Without scheduling, overarching goals and priorities, such as education and business growth, will begin to be missed
Everyone has one thing in common with the most successful people on the planet: 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. It is how they use that time and balance their work, health and family commitments that helps them to be so effective. In this article, some tips for effective time management and scheduling will be detailed, as well as how an outstanding work/life balance can be achieved—even for those on shifts and who do not have full control of their time.
Why schedule?
Planning activities can be a particularly daunting task, especially for those who may have varying hours at work and child commitments. However, if the day is not planned and urgent tasks are merely dealt with reactively, then overarching goals and priorities will begin to be missed. One's time will soon be taken over by a combination of demanding important and non-important tasks, and those important, non-urgent tasks, such as education or growing one's business, will not get time.
Working longer hours is not the answer—one's mood, health and social/family life will be impacted over time. Being effective is about using time in the most efficient manner possible. Let us take a look at a few pointers for designing a schedule.
Defining rocks and stones
A rock is a long-term goal over the next 3 or so years. Spend time reflecting on where you would realistically like to be, making sure to take into account values, health and family. Next, map out the stones that are needed to achieve these goals. It may be training, patient acquisition or income targets. If necessary, keep breaking those down further into small achievable stones. These stones are the stepping stones to making long-term goals a reality.
A lark or an owl
Everyone has a personal circadian rhythm, known as a chronotype, that influences physiology and psychology. Larks are people who tend to go to bed early and wake up early, whereas owls tend to stay up way past midnight and, if they had the choice, would get up late in the morning. Around 14% of people are larks, and approximately 21% are owls, leaving the majority (65%) somewhere in the middle, known as third birds (Pink, 2018).
Work, Government and education tend to be biased for the 75–80% of people who are larks or third birds, leaving owls as ‘left-handers’ in a right-handed world. That does not mean that owls are not going to flourish—they just need to use their time differently. Regardless of chronotype, Table 1 can help when planning a schedule.
Table 1. Managing time (Pink, 2018)
| Analytic tasks | Insight tasks | Making a decision | Making an impression | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Larks | Early morning | Late afternoon/early evening | Early morning | Morning |
| Third birds | Early to mid-morning | Late afternoon/early evening | Early to mid-morning | Morning |
| Owls | Late afternoon and evening | Morning | Late afternoon and evening | Morning |
Plan a schedule according to your strengths—trying to compete with a lark who is always in the office at 7am will not let you produce your best work.
Ace your diary
Make sure that these factors are taken into account when planning the week ahead:
- Achieve: this factor includes work, study and any chores
- Connect: make time to talk to friends and colleagues, and spend time with family and thewider community
- Enjoy: spend time on yourself. Go and do whatever makes you happy and relaxes you.
Allocate blocks of time
Now that you know what is important, start allocating generic blocks of time to get things done for the week. Personally, I find that 90 minutes to 2 hours is enough to make some headway on an issue, and it is recommended that no more than 6 hours overall per day is allocated on this. Allocate time to deal with those ‘just a minute’-type queries and process your email inside that block, and make sure that there is time in the week for quality time alone and with family. Next, spend 10 minutes allocating tasks to those generic blocks. Holmes (2013) recommended the following rules for time management:
- Touch it once. If you have to touch it, take action. Otherwise, either leave it until you can or schedule time to do it
- Make a daily list of the top six most important things that need doing and adhere to it
- Try to plan how much time each task will realistically need and allocate time for it
- Plan the day using the free slots that are available. At least two 30-minute slots are needed for reactive time and buffering, but stick to the schedule, regardless
- Work on the most challenging tasks first. For those who have staff, help them to understand this, too—people respect what you inspect. For those whose role involves sales, allocate at least 2 hours a day to this
- Always ask: will it hurt to throw this task away?
When it is time to work on an assigned task block, turn off mobile phones and email and execute. Consider using the Pomodoro technique, where a series of 20-minute timers are used to focus on the task without distraction.
Dealing with ‘just a minute’ queries
In my own experience, a frequent issue that I used to have was people coming to me with tasks that they had left until the last minute, expecting me to drop everything and help them out, or because they had not spent enough time trying to find the solution for themselves. Unfortunately, my generosity in this area meant that I would increasingly get these types of queries.
If these tasks are unavoidable, at least move them to the time that you have allocated in your diary and set a clear expectation of when you will be able to respond to them. Do not stop during your allocated block of time unless it is a genuine emergency.
Conclusion
Try planning out the week ahead and ensure that time is allocated to big goals, as well as family and alone time. These are just as important as those urgent tasks that demand to be done immediately. It will take several weeks to get a routine that works for you, so just keep revising it and do not panic if it does not work out.