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Effective time management is not only essential for achieving good health and personal goals, but to the success of the business as a whole.1
At the end of this course, you should:
Deepen your knowledge of the topics discussed by completing the exercises as you go through the course. Download the workbook below.
Knowing how to effectively prioritise your workload can have many benefits for both employees and businesses:1
Before your time management can improve, it can be helpful to identify barriers that are preventing you from getting things done.2
Look at the barriers listed in the left hand column and think about how you could solve them. Write your answers on your workbook and click next to see our suggested solutions.
If you come up with suggestions that you think your colleagues could benefit from, be sure to share them so you have a best practice approach to overcoming common barriers.
Before your time management can improve, it can be helpful to identify barriers that are preventing you from getting things done.2
Look at the barriers listed in the left hand column and think about how you could solve them. Write your answers on your workbook and click next to see our suggested solutions.
If you come up with suggestions that you think your colleagues could benefit from, be sure to share them so you have a best practice approach to overcoming common barriers.
The idea of “Big Rocks” is based on principles outlined by educator and author Stephen R. Covey, who wrote the popular book ’The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’.
The two jars illustrate the concept of the Big Rocks Theory. In this theory, the jars are a metaphor for life, with big rocks representing the most important activities or business critical tasks that help your achieve big life goals.5
The Big Rocks Theory can be used to illustrate the importance of prioritising your big rocks, or business critical tasks, if you want to achieve your goals.
Big rocks are usually ongoing, long-term tasks or projects, such as delivering a high-quality service to patients. The smaller rocks and sand (less critical tasks), are short-term projects and everyday business tasks such as phone calls, which are necessary, but should be timed/fitted around your most important tasks, or big rocks.5
Think about your tasks and categorise them according to rock size – big rocks (business critical tasks/long-term projects), small rocks (less critical tasks/short-term projects) or sand (less critical tasks/everyday tasks). An example has been provided for each rock type in the top row.
There are many benefits to completing your business critical tasks or big rocks, so make sure you continually recognise and prioritise them.
Once you have identified your rocks you need to start thinking about tasks in terms of importance vs urgency.
The importance of a task is governed by its value and the impact it needs to make. The urgency is how fast and efficiently it needs to performed in order to meet a particular goal or deadline.
The Eisenhower Matrix with the overlapping 4 D’s – “Drop it, Delegate, Do it or Decide” – is a model which helps to prioritise tasks based on the two, key ideas of important vs urgent.6
Decide whether the statements are true or false. On your workbook, mark each statement with a T (true) or a F (false) in the column on the righthand side.
An employee who is successful at prioritising their workload will spend the majority of their time focussing on high importance, low urgency tasks where they have the ability to make quality decisions. Refer to the Eisenhower Matrix regularly to consider the importance vs urgency of your tasks.
Decide whether the statements are true or false. On your workbook, mark each statement with a T (true) or a F (false) in the column on the righthand side.
To prioritise effectively you need to consider how much time to allocate to each task. After identifying what you need to do, consider when you are going to do it. If you don’t plan your time effectively the reality is that time will pass quickly and everything may not get done.
Once every 8 minutes8
The average person gets interrupted once every 8 minutes or around 7 times/hour, or 50-60 times per day!
Which of the following are techniques that can help prevent interruptions? Go to your workbook and mark a tick or a cross in the boxes on the righthand side to indicate your choice.
Click next to show the correct answers.
Which of the following are techniques that can help prevent interruptions? Go to your workbook and mark a tick or a cross in the boxes on the righthand side to indicate your choice.
By now you should have identified your big rocks, considered the status of each of your tasks in relation to their importance vs urgency, and allocated time to them. Now it’s time to write a prioritised to-do list.
There are many different ways to “do this”, but there are some techniques you can apply to your to-do lists to ensure you prioritise and deliver efficiently and effectively.
On the next page are examples that you could follow when writing your to-do list.
Ivy Lee Method9
1. At the end of the day, write down the 6 most important tasks for tomorrow
2. Prioritise each task in order of importance (with 1 representing the most important task)
Benefits of this method:
Benefits of this method:
In this module we looked at what time management is and why it’s important, along with techniques to help you prioritise your workload and recognise barriers to effective time management.
If you haven’t done so already, have a go at the exercises, which should give you a deeper understanding of these ideas, so you can really start to see the benefits in your own work and personal life.
Improves work-life balance
Shifts the focus onto things that matter
Allows more time for quality decision-making and tasks that add value
Gives employees a sense of achievement
All of the above
Acknowledge what gets in your way
Understand your workload
Keep performing the same actions and hoping for the best
Ask colleagues not to interrupt you
FALSE
TRUE
Once every 7 minutes, 8 times per hour, 60-70 times per day
Once every 12 minutes, 5 times per hour, 90-100 times per day
Once every 8 minutes, 7 times per hour, 50-60 times per day
Be realistic about how long things take
Don’t be overly optimistic
Factor in interruptions
All of the above
Make a record of time interruptions that have occurred over the last two weeks
Prioritise your business-critical tasks
Make time to talk to everyone at work about their weekend plans
Shout at anyone who interrupts your tasks
Accept that interruptions are bound to occur
Excellent customer service
Good health
Less interruptions
Business and personal goals
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