Time Management

What

Time Management is the Process of managing your own, your staff's, the Project Team members' and the project's time.

Time management is about making decisions about what is important and what is not.

Process Diagram

Time Management consists of the following major Procedures:

Why

If you don't manage your time you will quickly become overloaded with work.

When and Where

This technique is used throughout the whole project lifecycle and is not limited to any specific project lifecycle phase.

How

1. Work smarter, not harder.
   
   
2. Handle each piece of paper once. Act on it and then either file it or bin it.
   
   
3. Employ the three P's:
   • Prevent Paper Pileups.
4. Hand write responses on original document.
   
   
5. Employ the four D's:
   • Decide it
     
     
   • Do it
     
     
   • Delegate it
     
     
   • Dump it
6. Do the right things rather than do things right.
   
   
7. Don't do low-payoff activities.
   
   
8. What is the best use of my time right now?
   
   
9. List everything you need to do today.
   
   
10. Categorise them into A/B/C or list in order of priority.
    
    
11. Perform Triage.
    
    
12. Perform billable activities first.
    
    
13. Stand up at meetings.
    
    
14. Identify and police quiet time versus Customer-facing time.
    
    
15. Spend 10 minutes each day to plan your day.
    
    
16. Don't be afraid to say "No" to new work if you are swamped with work. Ask for guidance on what can be dropped off your list.
    
    
17. Keep the Monkey Off Your Back
    
    
18. If you run out of ideas on one activity, park it and go on with another. This can also revitalise you.
    
    
19. Group similar activities (like phone calls) together whenever possible.
    
    
20. Make appointments with yourself for important activities you need to do alone.
    
    
21. Every few months, keep strict track of your time for a week. Account for every minute of your day.

Scaling

Also See

Time Management is one of the significant Processes that exist throughout PMMentor (PMM). To print a "Handout Pack" on this Process, create and print a title page and then click on the "Print" button (to print this topic to act as a Table of Contents) and then click on each of the following topics in turn. When the topic is displayed, click on the "Print" button, then click on the "Back" button to return to this topic and choose the next topic to print.

Breadth Then Depth

Delegating

Timeboxing

Triage