It's 5 o'clock and it's decision time. You've done a good day's work and yet there's more to do before going home. What do you do?
You could stay another hour or two and finish what's left of the
in-tray, or that outstanding report, or all those other jobs you have
been meaning to get round to.
Does staying late mean you are loyal, showing commitment, and earning
your pay? Or does it mean you are inefficient, poor at prioritising,
and that you got caught up in the latest crisis?
On the other hand, you could leave work now and get home at a reasonable time. If you leave on time, are you a clock watcher, not a team player and look like you are skiving? Or are you highly organised, focussed on the important tasks, and can balance the demands of work and home -- an example to us all?
Law of Diminishing Returns
Research shows that the amount of time a manager works is not directly related to his or her usefulness to the company. Our effectiveness at work cannot be maintained over a long period without sufficient rest. For example, our state of mind is a significant factor in our ability to make high quality decisions, and this in turn is strongly influenced by our level of tiredness and physical well-being. We cannot escape the law of diminishing returns unless we take regular breaks.
We can, however, ensure we make best use of the time available. A
recent survey by the Institute of Business Technology found that
managers received 75% more information than they needed in order to
do their jobs. Also, office workers pick up the same piece of paper 3
or 4 times before doing anything with it. The result for an
organisation is paperwork can be handled up to 30 times before any
action is taken!
We can make a contribution to improving our management of time by:
No matter how much we do or how well we do it, at some point we have to answer the question: "How do I know when I've done enough for the day?" Maybe it is the number of hours worked, the number of reports written, or the number of customers seen. Yet imagine Shakespeare judging the quality of his work by how long he had sat at the computer and the number of words he had typed!
What is being measured here is productivity and efficiency. But without a measure of effectiveness, you are measuring quantity, not quality ... doing things right is not necessarily doing the right thing.
The 7 P's
Effectiveness is the accomplishment of goals that contribute to the success of the organisation. It requires us to focus on what is important in the long run rather than what is urgent today. Highly effective managers are characterised by spending up to 80% of their time on the 7 P's:
Becoming more disciplined about the use of time is learned gradually. However, be prepared it may seem like the moment you set out to change your working habits, your in-tray will swell to twice it's normal size and a dozen 'urgent' tasks will arrive out of nowhere.
You could think of these as opportunities to test you resolve--to test your commitment to doing it differently. At times like this it can really help to take a moment to ask:
Acting on the honest answer to this question will not only improve your effectiveness, it will boost your self-esteem and personal integrity... the foundation of true success.
Recommended Reading: S Covey, A Merrill, & R Merrill 'First things First' (1994) Simon & Schuster, New York
©1996 James Lawley
Other business related articles by James Lawley:
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