If you are a manager or leader right now, chances are that you have to deliver more with fewer resources.  Despite this you are still expected to provide all of the key things necessary to run the business.  You know, pay staff, pay suppliers, do appraisals to name just a few.  So how can you get smarter with how you use your time and get things done?

1. Time Audit

Where are you spending your time?  Ask most managers and leaders this and you will get a vague answer.  The key to being smarter with how you use your time is a time audit.  Make sure this covers a typical work cycle so that you can get real insights where your time is going.

2. Know Your Priorities

What are your 3-5 key priorities?  Armed with this information and your time audit, you can quickly determine whether your time is being spent on what matters- your key priorities.  After all you want to spending time on things that are important to the organisation and your success.

3. Cut out the unproductive stuff

If you are doing something that is not necessary for you to do, stop doing it.  Delegate it, outsource it and even question if it is necessary.

4. Make a list of your time wasters

We all have things that fall into the time waster category.  What’s on your list? 

• Meetings that are just talking shops and never result in any productive outcomes. 

• Checking every e-mail as soon as it arrives.

Make a list of your time wasters and commit to doing something about them.

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I delivered a free teleseminar earlier today on transforming productivity and results.  In preparing for the event I was considering the whole myth of the shortage of time.  The reality is that we all have exactly the same amount of time available to us:

24 hours in day

168 hours in a week

744 hours in a 31 day month

8,760 hours in a year

So what really matters is what we do with the time that we have been allocated.  Leave a comment with your top tips and click here to listen to the call replay.

I have recently being doing a survey on peoples biggest challenges.  One of the most common challenges seems to be time management.  So if you are challenged when it comes to your time, what can you do about it?

1. Plan how you are going to use it
2. Set time limits for individual tasks
3. Look at your time stealers and tackle them
4. Don’t set yourself up for failure by being overly optimistic about what you can achieve
5. Keep a track of where your time is going

What else would you add to the list?

I wonder how often we all say or hear others say that there is not enough time. Trouble is we cannot add to the number of hours available in a day, week or month. As a result it is how we use and manage the time that we have have available that matters. For me there are three key questions to answer in improving your time management.

1. What are my priorities?
2. Where am I spending my time?
3. What are my time stealers?

What other questions would you add to the list?

A lot of people talk about not having enough time.  However, the amount of time we have available is not going to increase.  There are only 24 hours in day or 168 hours in a week.  It is how we use that time that matters.  We all have things that I call time stealers.  These time stealers take our attention away from the things that matter to getting results.  They include things like:

• E-mail
• Text messaging
• Surfing the internet
• Chatting on the phone during work time

What are your biggest time stealers and what have you found to be most effective in addressing them?