Managing Time means Managing Life
There may be a difference in the perception of time. For example, an hour spent with someone who is excited to be with, while two hours for an exam that is difficult to train seems too short; The final five minutes may seem too long for the fans of the victorious team when they are leading 1-0 in the world football championship match, and the few minutes during the reading of the note announcing the selection at the Oscars awards ceremony may seem too long to the finalists. The importance of time may also differ according to location. For example, in a world championship won by a split second, the importance of a split second for both the champion and the loser can be very different from the importance of an hour for someone who comes home late from coffee.
Time is the most democratically distributed resource for people. Everyone has 24 hours in a day. Time is a scarce resource that cannot be recovered, stored or stopped. How effectively this scarce resource is used is the most important factor that determines how much people can improve themselves and their environment.
The important thing in time management is not to prioritize the day's work, but to include the priorities in the daily schedule. People spend most of their time on urgent but not important tasks. Many trivial tasks that become urgent due to lack of timely planning take up a significant part of our daily lives. In reality, what needs to be done is to determine the purpose and vision of the person in life, and to use his time to realize this vision as much as possible. In other words, it will be that he puts the big stones in the jar first, then allocates the remaining time for small and less important works, that is, he fills in between the big stones with small pebbles and sand.
Unmeasured performance cannot be improved. For this reason, it is critical for time management to measure how people use their time and make changes in line with the target.
A productive person should devote at least 65-70% of his time to important non-urgent tasks. During this period, he should plan, develop action plans to prevent potential problems, delegate his current work as much as possible, follow up on the work he has delegated before, establish the necessary social and business relationships and set aside time for the development of the people he works with.
It is very important for both the person who will do the work and the person who is delegating to delegate the work when it comes, not when it is necessary. A job that is delegated on time and followed up at regular intervals is very likely to be ready when needed without stress.
In order to be able to work efficiently, it will be beneficial for a person to make an appointment with him at least half a day every week and to set aside this time for planning and preparation. In the worst case, this time can be kept as a backup time that can be used in an emergency. In this way, in every emergency plan change, all appointments will be changed and an unprofessional situation will not be encountered.
Problem solving is like fishing. Once you teach your employees, they also start fishing and the leader's load is reduced at the same rate. Therefore, sufficient time should be devoted to training and developing employees. Giving immediate feedback on performance at the necessary points while the work is being done and after the work is done will have a positive impact on the performance of the employees in their next job.
The level of reaction to mistakes made in jobs with high priority and importance and the level of reaction to mistakes made in jobs that are not important and important should be very different from each other. Giving the same reaction in every event will prevent the necessary effect from being created in the high priority ones. Every mistake is a learning opportunity. Rather than discouraging the employee by overreacting after the mistakes made, it is a much more effective method to talk about the cause and source of the mistake and to help the employee understand and accept his mistake.
When someone comes with a problem, the problem should either be resolved with the person who brought it, or feedback should be given about the solution and the problem should be sent with that person. The ball must not remain in the manager. Whenever possible, it is best to have the person who brought the problem resolved it themselves. As the motivation and competencies of those empowered to solve problems will increase, they become more productive employees.
Instead of following someone else's plans, it is much more efficient in terms of time management to direct others to follow one's own schedule with pre-made planning and suggestions. It is a very effective method for a person to determine a suitable time for his/her own schedule for any meeting or study and to suggest it. Thus, he will both determine a suitable time for his own schedule, have the opportunity to prepare because he will know the timing for a long time, and increase the chance of adapting to the schedule of other participants who are not used to working for such a long term.
One must know how to reject the jobs that come to him on matters that are not his priority. In cases where people are not sure whether they will be interested or not, it often makes things easier to receive requests in writing and to respond in writing in the same way. At the same time, this is a way of avoiding the time to be wasted with the meeting, and if there is a real opportunity, it is not ignored. However, if the issue is really out of the company's or the person's interest, then this work should not be delegated to someone else and should be rejected in writing or verbally, just to protect the relationship.
In order to manage time well, it is important to acquire the discipline of not tolerating time wasters. For example, not accepting a meeting or appointment without an agenda; holding the meeting in a meeting room that will allow easy departure, not in its own office; Determining the duration at the beginning of the meeting, sticking to it and being punctual are important both in terms of self-discipline and in terms of the discipline and care of the co-workers.
