Time Management: Increase Your Personal Productivity And Effectiveness

Harvard Business Essentials

by Harvard Business Review (Editor)

Time is the one thing no manager has enough of. Through goal setting, prioritizing, delegation, and other proven techniques, this guide helps managers maximize their personal productivity within and their impact on their organizations. The Harvard Business Essentials series provides comprehensive advice, personal coaching, background information, and guidance on the most relevant topics in business. Whether you are a new manager seeking to expand your skills or a seasoned professional looking to broaden your knowledge base, these solution-oriented books put reliable answers at your fingertips.

Genres: Business, Productivity, Management, Self Help

192 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2005

Reviews

[K U S H I K A · Rating 4 out of 5]

# Use goals as Guide

- There are 3 categories
- critical -must be accomplished
- enabling - good for the long term
- nice to have - activities that are pleasant to do
- Reviewing goals is important
- Are they still realistic?
- Are they still timely?
- Are they still relevant?
- how to make a goal list
- GOAL → TASK
- step 1 - divide your goals into small tasks
- step 2 → tag the prioritised tasks as A, B, C, where A represents a higher priority
- step 3 → put the tasks in the correct sequence

| Task and Time | | | |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| GOAL: | description of the goal | | |
| Task# | Activity | time estimated (in minutes) | comments |
| sequence no. | what do you have to do? | time | other descriptions like references or others |
- gather data → outline report → write report →curculate for comments → revise → submit report

# How to spend your time

- Have a Daily Activity log/tracker
- The first step of time management is to understand how you currently spend the time you have. You can accomplish this by keeping an activity log for three to five days.
- It's simpler to analyze an activity log if you label each activity with a general category (e.g., travel) and assign it a goal-related priority.
- Analyse your activity log
- From Analysis to change
- The final step is problem correction. the best way to correct the problem is to develop more effective habits of behaviour by repeatedly practicing the effetive behaviour until it becomes a habit.

# Scheduling time

- Scheduling tools
- To-do list
- Appointment calendars
- Scheduling software and hardware
- Daily and weekly planners
- Building your schedule: A priority tasks
- Schedule only part of your day
- Schedule high-priority work first
- Avoid back-to-back meetings if possible
- Consolidate tasks such as e-mail, paperwork, and phonecalls when possible
- As the week progresses move uncompleted priority tasks to future open points
- try scheduling backwards
- Your to-do list must include
- meetings you are scheduled to attend
- Decisions you must make
- Calls you must make or expect you receive
- Memos, letters, and e-mails you must write
- Unfinished A, B priority business from the privious day

# Time Robbers

- Procrastination - the habit of delaying or putting off doing something that should be done now → delay in high-priority work/tasks
- Reasons for procrastination
- the task is unpleasant or uninteresting
- you fear failure
- you don’t know where to begin
1. Some cures for this form of procrastination:
- If it's feasible to delegate unpleasant tasks, do so. Tasks that are unpleasant to you might not be unpleasant to someone else.
- If you cannot delegate those tasks, admit to yourself that you are procrastinating because you find them unpleasant. Doing this requires an ability to get outside your skin and look at the situation objectively. This is difficult but is the first step to saying, "Yes, this is unpleasant, but I'll just have to bite the bullet and do the job."
- Procrastination usually produces guilt and internal dissatisfaction. So if you catch yourself avoiding certain jobs, think about the relief you feel after you’ve addressed the unpleasant task. that good feeling may be a significant incentive to get you to move.
2. Fear of failure
- due to a lack of self-confidence
- it is just a mental obstacle
3. Not knowing where to start
- Jumping anywhere could be a reason
- should divide your goals into small tasks
- put it in a priority-wise manner
- start doing the tasks

[T.F. · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is quite an useful books. Nothing really out of the box. But puts things in perspective and helps in thinking through things clearly.In some ways, a book that reinfornces your original idea is better than wierd ideas.

[Kaustubh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was published in 2005, I read it in 2021. With changing times of course some things are outdated. With already dynamic, fast paced jobs that we have, many tips widespread which we may be already following; the best part is that this book is more 'everyday business guide' than just time management. Time management is only first three chapters, rest is business. Always love the guidance frameworks provided by Harvard Business books that support practical use and are combined with appropriate case studies. Useful, relatable and well crafted.

[Christina Onasis · Rating 4 out of 5]

More fit in for corporate..

[Dzung Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not anything special. I skimmed through it. There are actually some good ideas but overall, not a "wow" book for me.

[Jeanne Boyarsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I consider myself good at time management, I like to read a couple time management techniques when my life has changed in a way that no longer suits my current "system." This system doesn't come from a book although it is inspired by techniques from many places. Reading this book helped in my goal. I actually think I've read this book before many years ago. It still provided ideas, which is fine. That's the nice thing about time management. Techniques change over time to match how you work with time.

It's actually hard to review this book because it contains everything one would expect in a business book about time management - logging your time, scheduling it, prioritizing, delegating, dealing with time wasters.

I particularly liked the sections about time robbers and travel because I read the book on a plane!

[Hansell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful I guess. Good to be reminded!

[Bhupesh Doda]

very helpful

[Paul Fournier · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very helpful advice. The "Summing Up" sections at the end of every chapter are particularly good and can easily be typed up in a separate document for future reference.