Tomorrow, you promise yourself, will be different. Yet tomorrow is too often a repetition of today.

We often hear and at times experience ourselves cases of having so many things to do in so little time. How we wish we had 48 hours per day! This thought is not uncommon. But do we sit back and ask ourselves why this happens so frequently? We often do not address this issue adequately. No amount of time management seminar and workshop is going to address this pressing issue adequately. So what do we do?

I will attempt to share with you some of my views and ways in addressing the reality of Time Management.

Time, like water and energy, is a very invaluable resource on earth. Failing to recognise its importance to one's life will often lead us to abuse its use and its effectiveness is not fully realised. In my view, the essential step that one should adopt is to be able to recognise the significance of time management. Only upon accepting its true intrinsic value will one be able to implement whatever techniques and methods currently in existence.

Amongst the many ways of managing time, I would like to share some key ways. They include:

Analyse your time - and take corrective action
To save time you must first know where you are losing it. A simple method of accomplishing this is to keep a daily log - preferably two or three days at least - in which you record how you use your time.

Analysing how you spend your time will probably reveal some surprising results, even shocks. For example:

a.	Top priority tasks you know you should be doing may not be accomplished because you keep postponing them due to interruptions and unforeseen circumstances.

b.	You will probably be disappointed at the amount of time you are spending on planning.

c.	A good portion of your work may be repetitive and could be delegated to subordinates.

d.	Certain employees take up a disproportionate amount of your time on trivial matters.

e.	You probably spend at least an hour a day on the telephone.

f.	Meetings may take up more time than they should because they "drag on".

Having identified the problem areas in the way your time is being consumed, you can then take appropriate action to address them.

Priority list system
The simplest and most effective way to plan the use of your time is to spend the last few minutes of each working day writing down a list of top priority tasks for the following day. Ensure that the tasks on your list are really those top priority items you know you should be devoting your attention to. Then number these tasks in order of importance.

Start the next day with the most important task. Keep at it until it is completed and don't be concerned if you only finish the two or three most important tasks on your list or even if you finish only one. The critical point is that you will be working on the most important tasks. The others can wait.

If you can't complete your top priority tasks using this system, you won't complete them with any other method either.

Once this system works for you, have your subordinates try it.

Delegation
In many businesses today, managers are running out of time, yet their subordinates sometimes feel they are running out of work. Part of the problem here is usually due to a reluctance on the part of a manager to delegate because he feels that "I can do it better myself."

But delegation is critical if people are to gain experience and a firm is to grow and prosper. Some key points regarding delegation are:

a.	When delegating a task, be sure to delegate both responsibility and authority.

b.	Tasks and decisions should be delegated to the most junior person who has the necessary facts and capability to fulfil them. This saves considerable time for superiors.

Handle paper once
Handle each piece of paper only once. Many people spend their time organising and reorganising stacks of paper. The above are some ways that one should consider in Time Management. We hope you will find them useful in managing your time.

Year published : 2000