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TEAMFLY Team-Fly ® McGraw-Hill New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto Marc Mancini A Briefcase Book Time Management ManciniFM.qxd 3/13/2003 4:10 PM Page i Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data- base or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. 0-07-142557-8 The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: 0-07-140610-7 All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. 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Neither McGraw-Hill nor its licensors shall be liable to you or anyone else for any inac- curacy, error or omission, regardless of cause, in the work or for any damages resulting therefrom. McGraw-Hill has no responsibility for the content of any information accessed through the work. Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of lia- bility shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise. DOI: 10.1036/0071425578 ebook_copyright 8 x 10.qxd 7/7/03 5:11 PM Page 1 Contents Preface vii 1. Taming Time 1 Knowing Your Time Management Style 4 How You Relate to Time 8 Your Environment 9 Where Do the Hours Go? 11 Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 1 12 2. A Few Myths About Managing Your Time 14 Myth 1: Time Management Is Just Another Label for Obsessive Behavior 14 Myth 2: Time Management Extinguishes Spontaneity and Joy 19 Myth 3: Maybe I Can Organize Myself, but My Company Can Never Organize Itself 21 Myth 4: One Style Fits All 24 Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 2 27 3. Lining Up Your Ducks: Prioritize! 29 The ABC System 30 The Index Card/Post-it® System 34 The Inventory System 35 The Payoff System 35 The Pareto Principle 39 Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 3 41 4. Procrastination: The Thief of Time 42 What’s Behind Procrastination? 43 Why Do You Procrastinate? 45 iii ManciniFM.qxd 3/13/2003 4:10 PM Page iii For more information about this title, click here. Copyright © 2003 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click here for Terms of Use. What Are You Procrastinating About? 46 The Eight Factors 46 Conclusion 54 Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 4 55 5. Rocks, Blocks, Goals, and Clusters 56 Establishing Goals 57 Leave Me Alone! 60 Doing Nothing 62 Clustering 62 Discovering Patterns 64 What’s Your Clock? 65 A Few Hints 67 Conclusion 68 Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 5 68 6. How to Delegate Effectively 69 To Whom Can You Delegate? 69 What Can You Delegate? 73 Why Is It Hard to Delegate? 73 The Key Steps of Delegation 74 Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 6 80 7. Learning to Say No 81 What to Say No to 83 How to Say No 84 Dealing with Meetings and Committees 85 If You’re Not the Chairperson 89 Conclusion 90 Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 7 91 8. The Art of Anticipating 93 How Well Do You Anticipate? 94 The Parking Meter Syndrome 95 The False Deadline Strategy 97 The Pack-Rat Approach 98 Gobbledygook 98 The Wallenda Effect 101 Bell’s Blessing (or Curse) 103 The Ultimate Setbacks 108 Conclusion 112 Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 8 112 Contentsiv ManciniFM.qxd 3/13/2003 4:10 PM Page iv 9. Plugging Time Leaks 113 Time Leak #1: Socializing 116 Time Leak #2: Misplacing Things 120 Time Leak #3: Forgetting Things 123 Time Leak #4: Commuting and Air Travel 124 Time Leak #5: Reading Time 127 Time Leak #6: Long-Winded People 128 Conclusion 130 Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 9 131 10. Power Tools for Time Management 132 Five Essential Questions 133 The Basic Hardware 140 Soft Tools 150 The Ultimate Tool: Your Environment 153 Conclusion 156 Manager’s Checklist for Chapter 10 157 Index 158 Contents v ManciniFM.qxd 3/13/2003 4:10 PM Page v This page intentionally left blank. Preface I n the 1950s, as home and work chores became increasingly mechanized and as the electronics revolution hinted at an even more startling efficiency to come, futurists made a bold prediction: by the year 2000, the average person would work only 20 or 30 hours a week. There would be so much leisure time that most of us wouldn’t know what to do with it. We now know that these ’50s oracles were wrong—very wrong. Electronics and automation have sped up life so greatly that, to keep up with the swift flood of tasks and info-bits, most of us work more than 40 hours, not fewer, and have seen our leisure time shrink away. The computer chip didn’t free us. It forced us to produce at its speed. So, we’re on a responsibility overload. Faxes, Federal Express, and e-mail demand instant action. Computers and laser printers pour out 50 personalized letters in minutes— something that once took a secretary all day to do. Conse- quently, our mailboxes and in-bins overflow with all sorts of materials that clamor for our attention. All this communication and the ease of travel mean that the network of people you deal with has grown exponentially. Indeed, you meet more people in one year than your grandpar- ents