LibGuides: Time management: Time management basics

Why time management?

This guide will not help you find more time. Time is a finite resource, and we can't make a day last 26 hours, however hard we try. What you can do is adjust how you think about, use, and allot your time. This guide works in conjuction with our time managememt training to help you identify your strengths and weaknesses in using your time effectively. You will be encouraged to reconsider some traditional ways of organizing your time and responsibilities. The goal is to use appropriate tools to manage details so that your efforts can be put to higher purpose.

Concepts

You need a system that can capture 3 things:

appointments
commitments
information

But mostly, you need to manage your ability to focus.

Reading suggestions

Getting Things Done by David Allen
One of the most popular Time Management titles.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
One of the most fundamental titles of self-management.
Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy
Brian Tracy is time management guru. Not all of his works stand the test of time, but this title does.

"Meet the Supertaskers" Kat McGowen in Psychology Today
Is multitasking a real thing? If so, is it learned? Or are you born with it? Spoiler alert, the answer to all these questions is: Yes.

Urgent or Important?

Be forgiving with yourself

A few known issues to keep in mind...

There is more to do than time to do it in (and rarely a shortage of good ideas to act upon)
Rely on others, but maintain accountability
Keep sight of the big picture
You interrupt yourself more than anybody else interrupts you

Handout
The class slides aren't terribly useful as a student tool - being mostly image and animation heavy. This handout provides an outline of the important content you may want to take note of.

There are lots of names mentioned during Advanced Juggling, when giving credit to those who developed these principles.

Get it off your mind!

Download Trigger list
Use these prompts to help draft your Mother-Of-All-To-Do-Lists. Get it off your mind!

Four Ds of time management

Delete
Delegate
Defer
Do

We add a fifth D: Differentiate ("Big Picture" or a detail?)

Tools

Some categories of information you might track:

Future goals/projects (your bucket list)
Current goals/projects (big picture items you're working on, or about to begin)
Next Actions / To Do (two or three of the next actionable steps for each current goal/project)
Waiting for.. (tasks that have been delegated, outstanding requests/orders, etc.)
Frequent communications (make notes for the people you speak to regularly, to reduce the number of interruptions you cause)
Recurring tasks (make note of things that happen routinely, if not frequently, and details about the task that may be forgotten)