In order to succeed in today's extremely competitive and fast-paced world, increased personal efficiency is essential, so that we can get more done in less time. In this article, I have tried to offer some strategies and tips to effectively manage our time and boost our productivity. Time management essentially means getting organized  - planning, scheduling, recognizing and eliminating time wasters etc. The more organized we are, the less energy is spent in locating important things and hence wasting less time. Also, getting more work done essentially means increasing personal efficiency and productivity without personal strain and stress.

Some Strategies to Manage time Better:

1)  Make to-do lists: It has often been observed that most workers (from my personal experience -   more than 50%) do not schedule their daily activities. Hence they fail to meet deadlines and commitments. It is common experience that if you have only one task to perform in a day, you will take all day to perform that single task. But scheduling that task may actually take only an hour or two at the most leaving you the rest of the day to do other things that you  never find time to do. Make a list of the things that need to be done daily. Sequence them up so that the most important ones are on the top and the least important ones at the bottom. Tackle each chore one by one and do not move on to the next item on the list until and unless you have completed the previous one. In this manner, even if you are not able to get everything done that day, you will at least have accomplished the most important things on your list.

2)  Schedule Meetings: Planning your meetings to the minute will ensure that they are fruitful. Plan your agenda and list out all the items that need to be discussed. Allocate specified time to each item on agenda and stick to this plan. Send out the agenda a few hours before the meeting to all the attendees so that they know what needs to be discussed and the time they have been given to spend discussing on respective items. This will not only ensure that the attendees come prepared but will also help in achieving results out of the meeting. Start and stop the meeting on time and keep a track of time as the meeting progresses. When I was working as team leader, we used to have a quarterly meeting where we discussed performances of each of our staff members with other team leaders, managers and the Vice President of our process. These meetings usually went on for 14-15 hours nonstop for 2-3 days in a row and eventually we started dreading this activity. Finally our VP had an idea and he got half the chairs moved out of the conference room so that half of us had to remain standing and wonder of wonders, we cut down the meeting time in half and actually got positive results. Because standing for long periods became too tiresome, we stopped wasting time on other unwanted issues and started getting decisions made in les stime.

3) Stop Procrastinating: Procrastination is the biggest factor that causes us to fall behind scedule, miss deadlines and show less-than-acceptable efforts with compromised quality of work. The great P. T. Barnum once said "Never defer for a single hour which can be just as well done." Closer home, our beloved Saint-Poet Kabir has said "Kal kare so aaj kar, aaj kare so ab". Procrastinators frequently miss deadlines. They complete assignments at the last minute making their efforts shoddy and low on quality. This puts unnecessary stress on themselves as as their colleagues. Putting off unpleasant, routine or difficult chores is human nature. but by taking little extra efforts, we can discipline ourselves to tackle things that we dislike or are simply afraid to do. This will help us gain self-confidence and help us make better use of time.

Following tips can help overcome procrastination:
* Try to imagine how good you will feel when the task is accomplished.
* If the task on hand is difficult or complex, break it into smaller segments and tackle each one separately.
* Reward yourself each time you get a tough job done.
* Seek help. Many times, people tend to not ask for help and waste their precious time in searching for information that is already know to colleagues. Sinmply asking for help will eliminate waste of time and energy. Most importantly, remember that putting off an easy task will make it more difficult later.

4) Eliminate Bad Habits: We as humans have our own little imperfections and idiosyncracies that do not matter. But it is time to take cognizance of these when they start eating up into our productivity. For instance, I was extremely lazy in organizing the customer comebacks received via emails. Every time I needed to prepare a weekly report, I had to spent a  lot of time in locating those emails. After it happened once too many, I pulled myself up, created a folder in my lotus notes only for customer comebacks, and the moment I received such an email, immediately moved it into that folder. Through this I gained precious 10-15 minutes that I normally lost. Similarly, each of needs to identify their own time wasters and work upon them.

5) Organize Your Workspace: This is very very important. Many of us don't realize the amount of time spent on minor things such as searching for a simple pen or pencil, stapler pins or similar items, locating an important telephone number etc. Even if you normally spend a minute or two during each search and repeat the action at least 15 times throughout the day, you end up wasting precious 20-30 minutes of your time; the time most likely compensated for by working through the lunch hour. Therefore, take some time out of schedule and put your desk together. Organize your stationary supplies and keep them in a drawer space easily accessible. Similarly, organize and index your important files so that they can be located within seconds whenever needed. Write down all important telephone numbers in an indexed telephone diary. There may be questions as to the relevance of maintaining such a diary when most people use electronic personal diaries, mobiles, PDAs and like; but it doesn't harm to have a back up of good old written books when viruses or system crashes are rampant in which case the data may be lost forever.

These are just some of the things that can be implemented without additional burden on our personal energy reserves and help us perform better and in a more efficient manner.

• Written by Kalyani Nandurkar.
• In category Other.
• 14 years ago.

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