Time Management Training – Time planning – Manage Yourself, Not your time!

With ever-increasing workloads and deadlines, the ability to manage our time has never been more important. Time management is a crucial factor in work and our time management courses are created to ensure that delegates can make their time keeping as efficient and effective as possible. We do this by supplying a time management training course that is full of tools and tips for improving time management, time planning, delegation, organisation and management strategies, managing meetings, managing e-mails as well as handling and using time effectively. Our time management course will cover subjects such as goal setting, improving organisation skills and managing time successfully. Our seminars are packed with useful tips and techniques that allow you to become a better time manager instantly.

Follow our tips to manage you time better.

There are common time wasters which need to be identified

In order for a time management process to work it is important to know what aspects of our personal management need to be improved. Below you will find some of the most frequent reasons for reducing effectiveness in the workplace. Tick the ones which are causing to be the major obstacles to your own time management. These we refer to as your “Time Stealers”.

Identifying your time stealers

  • Interruptions – telephone
  • Interruptions – personal visitors
  • Meetings
  • Tasks you should have delegated
  • Procrastination and indecision
  • Acting with incomplete information
  • Dealing with team members
  • Crisis management (fire fighting)
  • Unclear communication
  • Inadequate technical knowledge
  • Unclear objectives and priorities
  • Lack of planning
  • Stress and fatigue
  • Inability to say “No”
  • Desk management and personal disorganisation

Fortunately there are strategies you can use to manage your time, be more in control and reduce stress, but you can analyse your time and see how you may be both the cause and the solution to your time challenges.

Below, we examine time management issues in more detail

1. Shifting priorities and crisis management

Management guru Peter Drucker says that “crisis management is actually the form of management preferred by most managers” The irony is that actions taken prior to the crisis could have prevented the fire in the first place.

2. The telephone

Have you ever had one of those days when you thought your true calling was in Telemarketing. The telephone-our greatest communication tool can be our biggest enemy to effectiveness if you don’t know how to control its hold over you.

3. Lack of priorities/objectives

This probably the biggest/ most important time waster. It affects all we do both professionally and personally. Those who accomplish the most in a day know exactly what they want to accomplish. Unfortunately too many of us think that goals and objectives are yearly things and not daily considerations. This results in too much time spent on the minor things and not on the things which are important to our work/lives

4. Attempting too much

Many people today feel that they have to accomplish everything yesterday and don’t give themselves enough time to do things properly. This leads only to half finished projects and no feeling of achievement.

5. Drop in visitors

The five deadliest words that rob your time are “Have you got a minute”. Everyone’s the culprit-colleagues., the boss, your peers. Knowing how to deal with interruptions is one of the best skills you can learn .

6. Ineffective delegation

Good delegation is considered a key skill in both managers and leaders. The best managers have an ability to delegate work to staff and ensure it is done correctly. This is probably the best way of building a teams moral and reducing your workload at the same time. The general rule is -this; if one of your staff can do it 80% as well as you can, then delegate it.

7. The cluttered desk

When you have finished reading this article look at your desk. If you can see less than 80% of it then you are probably suffering from ‘desk stress’. The most effective people work from clear desks.

8. Procrastination

The biggest thief of time; not decision making but decision avoidance. By reducing the amount of procrastinating you do you can substantially increase the amount of active time available to you.

9. The inability to say “no!”

The general rule is; if people can dump their work or problems on to your shoulders they will do it . Some of the most stressed people around lack the skill to ‘just say no’ for fear of upsetting people.

10. Meetings

Studies have shown that the average manager spends about 17 hours a week in meetings and about 6 hours in the planning time and untold hours in the follow up. I recently spoke to an executive who has had in the last 3 months 250 meetings It is widely acknowledged that about as much of a third of the time spent in meetings is wasted due to poor meeting management and lack of planning If you remember your goal is to increase your self management, these are the best ways to achieve this;

There are many ways we can manage our time. We have listed some strategies you can use to manage your time.

1. Always define your objectives as clearly as possible

Do you find you are not doing what you want because your goals have not been set. One of the factors which mark out successful people is their ability to work out what they want to achieve and have written goals which they can review them constantly. Your long term goals should impact on your daily activities and be included on your “to do” list. Without a goal or objective people tend to just drift personally and professionally

2. Analyse your use of time

Are you spending enough time on the projects which although may not be urgent now are the things you need to do to develop yourself or your career. If you are constantly asking yourself “What is the most important use of my time, right now?” it will help you to focus on ‘important tasks’ and stop reacting to tasks which seem urgent (or pleasant to do) but carry no importance towards your goals.

