Mary’s co-worker astonished her at how much her co-worker regularly got done. Mary would think she’d had a productive day, only to find out that her co-worker had done twice as much. Mary had no clear idea how her co-worker accomplished so much. Her co-worker didn’t seem to work a lot of extra hours. But Mary could see some hints of her co-worker’s efficiency in little habits and practices. For one, her co-worker clearly kept an accurate and up-to-date record of her assignments and progress on her assignments, including their due dates. Yet her co-worker didn’t seem constantly hurried and burdened by deadlines, like Mary. Finally, one day when Mary just couldn’t keep up under the blizzard of deadlines, she resolved to ask her co-worker for tips in managing her schedule.
Schedules
Take some practical advice in this chapter. For real success, many jobs require the worker to adroitly juggle assignments and schedules. If that’s your job, then you know that you must keep accurate track of assignments and their due dates, while making progress on assignments to complete them on schedule. Nearly all work has some kind of schedule. Much work has a reasonably precise schedule with specific delivery dates. For lawyers, those delivery dates may be court hearings and trials, sale closings, and client meetings. For physicians, delivery dates may be surgery schedules, office visits, or prompt lab reviews or consulting reports. For event planners, delivery is the wedding or banquet date. Few workers have only a single assignment at a time. Assignments overlap, and work piles up. New employees often feel overwhelmed, and sometimes even succumb, to the blizzard of new assignments. The workplace can at times feel like the old saying, If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Management
Managing job assignments and work time well is critical to job success. Success in this area begins with sound time management. One can’t actually manage time. Time passes on its own schedule. But you can manage your activities as time passes. One way to do so productively is to work while at work. That may sound too obvious, but many workers find ways to avoid working at work or fall into habits that distract from work while at work. Don’t get distracted or distract others, standing around the water cooler while talking sports. It’s fine to exchange pleasantries, but then get to work. You can relax on scheduled breaks or at home. Develop the habit of working diligently while at work. If someone regularly interrupts you with irrelevant chatter, politely tell them that you’ve got to get back to work. They’ll soon find someone else to interrupt. If you don’t finish your work at work, you’ll end up paying for it by staying late or taking work home. Generally, the more diligently you work while at work, the more relief you’ll have from work while at home. Time management involves managing your activities so that you work diligently and productively while on the clock.
Procrastination
Another key to effective time management, beyond the obvious but often-missed rule to work diligently while at work, is to avoid procrastination at all costs. To procrastinate is to set something aside on which one could and should be working, presumably to complete at a later date. The problem with procrastination is that new assignments, emergencies, or other matters may arise, preventing you from completing the work over which you procrastinated. A related problem with procrastination is that due dates tend to pile up when you delay or ignore work. You’ll soon feel the burden of those due dates and begin to despise that burden. The remedy is not to quit work or shirk assignments but to quit procrastinating. A good way to reduce procrastination is to begin with the first small steps, any project that you are resisting. If you’re ruing having to write a lengthy report, just open and title the word processing file. See there? That wasn’t that hard. And now that you’ve got the file open, you may as well caption the report, which may only take another minute. And you know, now that you’ve got a caption, just go ahead and write the introductory sentence or paragraph. Use this incremental-steps method to get started on any project you find yourself resisting. Open the file, get out the tools, clear the workbench, or pull out the drawings. Small actions tend to stir momentum for larger actions and reduce or eliminate procrastination.
Assignment
Another great way to avoid procrastination and increase both your productivity and the quality of your work is to work on projects from the time of assignment rather than backward from due dates. Don’t look at a due date to figure that you’ve got a week or a month to complete a new assignment, and then put it aside for a later date. If you have any available time, start on that assignment as soon as you receive it, even if you believe that you have substantial time to complete it later. Don’t plan projects to finish them on their due date. You don’t know what other project might interrupt you or how the assigned project may raise an issue that keeps you from completing it in the time remaining. Instead, plan to finish an assigned project as soon as you reasonably can, even if well before the due date. When you finish projects early, you can revisit them during the remaining time to improve their quality. You’ll often find yourself having a new idea to improve or correct a project that you thought you’d completed to standards. Finishing early also relieves you from the pressure of multiple approaching due dates. You’ll feel better about your work when due dates are not pressuring you into rushing through work, making more errors, producing lower-quality work, or working overtime. Work from assignment, not backward from due dates.
