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Saturday, May 18, 2013

Time Management - Part 6: Advices and Conclusions

Part 1 - Islamic Importance of Time
Part 2 - Sunnah & Time Management
Part 3 - Actual Time Management
Part 4 - Myth of Multitasking
Part 5 - Developing Good Habits










General Advices and Conclusions

  • DO NOT procrastinate. The sooner you would start you job, the sooner you would finish it.
  • Be and act responsible, no one else will do your work 
  • DELETE time wasters (internet, TV, some friends, smart phone, FB etc..)
  • Avoid interruptions, it will cost you to get back to where you were before getting interrupted.
  • Focus on “one thing” at a time and make sure that this “one thing” belongs to the 80:20 area
  • Always plan ahead (Stay in Quadrant II : what is important but not urgent).
  • Divide big project into smaller tasks (how do you eat an Elephant? One bite a time!)
  • Define your goals
  • Plan to achieve your goals (schedule)
  • Be aware of time stealers and avoid them
  • Do as much as you can to clear incomplete tasks and move on because “work will never finish”.
  • Remember: what is written to reach you will never miss you and what is written to miss you will never reach you.”
  • Remember: Allah Will Never make you bear more than what you can stand/handle
  • Regularity is the essence of Time Management
  • “Allah is pleased with the deed done with regularity no matter how small it is.” 
  • Our days are counted, we are getting closer to our grave each day, stop wasting time.
  • What has gone will not come back
  • Do not waste your time looking into the past, but rather focus on today and tomorrow
  • Be like a traveller on earth
  • Make great use of Fejr time - It is a blessed time of the day, much could be accomplished then.
  • “There are two bounties of Allah wherein most people are distracted: health and free time”.
  • Allah states in a Hadith Qudsi “O! Son of Adam free yourself for my obedience and I will make you independent and remove your poverty, and if you will not do so, I will tire you with work and never remove your want and poverty”.

Time Management - Part 5: Developing Good Habits

Part 1 - Islamic Importance of Time
Part 2 - Sunnah & Time Management
Part 3 - Actual Time Management
Part 4 - Myth of Multitasking

This entry will describe how to develop good habits in order for you to become more efficient during your days.

Interruptions

One of the killers in Time Management is certainly called "Interruption".
As previously seen, a study found that once interrupted, it takes workers 25 minutes to return to the ask, if they return at all. 
Frequent interruptions when you are working on a task will only spoil your effectiveness. Your task would seem to drag on and on without being able to finalize it on time. How many times have we not seen time wasters interrupting us for some minor issues, but once they get their information back, we are left struggling to get back to the point we left earlier, or to the idea we previously had in mind.

One thing certainly noticed: time wasters generally tend to leave office on time (or ahead of time) , while we have to stay longer in the office trying to finalize the task that got delayed because of these same time wasters and their frequent interruptions.
So if you want to get much work accomplished in a day, avoid interruptions, and avoid time wasters.

Planning

“Every minute you spend planning saves you an average of approximately 10 minutes in execution.”

You must have a proper plan of what you want to accomplish during the day, the week or the month.
-“Hope is not a strategy.”
•Must develop a comprehensive plan,
•Include a list and schedule you must complete.
•One of the main reasons we don't achieve our goals is because we never implement a plan to help us get there.
•We think about it, dream about it, hope for it, but we never DO the right things at the right time in the right way to help us succeed.
•As the quote above clearly declares: HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGY!•Be as specific as possible. 

Effective  Vs. Efficient

Effectiveness: Doing the right things — those that will provide the best results highest priorities
Efficiency: Doing things in the minimum amount of time
• A good time management plan must enable you to be effective AND efficient.

Daily plans: Keep appointments with yourself

•Daily list best way to focus attention on your most important  objectives
•Do not keep daily list in the head (mental notes): write it down
•Writing activities down makes them real
•At end of day, review accomplishment
•Carry forward items not completed
•Re-prioritize these along next day’s items

Deadlines

"Deadline" once referred to a line drawn on a military prison floor; if the prisoners crossed the line, they were shot.They have immense power to increase your effectiveness and can provide a basis for measuring your accomplishments.

First things first

  • Prioritize your tasks: focus on what is important but not urgent
  • Do not try to Multitask
  • Rank your priorities using the A,B,C principle:
    • A= items which must be done, important
    • B= Items which should be done soon
    • C= items that must be done eventually, not important
80/20 Pareto’s Law
Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto noticed in 1906, that 80% of Italy's land was owned by 20% of the population. 

He then carried out surveys on a variety of other countries and found to his surprise that a similar distribution applied.

