control the tasks assigned to the department. Peter Drucker, the great management guru, put it another way when he pointed out that the primary task of a manager is to get and keep customers. So delegation is not only good time management, it is also a prerequisite for doing what a manager is supposed to do.

How do you delegate? Well, the first step is to pick a person and tell him or her that you would like them to do a particular job. Next, give them the required information with respect to the what, where, when, why, and how. Then stand back and keep track of their progress. Assist when help is needed, and praise when the job is done well. The first time, it will probably not go as smoothly as you would like, but the next time it will be better and so on. For example, the first time that you delegate a job that would have taken you two days, it might take half a day of your time and three days for the person to whom you assigned the job. There are two ways to look at this: The first is to bemoan the waste of taking three and a half days for something that would have taken you two days. The other is to cheer the fact that you have reduced your involvement from two days to one half day. That frees up one and a half days of your time for getting customers!