Time Management

This is a self-management skill, being part of the wider employability skills. Time management involves the planning and control of time spent on activities, becoming better organised, prioritising work requirements, setting and managing aims and objectives, and eliminating wasteful time.

Work study can be a helpful and comprehensive process to analyse activities and time spent on them, with the aim being to improve overall efficiency and effectiveness. This is certainly a subject area which employees and managers should be encouraged to become more familiar with.

Some common questions for time management are:
Am I using my time, with the resources available, to best effect?
Have I prioritised tasks appropriately?
Should I be more equitable in apportioning time?
What are the main distractions to my work?
Which activities are causing me the most stress and frustration?
Am I over-prioritising some tasks to the detriment of others?
How well have I met deadlines?
Are desired outcomes realistic and achievable with current resources?
What tasks can be rescheduled or delegated to achieve deadlines?
What skills could I develop further to improve my time-management skills?

Too narrow and intense focus on time management can, however, result in a reduction in resilience and adaptability to changing business needs. An article in the Guardian, 'Why time management is ruining our lives', (Burkeman, Oliver, The Guardian, Thursday 22 December 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/why-time-management-is-ruining-our-lives) identifies some of the problems that can be encountered.

There does come a limit to what can be achieved, and this is where an analogy given within the article should make one stand back and reflect more on time management. The 8-puzzle problem is where you have eight numbered (1 to 8) tiles in a 3 x 3 square, with just one blank space in which to slide an adjacent tile into. The aim being to rearrange the tiles, by sliding, into order, although, “To use the available space more efficiently, you could always add a ninth tile to the empty square. You just wouldn't be able to solve the puzzle any more... it's hard to see how improving your personal efficiency ¯ trying to force yet more tiles on to the grid ¯ is going to be much help."

The modern workplace is very much like this puzzle, however, with 9 tiles being expected to be juggled on a daily basis and there being a trade-off between what might be considered maximum efficiency and productive outcomes. Essentially what can arise is that you are 100% efficient at doing very little productive work, you look busy and it looks good on paper, but this doesn't actually contribute to the financial bottom line of a business.

Unfortunately, any space for creative thought (i.e. the empty grid space in the image), especially considering how one may improve services or products, or to provide reserve capacity to attend to unforeseen circumstances (which can include typical day to day activities held up due to the actions of others or passed on by others for various reasons) has been eliminated. This is often in the mistaken (and non-achievable - well from a human, but maybe not a computerised robotic, perspective) desire or belief in 100% effectiveness and efficiency, because "... any increase in efficiency, in an organisation ..., necessitates a trade-off: you get rid of unused expanses of time, but you also get rid of the benefits of that extra time. ...[In any] ... corporate cost-cutting exercise that focuses on maximising employees' efficiency: the more of their hours that are put to productive use, the less available they will be to respond, on the spur of the moment, to critical new demands. For that kind of responsiveness, idle time must be built into the system."

One particular perceived problem with the concept of ‘idle time' is that this is all too frequently seen as wasted time by management and not seen as an opportunity for creative thought which can be used to reflect on working practices and how one's time is managed so as to help in a continual improvement process.

The best managers will have an efficient workforce that is effective in what it produces, whilst what can be called 'creative idle time', which is arguably essential for a modern sustainable business, will be neither too much or too little, but will be in that optimum 'Goldilock's zone', being just right for all concerned. This creative idle time will also add necessary resilience and adaptability to a business, allowing it to respond to unforeseen circumstances in a more professional and responsive manner. We all need some positive creative idle time and how best to apply that within the workplace is a challenge to be embraced by all.