Making Better Use of Your Time

Time Management is one of the most common challenges people face in today’s businesses.  IT Managers are often pulled in so many directions—most of which are outside their control.  Demand often outstrips the supply of your time.  Calendars, in-baskets and task lists are full with no end in sight, especially lately as most of us have been forced to accomplish more with less!

So what can you do to seek relief from the stress caused by this situation?  How can you find the time to accomplish what you are supposed to?

The first approach I suggest is to assess where your time is going.  If you keep good records, you can go back and study the patterns of your time spent over the last few weeks as long as it was reflective of your normal routines.  Otherwise start keeping a journal of time for the next few weeks (one or two of them).  Once collected, analyze the data for patterns.

The next step is to identify your top responsibilities, roles and associated goals and determine the amount of time you have been spending on them.   This exercise will allow you to see if you have been operating in alignment with your top priorities or not.  It will show you who and what has been dominating your time.

There is only one way to accomplish goals and key responsibilities and that is to spend time doing things that have an impact on them.  Without alignment there is no accomplishment!

Another approach I have found useful to help me rebalance my time is based on a theory I learned  a  few years ago from a book written by Dr. Ichak Adizes.  In his books he identified four “Management Style Prototypes” that I have found useful in helping me assess and rebalance tendencies in myself and others that cause time to be wasted.

Adizes fits his four styles into a 2×2 matrix as follows in the figure below.  Management styles are assigned according to four dimensions including a manager’s priority, focus, speed and process preferences.  For example, the “Integrator” style is a person who tends to follow an unstructured process, tends to pay more attention to “the process”, tends to have a global (big picture) focus, and tends to act slower.    According to Adizes, to be successful, businesses should build management teams with individuals representing all the styles.

I agree with Dr. Adizes that we all have tendencies (habits) that make us fit in one of the four quadrants.  However, I suggest that increasing our self-awareness of our tendencies can help us become more balanced.  Thus, we can apply the most appropriate style to each specific situation we face.   In my experience, when I rebalance these dimensions I become much more productive with the use of my time.

So what I recommend you do, in order to rebalance yourself, is to ask yourself the following questions:

• Where do I need to slow down?
• Where do I need to speed up?
• Where do I need to take a more global (look at the big picture) view?
• Where do I need to take a more local (look at the details) view?
• Where do I need to focus on the process?
• Where do I need to focus on the results?
• Where do I need less structure?
• Where do I need more structure?

Do this in context of your key roles, responsibilities and goals and you will see how you will be able to shift and align your time much better and accomplish more!

In order for this method to be successful, it is critical that you have a clear understanding of your role, responsibilities and goals before you assess anything.

The BEST is Yet to Come!

Epi Torres, CEO