Time Management
Prioritizing
What is most important to
your boss? Do that first. Not what benefits the company, because the
company can't help you. Not what benefits the client, because they
can't save you if you're about to get canned. Then do what benefits
you the most, as long as your boss is happy.
E-mail management
You should make e-mail rules in your e-mail program in order to
manage the content that you get each day. Things from your boss
should be flagged and come to the top of the heap. Sort incoming
messages by project if possible, assigning each to their own
separate folder. Go into your sent messages every day and sort them
into the appropriate project folders. Finding things later can be
made easier now. This way, you only have to deal with the most
urgent messages at first, and then you can create planned periods of
time to deal with the secondary issues that have arisen throughout
your day.
Voice mail management with pager
Not all companies have this feature, but if you do, it's
wonderful. Some systems have the ability to buzz your pager if
someone leaves you a voice mail message. Others have the ability to
create settings to page you only between certain hours, only if the
message is marked urgent, or if it's been in your mailbox for over
an hour, etc. This is a great feature to exploit. You can get an
incredible reputation for returning messages quickly and "being
on top of things". It can make all the difference in the
morning, knowing that your boss has left you two messages, and you
can be alerted as to their existence and do something about them
before you come into work. On the other hand, if the pager doesn't
go off, then it's probably OK to saunter down to Starbucks and grab
that latte before you wander into the office. If you're sick or
working from home, you'll know if someone left you a message without
having to check every hour. As long as you have that pager and a
cell phone, you can be a lot of places other than the office, and
still not drop the ball. Create a good reputation in one area, and
it can have a nice "spill over" into others.
Managing by due dates
Suppose you're doing routine work. The boss doesn't have any high
priority work on your plate at the moment, but you're not sure where
to start in the pile. A good way is to figure out the due dates of
each piece, and then work from the nearest one of those to the
farthest off. If there are conflicts with the due dates, you can
always have your boss pick which one she wants done over another
(ensuring you send e-mail and get e-mail back in order to
document...)
Eliminating busywork
Do you need to do it? Read all mail? Read all e-mail? Deal with
company newsletters? Take all phone calls? Be on all committees? Sit
in on all project meetings? If your boss is not an absolute control
freak about it, try to join meetings by phone. Get a headset and
make sure it has a mute setting. You can sit in front of your PC and
get a lot done while they yack.
Automating routine tasks
If you have frequently used forms, keep all the blanks in one
directory. If you do weekly
status reports, make a template of the outline you will follow
and just copy it as needed. Instead of using paper planners, use
your organizer software (like Outlook) to manage your schedule and
recurring meetings. They will pop up reminders before each meeting,
so you don't miss them. Use e-mail rules. If your work phone system
supports it, attach a Caller ID box. If you have a weekly statistics
chart to make, set up an report in Crystal Reports and have it
automatically generate the results. Have Excel or Word do your
comparisons between figures or documents. Whenever you have a task
that repeats, see if there isn't some way you can remove aspects of
your manual involvement. But you don't necessarily have to let your
boss know that you have all this new free time... |