Deadlines
Calendar all due dates. We call them deadlines for a reason, that the consequences of missing a due date can be severe. In some jobs and fields, you simply don’t miss deadlines, the consequences are so literally fatal, as in emergency medicine, or figuratively severe, as in a host of other fields. As soon as you receive an assignment, calculate its due date, and confirm that date with anyone, whether a supervisor, customer, or client, who is depending on your work. If the work will take more than a day, add a reminder to your calendar far enough ahead of the due date to get working on the project. Check your calendar ahead for a week or two weeks each day when beginning work and when you leave work for the weekend, so that you can be sure that you’re aware of all approaching due dates. If you are doing especially critical work, have a co-worker or administrative assistant double calendar your due dates to remind you if you are approaching and seem to be missing any of them or if you fall ill and are absent from work. Your ability to consistently meet all deadlines can go a long way toward ensuring your job success.
Priorities
Success in managing multiple assignments on schedule depends, though, on more than these effective general time-management skills. Scheduling success also depends on prioritizing projects. It would be convenient if you could do projects in the order you received them, first in first out, last in last out. But that’s often not the case. Some projects can have earlier due dates or higher priority than other projects. You may have to choose among two or more projects, as to which has the higher priority. Check with your supervisor when assignments leave you unsure of their priority. Even if you can get all assigned projects done by their due dates, work first on higher-priority projects to ensure that they get done before lower-priority projects, in case of your delay or interruption. Be aware of your balancing projects between both their urgency, meaning those that are due soonest, and their importance, meaning those that have the greatest value and priority to your employer and its customers or clients. Don’t get caught continually doing the urgent while ignoring the important. Do the urgent when you must, but be sure even more to do the important.
Lists
Depending on your number of assignments at any one time and their approaching due dates, you may benefit from deriving a task list or to-do list of assignments on which to work. Consider ranking each project in your task list with a 1, 2, or 3, or an A, B, and C, reflecting their value or priority, to help you work on priority projects rather than merely urgent projects. But also recognize that doing projects that you can complete quickly can help clear your mind, shorten your list, and fuel your energy for more work. A good practice can be to get the quick and easy projects out of the way to clear the deck for the bigger projects. But balance that pragmatic approach with commitment to the high-priority projects. Don’t get caught in the cycle of doing lots of little, low-priority projects while missing the work on the big, high-priority projects. Constantly adjust your practice for the greatest benefit to your employer and its customers or clients.
Background
Have a background project in the works at all times, something to which you can turn when no higher-priority project is occupying your time. You may find that from time to time, something interrupts your high-priority work, putting it on pause. It may be that you have to wait for a supervisor’s approval or wait for a part or repair. You can fill those frustrating and unproductive moments, when you have a background project at hand. You may soon find that even while you’re mostly occupied with high-priority work, you can make real progress on those deep, long-term, background projects. A background project may not even involve customer or client work. It may instead involve improving an employer resource or process, such as updating a database or reorganizing a tool closet. Your supervisor will deeply appreciate that you can improve work processes and efficiencies, even while you produce abundant customer or client work.
Reflection
Examine your assignments, calendaring, and task list practices. Do they serve you adequately? Would any of the above tips improve your time management and scheduling practices? Look around your workplace for the most efficient and productive co-workers. Ask them to show you how they manage their work flow with calendars, lists, and prioritizing. Show your best time-manager co-workers what you’re doing to see if they can suggest any modifications to improve your time-management skills. Give yourself an attitude check, too. Are you working from deadline rather than assignment? Or are you procrastinating? If so, commit to improving those practices, and monitor your progress. Examine your task list to see if you need to prioritize tasks more clearly. And finally, identify some background projects on which you can work when on hold with your higher-priority assignments. Ask your supervisor for those projects if you can’t discern any on your own.
Key Points
Job success can depend on managing multiple assignments timely.
Work diligently while at work, putting off interruptions.
Avoid procrastination at all costs, by starting with small steps.
Work from the time of assignment rather than back from deadlines.
Promptly record and continuously monitor all due dates.
Prioritizing projects properly can ensure timely delivery.
Deriving a task list reflecting relative priorities can help monitor.
Background-project work during interruptions increases productivity.