So you want to know how to manage your time? Why not take lessons from an expert? I am not a single parent. I am a grandparent, although I suspect that is not relevant, especially as my grandchild is 17 years old! What is relevant is that I spent a large part of my working life as a Planning Engineer. That means I am a professional when it comes to time management. Now that I am retired I have found that the techniques, learned in my long career in industry, have helped me plan my time so as to be able to pack in all the things I want to do, as well as those I need to do.
Of course, if you are not good at time management, then you have a real problem. How will you find time to do the planning that is essential to good time management? It’s a bit of a catch 22; the key to managing your time is planning but you can’t find the time to do the planning. Professional planners have a saying: failing to plan equals planning to fail. So, the first thing you simply must do is to find an hour or two to do some serious planning. Maybe it’s that period when the children have finally settled down to sleep and you want nothing more than to sit back with a glass of your favourite wine and the latest episode of Glee. Resist the temptation. Find yourself a pen and a piece of paper, or better still, start your favourite spreadsheet application on your PC or laptop.
With 112 Waking Hours in Every Week, What is Your Problem?
Start by creating a grid. Along the top of the grid you will need seven column headings, one for each day of the week. Down the side, 16 lines representing the hours between the moment you rise in the morning and the time you finally collapse into bed at the end of your busy day. Of course, if you are a Churchill or Thatcher and can manage on fewer than 8 hours sleep each night, then you will need more lines.
Now, begin by filling in those things that take place every day such as meal times, including the time taken for preparation (if you are the person responsible for that activity), and taking the children to school. Next fill in the things that must happen on particular days, such as your twice weekly gym session and ferrying the boys to soccer training or the girls to ballet class.
You may already have seen possible clashes: the boys’ soccer overlaps with the girls’ ballet; your gym session eats into the time needed to prepare the evening meal on a Wednesday. On a separate piece of paper, make a note of these problem areas. Don’t do anything else yet; later you will have to think about how to rearrange one or more of these activities.
When Routine Tasks are Sorted, What Else Can You Fit In?
Your next task is to make a list of all the other things you have to do but that do not have a specified time scheduled. Do this on another piece of paper or in another area of the spreadsheet. Don’t forget to include some relaxation time. Alongside each, place your estimate of how long the activity should take (or how much time you would like to allocate to it). Alongside that, assign a priority to the task, where 1 is assigned to each of the tasks that simply cannot be left undone whatever happens and 5 is assigned to those tasks which would be nice to have done but which can be left until some unspecified time in the future. Don’t allocate a low priority to relaxation time. Your biggest problem is stress and you can get much more done if you are calm and collected. Finally for now, note alongside each activity the frequency with which it must (or you would like it to) take place: once a week, twice a week, daily, and so forth.
At this stage you probably have these activities listed in the order you first thought of them, which almost certainly means that some priority 1 tasks will be lower down the list than some priority 5 tasks. Re-sort your list so that all priority 1 tasks are at the top and all priority 5 tasks at the bottom. Now total up all the estimated durations for the tasks on your list, remembering to double up for those things that have to be done twice a week, and multiply by 7 for those that have to happen every day (if not in your original grid) Looking at the original grid, how many hours in the week are not already occupied by routine tasks? Is it more or less than the total of all estimated durations for the tasks on your list?
Set Your Priorities, Just Like a Professional
More unoccupied time and you are a happy bunny, because all the things you have to do and the things you would like to do can be fitted into your week. But that will only happen in the most exceptional of cases. It is much more likely that you will have many fewer available hours than is required. Before you start to eliminate any priority 5 activities, take another look at the higher priority tasks and think about your estimate of how long each will take. Are you sure it is realistic? Could you get away with spending less time on any of them?
No doubt you will have to remove some priority 5 and, maybe, some priority 4 activities from your list. And, if some of those hurt, you might try reconsidering your priorities. Eventually you will have a list of things that can be fitted into the time available. Your final job is to slot these tasks into the vacant spaces in your original grid. Now you have a clear picture of what you should be doing in every moment of every day of your week. If you can stick to this plan, then congratulate yourself. You are a professional time manager! But don’t panic if you can’t stick to it. You probably got some of your estimates of how long things would take wrong. Now, of course, you have the information needed to enable you to revise those estimates and to adjust the plan to suit. That's what professionals do.
Frank Parker - Frank writes regularly on a diverse range of subjects which he researches thoroughly.
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