Self-discipline and a good memory – are these the keys to great time management and efficiency? Steven Naudé has neither, so he used tools to help him manage his time – you might find them useful too.
My memory is poor and has always been – it has nothing to do with age (in my case). For as long as I can remember (!) I have devised ways to help me remember things, names, places. I used to carry little pieces of note paper in my pockets to remind me of things I needed to do. I always carried a pen and a piece of paper in case I thought of something. In any conversation, I would likely scribble something down. Business was good for stationers and paper merchants with me around!
Over time, I developed more sophisticated coping mechanisms by using available technology. This is the story of how I learnt to manage time. You may find it very basic and obvious, but it took me many years to make the most of my time. This is what has worked for me:
Step 1: Get it out of your head
At some stage, I realised that my mind had limited RAM and that if I tried to remember everything, I would have little computing power left for anything else. I would walk around repeating my to-do list to myself (silently, of course!). Then I started using the first great aid: The List. What a huge relief it was to have something written down. This left room for more important thoughts. I was in ‘list mode’ for many years; I even had a list next to my bed… just in case.
Judging by the number of to-do list apps, I am not the only one who needs to make lists. Microsoft Tasks, Google Keep notes, To-doist and many others have varying levels of sophistication, prices, integration and shareability. As a family we use Google Keep for our communal shopping list, it is excellent and free.
Step 2: Prioritise
A shopping list is great because it lists everything you need to buy when you get to the shops – genius! But it is a list of things you can do in one place at one time. Life and work are not that simple; there are tasks of varying importance, with different deadlines, some work-related, some personal – it can quickly become a right royal mess.
If we prioritise, things start making more sense. Even though it is possible (even easy) to scan through a list and find your highest priority, it is better not to do this in the heat of the moment. I’m a firm believer in using Stephen Covey’s time management matrix to prioritize my to-do list.
Step 3: Set a deadline
As an ex-journalist, I have a healthy respect for deadlines. If you commit to delivering a task on a deadline it gives certainty – the deadline is a non-negotiable ‘line in the sand’.
The first problem with deadlines is that they indicate when a task needs to be completed, not when it should be started. The second is that Friday 5 pm tends to be the accumulation point of every deadline for the week and these tasks are typically started at 4:45 pm on a Friday afternoon! Have you ever had a long list that has surreptitiously sneaked through every day of the week completely untouched? Like dirty laundry, these tasks accumulate in a nasty, smelly pile. This is how deadlines become dead lions.
Step 4: Sequence and duration
Tasks find a spot in a sequence when you determine priorities. Now estimate the duration. How long should it take?
You should now have:
- Deadline
- Priority
- Sequence
- Duration
Step 5: Create a schedule
The next step is to create a calendar, in other words, convert the task into an appointment with an allocated time and place. Now, it is a manageable item.
Like to-do lists, there are several scheduling apps. My favourite is Click-Up which integrates with any calendar, allows collaboration, can easily flip into a Gantt chart and has list, tabs, cards, and calendar views.
Step 6: Respect the schedule
A schedule is great, but what happens when life interferes? A sick child can destroy the best-laid plans. A production crisis can mess up a perfect plan. A pandemic can be a tad disruptive.
It is at these times that a schedule comes into its own. A schedule can be reorganised because it is a detailed picture of what needs to be done. Think of it as Tetris; you know what shape you have, you just need to find a gap that matches, in the same way, tasks can be moved and redistributed.
No matter how detailed and beautiful, a schedule is a waste of time if you don’t use it. If there’s a task to be done, do it. Start on time and aim to finish ahead of time.