Analyse and improve your use of time

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my
sails to always reach my destination”
- Jimmy Dean

Analyse and improve your use of time

What elements can you readily identify which you can immediately
change? Experience shows that improvements lie in changing the
way you handle: interruptions (in person or by the telephone);
meetings; travel; and incoming/outgoing mail. You can improve
your use of time if you ensure that:

1 your time is spent according to a clear idea of your priorities
and main responsibilities
2 you isolate the unimportant and ruthlessly prune out
unnecessary or unproductive activities
3 you combine any ‘free’ time (ie free from meetings or other
people’s demands) to create meaningful and usable time of your
own
4 tasks are simplified where others would not be adversely affected
5 you are not doing tasks which could be performed by others.
The balance of this chapter looks at how to ensure you improve your
time management. The approach taken is to work from the longterm
back to the immediate future, analysing your goals and gives
time management tips on how to achieve them. (The approach works
for both business and personal time management).


Identifying long-term goals

First of all, it is necessary to define your organisation’s purpose and
the purpose or your job, ie to what end is your time being expended.
Then, long-term goals can be set in terms of the results that the
organisation wishes to achieve (and your role as part of those goals
being achieved).

Identifying long-term goals, the strategy of your business and your
part in it, will result from pondering these questions:
These same questions can be applied to your personal life
The answers to these questions will help you identify long-term goals.
The longer the time frame the more fuzzy the goals become, so you
should then reduce your field of vision to focus on tangible,
attainable, definable and measurable goals, but not lose sight of the
far ground.

You should reach a point where you can be clear about long-term
aims/directions and medium, or short term goals/objectives which
will be met and which will be part of a plan to continue on the road
of achieving your longer-term aspirations.

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