  • Similarly, 20% important activities lead to 80% success
  • Focus on important activities and you would achieve the biggest gains

Pareto’s law in Business

  • 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers
  • 80% of your complaints come from 20% of your customers
  • 80% of your profits come from 20% of the time you spend
  • 80% of your sales come from 20% of your products
  • 80% of your sales are made by 20% of your sales staff
  • Microsoft noted that by fixing the top 20% most reported bugs, 80% of the errors and crashes would be eliminated

Urgent Vs. Important Principle

  • "A failure to plan on your part does not necessarily constitute an emergency on my part." – Anonymous
  • “Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do” Basketball coach John Wooden
  • Important activities have a strong value focus, because they relate to the completion of your goals
  • Urgent activities have a strong time focus, because someone – not necessarily you- believes it must be done NOW.

Procrastination

  • People may procrastinate for reasons:
  • Fear of failure: often connected to not feeling qualified or prepared for the job.
  • Fear of success: because once they complete the job, they fear people will hold them to a higher standard of performance from now on
  • Fear of consequences: some jobs are just unpleasant or painful, and therefore difficult to face.
  • Anger or rebellion arising from hard feelings in a relationship

Procrastination: what can you do?

  • Learn to ask for clear instructions when given assignments
  • Ask for whatever tools and training you need to get the job done.
  • If you don't ask for help, people assume you don't need it.
  • Do not hesitate to set clear boundaries.
  • This is part of learning to say NO.
  • Just because you do a job well doesn't mean you have to accept all tasks, projects and promotions offered to you.
  • Learn to work within your own capabilities, and don't be afraid to draw the line - people will respect you for doing this.
  • Put unpleasant tasks on your schedule and set a clear deadline.
  • Plan the task carefully, and make sure you have the resources to do the job.
  • You may need to clear the rest of your schedule around it, to make sure you have the emotional energy to get the job done. Then do it. You will be glad when it is over.
  • Assertively address any relationship issues that are holding you back.
  • Procrastination based on anger or rebellion is actually passive-aggressive anger; it is symptomatic of a bigger problem. It is also childish. Grow up, work out the relationship problem, and get the job done.
  • Stress and burnout are among the most debilitating causes of procrastination. If left unchecked, they can lead to depression and productive paralysis.
  • Rebalance your schedule, learn to say NO, reevaluate your priorities, and take some time off.
  • People around you don't want you to burn out; they need you. talk to your supervisor or someone else who can help you. 


Time Management - Part 4: Myth of Multitasking

Part 1 - Islamic Importance of Time
Part 2 - Sunnah & Time Management
Part 3 - Actual Time Management

Multitasking: such a great word, if up to now you have been thinking of yourself to be a good multitasker, then read the following to discover more about what is now classified as a myth.

Partially inspired by the rise in powerful new technologies, people have bought into the myth of multitasking to describe someone with the ability to switch rapidly between real and virtual work environments to create the illusion that they can manage several tasks almost simultaneously and generate an excellent work product in all areas. 

Doing Too Much at Once - the Myth of Multitasking

A study by Basex, a New York research firm, found that office distractions ate up 2.1 hours a day for the average worker. Another study found that employees devoted an average of 11 minutes to a project before being distracted. Researchers Gloria Mark and Victor Gonsalez of the University of California, Irvine, found that once interrupted, it takes workers 25 minutes to return to the ask, if they return at all. 
People switch activities, such as making a call, speaking with in their cubicle or working on a document, every three minutes on average

In the past, many people believed that multitasking was a good way to increase productivity: if you are working on several different tasks at once, you are going to accomplish more, right?
Recent research, however, has demonstrated that that switching from one task to the next takes a serious toll on productivity. Multitaskers have more trouble tuning out distractions than people who focus on one task at a time.


People who multitask are less efficient than those who focus on one project at a time, says a study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology...Managing two mental tasks at once reduces the brainpower available for either task, according to a study published in the journal Neuralmage

Remember…

•Everyone has the identical 24 hours to use every day to accomplish a variety of tasks.
•This also means that no one has the ability to stretch the space-time continuum in order to do more than one the same time.
•People who juggle texting and e-mails and searching the internet for information while conducting a phone conversation via headset, are not getting more done or turning out a superior project.
•They are almost certainly overlooking important issues or ideas, making careless errors and frying their brains with the stress of trying to push so much input through their mind at the same time.
•At the end of the day, they will be drained from the pace, and frustrated because they probably didn't complete a single one of their most important tasks.
•The next time you find yourself multitasking when you are trying to be productive, take a quick assessment of the various things you are trying to accomplish.
•Eliminate distractions and try to focus on one task at a time.