did in a lifetime. No wonder so many of us have trouble remembering names. To make matters worse, you may have turned to a book on time management for help before, one that argued (as most do) that you must erect great, logic-based ramparts to hold off the disorganized barbarians or super-efficient competitors out there. The author may have suggested that within those barriers you vii ManciniFM.qxd 3/13/2003 4:10 PM Page vii Copyright © 2003 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Click here for Terms of Use. Prefaceviii can reside in a cool, patterned, and neat little environment, practicing the one true religion of time management. If only it were so easy or true. But you know better. More often, you feel overwhelmed, exhausted, defeated. You probably even feel guilty taking the time to read one more book on time management—this one. But there is hope. That’s what this book is all about. The Right Way and the Wrong Way—Maybe Tiffany loves computers. She took to them like a duck to water. So when she needs to shuffle among five documents, she finds that the easiest, most effective way to do so is to open five win- dows on her computer and click among them, going from one document to another, then back again. She can edit them, copy and paste sections from one to another, or combine them into a single document, all with the simple click of a mouse. Jim, on the other hand, is a pen-and-paper kind of guy. He prefers to lay out hardcopies of the five documents on a work- table and label sections of the various documents for change. He makes notes and additions and repaginates by hand. Sometimes, he even cuts and pastes them with tape into a new sequence. Finally, he types his final draft—or, if he has the luxu- ry, he sends it out to be retyped or edited by someone who real- ly gets computer formatting. Neither way is necessarily the “right” or “wrong” approach to accomplish the task. Tiffany and Jim have each developed a way of working that accomplishes what they need to do with the least possible stress, in a manner that makes them feel confi- dent and in control. A good case could be made that using a computerized sys- tem is inherently more time saving than a manual approach. But if we require Jim to do his editing on the computer, we may, at the same time, force him into thinking more about the way the computer works than about the job. While Tiffany’s instinc- tive and immediate grasp of the intricacies of word processing enables her to do the job most efficiently, Jim’s lack of empathy ManciniFM.qxd 3/13/2003 4:10 PM Page viii Preface ix with the way computer programs operate makes software an “efficiency enemy” for him. Instead of struggling to work out how to format a table, he finds it easier and more satisfying to sketch the table by hand and leave the details of formatting to later—or to someone better equipped for that job. Of course, we might suggest to Jim that he take classes on the use of the computer. In today’s work environment, there’s almost no way to be efficient without computer skills. But, by nature, Jim may never become a “natural” like Tiffany. He should certainly try to sharpen his computer skills, but he may never be completely comfortable with them. And Jim’s major talent perhaps lies in a different area. He’s most useful to his company not as a word processor but as a business development manager. While he shuffles among those five documents, the company really wants him focusing on their content—not on cutting and pasting electronically while retain- ing the correct format from one document to another. It’s important to remember, then, while reading Time Management, that not every single suggestion, strategy, or tech- nique will work for you. There will be moments of insight when you think, “Yes! Why didn’t I think of that?” There will be other moments, however, when you conclude, “I couldn’t possibly do that! In fact, I hate doing that!” Be reassured. We are individuals. We learn differently, we work differently, and we succeed using different combinations of methods. Rarely is there a “right” or “wrong” way to organize one’s life. Results are what matter. There are, however, many ways to improve upon the sys- tems you already have in place or to consider entirely fresh ones that can make our life—and your job—easier, more pro- ductive, and more stress-free. This book, we hope, will provide some useful suggestions to accomplish that. It’s up to you to select which strategies are best suited to your particular style of working and which, when incorporated into your routines, will make you more confident in your ability to get the job done—on time, accurately, and with the fewest possible hassles. ManciniFM.qxd 3/13/2003 4:10 PM Page ix . Few Myths About Managing Your Time 14 Myth 1: Time Management Is Just Another Label for Obsessive Behavior 14 Myth 2: Time Management Extinguishes Spontaneity. Page iv 9. Plugging Time Leaks 113 Time Leak #1: Socializing 116 Time Leak #2: Misplacing Things 120 Time Leak #3: Forgetting Things 123 Time Leak #4: Commuting