3. Have a plan

How can you achieve your goals without a plan. Most people know what they want but have no plan to achieve it except by sheer hard work. Your yearly plan should be reviewed daily and reset as your achievements are met. Successful people make lists constantly. It enables them to stay on top of priorities and enable them to remain flexible to changing priorities. This should be done for both personal and business goals.

4. Action plan analysis

Problems will always occur, the value of a good plan is to identify them early and seek out solutions. Good time management enables you to measure the progress towards your goals because “What you can measure, you can control”. Always try to be proactive.

Time management (or self management) is not a hard subject to understand, but unless you are committed to build time management techniques into your daily routine you’ll only achieve partial (or no) results and then make comments such as “I tried time management once and it doesn’t work for me”. The lesson to learn is that the more time we spend planning our time and activities the more time we will have for those activities. By setting goals and eliminating time wasters and doing this everyday you may find you will have extra time in the week to spend on those people and activities most important to you.

Our training is carried out in a risk free environment which encourages delegates to practice the skills needed for successful appraisals. We use a number of training methods including role-play, video, audio, workshops and group exercises to enhance the learning process.

Why choose Total Success for your training?

  • our lead trainers have over 18 years experience in training
  • a maximum of 8 delegates means more time spent on individual needs
  • we guarantee to run the course and will never cancel at the last moment
  • free subscription to our monthly training newsletter

All open courses are trained in Central London at the St Giles Hotel.

Each delegate receives a comprehensive training workbook that doubles as an open course manual. Courses run from 9.30-5.30 with lunch and refreshments provided.

Time Management In-Company Courses

Total Success have developed a series of in-house training modules. These are designed so that an organisation can pick the training which is more applicable to its own needs and budget. Please call us to discuss your specific requirements. If you click on the links below you will see some typical one-day time management course agendas that cover a wide range of subjects from prioritising, delegating, assertiveness, managing interruptions, managing e-mail, using Outlook calendar, tasks etc. In fact we pride ourselves on being able to develop courses that suit all our clients needs and requirements.

Time Management Training Packs

Why use a total success training pack

If you are looking to run your own training course but lack the materials and the time to develop a fully functional training seminar we produce a range of training materials and packs which will suit your requirements exactly. All of our packs and been written by our own time management experts and we can guarantee that the training pack will satisfy your course requirements. Each pack will contain a full set of PowerPoint training slides, trainer’s notes, a course manual, and a full set of handouts and activities.

We have been running our courses since 1995 and have trained 1000’s of people via open courses and in-company seminars. We guarantee that the course you buy is the one we train. All courses are trainer and trainee friendly so you’ll be up and running quickly (depending on your training experience).

We know how difficult it is to choose amongst the many training materials available on line, that’s why we have 3 packages that will suit you needs. With our gold, silver and bronze packages you can choose the training format that’s right for you and your budget. Call us 0044 (0)208 269 1177 to discuss your requirements or email us info@totalsuccess.co.uk

Related information

Total success training also produced a number of newsletter webpages that carry great information on all our training topics.  Below you will find a selection of time management newsletter pages. You can click on any of the links and they will give you stacks of really interesting information relating to time management. If you like the content of these pages you can subscribe to our newsletter page and we will send you a newsletter every month. we update our pages very regularly so will always be more great information each time you log onto our site.

Click on any of these links for stacks of great tips and techniques on managing time

Time Management book’s and publications

The Book. If you really don’t have the time to attend one of our fantastic time management training courses and seminars, don’t worry. You can still enhance your knowledge and skills by purchasing time management training information from our website. Our lead trainer, Warren Wint has written a book entitled ‘Successful Time Management’ which is packed with tips and techniques to help you manage your time more effectively and more efficiently. You can purchase the book by clicking on the link below and downloading it to your own computer

Bite-sized Training Guides. We had also produced a range of bite-sized training guides on various subjects relating to time management. These short guides are written to give enough information on the topics that interest you. We include topics such as managing e-mail, setting goals and prioritising, the art and skill of effective delegation, and managing busy workloads and deadlines. These are designed for you to work through your topics in approximately 30 to 40 min, and not only give you valuable information but also include exercises and activities to enable you to learn at your own pace and on the go. These are very competitively priced at 99p each because we want you to not only gain valuable information but also to keep coming back and purchasing more to enable you to become a fabulous manager of time. Click the links below and download our training guides as PDF documents so you will be able to start achieving your goals today!

Podcasts

We produce a range of podcasts and audio downloads that you can download to hear how we conduct our training courses. These are available in live audio if you click on the links below and it’s almost like being on one of our courses. They allow you to hear how we carry out some of the topics in our time management training courses. If you like them and want to hear more please go to our Podcast pages on the website

Listen to our Time Management Podcasts