Time Management System

We are all searching for a time management system that really works.The pages of the Internet are overflowing with tips and techniques for using time effectively. So many people seem to be drowning under a tidal wave of paperwork and must-do lists. People spend their lives juggling endless priorities and fighting off myriad demands from different people in all directions. Has technology helped?  Evidently not, since the instant communication provided by the email, internet and mobile devices has only aggravated the task overload. Authors have made fortunes offering systems that work and employees experiment with systems of to-do lists and tickler files. Companies invest millions on office productivity software which will supposedly speed up cycle time and expedite results. Yet we all seem busier than ever!

The time management system that is right for you will depend on your circumstances, working environment and goals. Here are twelve simple and effective techniques which have helped me. They do not require any special processes, or philosophy, but can be applied on a flexible basis to suit different circumstances and environments. Think of this list as a time management system tool kit from which you can select the ideas that work best. The great philosopher Wiliam of Occam said that the simplest solution was always the best, and indeed I have applied many of these with great success. Here is a time management system that really works.

1. Apply the Pareto rule, ruthlessly. As Richard Koch explained in his masterly book “The 80/20 Principle”, 20% of all inputs result in 80% of outputs and 20% of actions deliver 80% of results. Identify the critical few factors that make a real difference in your life, and multiply the power and impact of these. Eliminate the non-value added activities. 
2. Eat that frog! This is Brian Tracy’s famous concept – the idea that you start the day with the biggest, ugliest, least appetising task – the “frog”.Once the frog has been digested, you have already secured a significant victory for that day and the momentum from this will set you up for further success.
3. "Do It Now". This is an old self-help axiom. A young Tom Hopkins once asked a successful businessman for the secret to success, and the older man scribbled these words on a napkin - “I must do the most productive thing possible at any given moment”. Of course this willnever be fully achievable, and the need for a balanced life is also paramount, but any concept that spurs you to action is a good thing. Remember - procrastination is poison.
4. Eliminate bottlenecks. In a factory, engineers will identify constraints or blockages in the production process. According to Goldratt’s famous Theory of Constraints, they will optimise work flow up to the bottleneck (so you don’t have inventory stacking up just before it) and then seek to elevate, or eliminate the bottleneck. What are the bottlenecks in your own office and how can they be removed?
5. Remember the power of completion. Margaret Thatcher once stated that it was easy to start something, but the hardest thing to do was to see it through to completion. Whether an admirer or an opponent of the British prime minister, everyone agrees she got things done. There is something psychologically gratifying about setting a specific, timebound objective and accomplishing it.
6. Turn off Outlook. The tendency to check for incoming email, and treat the most recent email as the most important, is deeply ingrained in most office workers. Remember the Pareto rule again - 80% of email will likely add no value.
7. Control access. Don’t make yourself too available. General de Gaulle, when President of France,made a point of being virtually inaccessible when at his country retreat of Colombey-les-deux-Eglises. There was one telephone in the gatehouse, and an aide would have to run up the drive to advise the President of nuclear war or some other pressing issue. Contrast this with the average businessperson today who is glued to their BlackBerry or cellphone. This is the problem with open-plan offices. Their great virtue – enabling communication with co-workers – can become their great drawback. Put your phone on voicemail, if you can. You can respond to people in your own time.
8. Make appointments with yourself in Outlook. If you have some control over your work flow or location, go to another area (a coffee shop, a meeting room, even the staff canteen) and dedicate the time-slot solely to concentrating on the most urgent problem
9. Do less. Leo Babauta,the celebrated blogger and founer of Zenhabits.net, recommends the “haiku” strategy. This means that by deliberately limiting yourself to a few tasks (similar to the word constraints in haiku poetry), execution will be cleaner and much more effective. Always ask yourself the question - what really matters? Learn to say no to managers, co-workers and your own direct reports.
10. Eliminate waste. This means any non-value added activity. This could mean social networking sites or aimless phone calls. I lived without television for two years and my free time increased exponentially. It was two years of glorious freedom.
11. Place an imaginary value on your time. Imagine you are a top lawyer charging $1,200 an hour for your services. If you treated your time as if it were that precious and your life as full of so much potential, not a second would be wasted. This is the cure for dithering or procrastination.
12. Yamazumi Your Life! A Yamazumi board is a colourful stacked bar chart in a factory showing the time taken in an industrial process. Necessary set-up time is labelled yellow, blockages and delays are coloured red, and effective value-add time is shown as green. It is a tremendous visual tool to identify where delays and roadblocks are occurring in a process and can be eye-opening. This is of the course the metaphor and title for this blog, "Yamazumi Your Life!".

So here is a time management system that will kick-start your productivity. Taken one by one, they are innocuous and incremental ideas. Together, they add up to a genuine time management revolution. Time to storm the barricades!