Five Principles for Better Time Management in Business

Controlling your time means knowing how to anticipate and plan your activity. Acting in a rush, submitting a file at the last minute, responding to all requests at the same time... these are all issues to manage during the day that force us to learn to master our time to meet deadlines and become more competitive. Time management requires taking a step back and, paradoxically, knowing how to be slow. To do this, 5 principles will help you manage and master your time in business.

1-Plan, prioritize and schedule
This is a basic rule: each week, a list of things to do, the famous "to do list", must be established. Then, these tasks must be sorted according to the Eisenhower matrix: what is important and urgent, urgent and not important, not urgent and important, not urgent and not important. This last category of tasks should be delegated. To determine the importance and urgency of an item, it must always be related to its function, the scope of its position and its obligations. In the end, your schedule should reflect these priorities, as well as two main principles which are "start by doing what you appreciate the least and group activities". Clearly, opening a file for an hour every day takes more time than working on that same file in one go. You should also allow for a margin, and always allow for about 30% of unforeseen events in a week.

2-Chase away "time thieves"
"Time parasites" come from both outside and inside the company. To be in control of your time, it is better to sort out, or even avoid, these parasites. What is most disturbing is the visit of a colleague who comes with a new problem, and therefore additional tasks. To avoid this, set up visiting hours and communicate them to your colleagues, while remaining available in case of emergency. In short, the manager must not be afraid to isolate themselves to deal with sensitive files. Another major time thief: the telephone. The mobile phone should be put on voicemail, allowing you to concentrate on very specific important tasks so as not to be disturbed. To filter landline calls, rely on your assistant, or a colleague if it is temporary.

3-Manage your emails well
Nothing is worse than Outlook email for getting into a passive situation. Responding to emails as they arrive may give the impression of working and being very available. But, ultimately, this strategy proves to be a waste of time which, moreover, limits reflection and perspective. There is a very specific method to limit this phenomenon: use colors to distinguish internal messages addressed only to you, messages where several people are in copy and finally emails from clients you know. Prioritize managing these last ones, then the internal emails addressed to you. Then, if you have time, check the copies. Open your email only in the morning when you arrive at the office, after lunch and in the evening. Keep it closed the rest of the time. Finally, always reply in offline mode. This will prevent you from replying instantly, or sending several emails instead of one.

4-Be a "time strategist"
Don't think that time is uniform. We can say that time is broken down into "calories": physical load, mental load, stress, relational risk, capitalization of experience, probable efficiency and pleasure. To manage your time well, you must try to reduce the first four ingredients as much as possible and maximize the last ones. These variables depend on individuals and the moment. Some people, for example, are more energetic in the evening and take advantage of the calm to make progress on sensitive files. Being a good strategist means knowing how to find the right time, the right time for yourself, but also for others.

5-Take a step back
A business manager could be compared to a firefighter forced to extinguish fires as they arise. Everyone feels completely absorbed by tasks, without having time for reflection. To resist urgency, it is therefore necessary to cultivate perspective. Managers must put themselves in a situation of internal slowness, by regulating in particular their breathing or the rate of their voice. Paradoxically, it is therefore necessary to be slow to manage time well, but also to know how to take a distance. Between two high-intensity activities, ten minutes of "airlock" are necessary to consider what comes next. When you have to make an important decision, you should not act impulsively but become aware of all the elements before the evening and wait for the right moment before making the decision which often imposes itself.

In conclusion, managing your time is essential, both for deploying maximum efficiency in the organization of the company but also for preserving your own balance.

Philippe Montant General Manager ExeKutive.biz