How to manage your time effectively at work?
12 December 2008
Read by 2066 persons
Are you often overwhelmed at the office? Laurence Einfalt, director of the personal organization consulting agency "Jara", gives some keys to better manage your time.
What causes time loss at work?
There are first external factors, which are valid for everyone: the phone, visits, meetings whose start and end times are unknown, waiting before external appointments, mail and emails that need to be answered. Also involved are more personal and psychological factors: more or less disorganization, inability to delegate, difficulty in refusing a task, perfectionism, and a tendency to procrastinate.
How to avoid these pitfalls?
Some factors are beyond your control, but for others, you can act. The problem with email or phone calls is that they hit you while you're doing something else and interrupt your work. Decide on a time to dedicate to emails. You open and process them during this time slot, and not as they arrive. It is therefore necessary to remove the small Windows alert! For the phone, put yourself on voicemail for several hours. And if you don't have an answering machine, organize yourself with a colleague: they answer your phone for two hours and take messages that you will answer later. And you will do the same for them afterwards.
As for colleagues who drop by your office, ask them to call you instead, or better yet, to send you an email, or suggest having coffee during your break.
How to avoid working in a rush?
The key to organization is planning. For example, if you work in the marketing department, you know that the marketing plan comes back every year. So work on it for one hour a week, starting five weeks before the scheduled date. It is better to anticipate: you must anticipate what will happen, instead of just focusing on the deadline. Furthermore, be wary of yourself: few people are able to estimate the time it takes them to do this or that. So make an estimate and add 30% of the planned time. If it's a collaborative effort, add 50% to the time they have announced. At best, you will have planned a little extra, and this will allow you to cope with everything.
Do you have any practical advice?
You should always have something with you on which you can write down what you have to do, and that you can take everywhere. A notebook, for example, will do the job very well. Write down all your tasks, even those that are not urgent. Consult your list several times a day and assign priorities: highlight a task to be accomplished on the same day. Finally, many women have two diaries: one for the office, another for personal use. Only use one, it's easier to plan your week!
Published in September 2006
Posted online October 21, 2008
L’Internaute
What causes time loss at work?
There are first external factors, which are valid for everyone: the phone, visits, meetings whose start and end times are unknown, waiting before external appointments, mail and emails that need to be answered. Also involved are more personal and psychological factors: more or less disorganization, inability to delegate, difficulty in refusing a task, perfectionism, and a tendency to procrastinate.
How to avoid these pitfalls?
Some factors are beyond your control, but for others, you can act. The problem with email or phone calls is that they hit you while you're doing something else and interrupt your work. Decide on a time to dedicate to emails. You open and process them during this time slot, and not as they arrive. It is therefore necessary to remove the small Windows alert! For the phone, put yourself on voicemail for several hours. And if you don't have an answering machine, organize yourself with a colleague: they answer your phone for two hours and take messages that you will answer later. And you will do the same for them afterwards.
As for colleagues who drop by your office, ask them to call you instead, or better yet, to send you an email, or suggest having coffee during your break.
How to avoid working in a rush?
The key to organization is planning. For example, if you work in the marketing department, you know that the marketing plan comes back every year. So work on it for one hour a week, starting five weeks before the scheduled date. It is better to anticipate: you must anticipate what will happen, instead of just focusing on the deadline. Furthermore, be wary of yourself: few people are able to estimate the time it takes them to do this or that. So make an estimate and add 30% of the planned time. If it's a collaborative effort, add 50% to the time they have announced. At best, you will have planned a little extra, and this will allow you to cope with everything.
Do you have any practical advice?
You should always have something with you on which you can write down what you have to do, and that you can take everywhere. A notebook, for example, will do the job very well. Write down all your tasks, even those that are not urgent. Consult your list several times a day and assign priorities: highlight a task to be accomplished on the same day. Finally, many women have two diaries: one for the office, another for personal use. Only use one, it's easier to plan your week!
Published in September 2006
Posted online October 21, 2008
L’Internaute
