Planning and organizing your time
Planning and organizing your time
On a daily basis
- Plan tomorrow today:
- List all the things you need to do.
- Value each task, prioritize them in terms of importance and urgency.
- Complete certain tasks together, e.g. telephoning, dictating, reading.
- Calculate the time needed for each activity.
- Allocate parts of the day to deal with each group of tasks.
- Leave part of your day free to deal with the unexpected.
- Highlight one major objective for the day and complete it.
- Think about what is your best time for working and complete important tasks during this period.
- Reduce interruptions.
- Plan a reflective ‘thinking’ period for part of your day.
- Review your daily plans.
- Remember you cannot influence the length of the working day.
- Travel by train, it is preferable to car journeys. You can work on the way and arrive fresh.
- Which of the following activities do you feel uncomfortable about doing:
- Sitting and thinking, however important?
- Sitting and reading, however relevant?
- Having a clear desk, however effective?
- Do the above activities generate important results for you? If they do, why should you feel guilty?
