Time management, Is this just another buzz word?

Question

I plan my working day at the start, switch on the comuter, ding dong, emails flying at me at the rate of nots then the phone starts to ring, then one by one staff come to me with their own issues. then i look at my watch... half an hour to go before home time so i end up staying on late or finishing of at home. This is driving me crazy. Is this the norm????

Answer 1

More and more so yes. One thing is people try to over multitask. You get less done when you try to multitask too much. TRY to work on one thing at a time. Write down on and old fashioned piece of paper all the things you have to do, then try to stay on one or two at a time. Working from home can be risky. People think you're doing everything in an amount of time that is not accurate. BUT, working from home can be seen as a huge plus to a boss who is ready to advance somebody. Unfortunately, many times, you are just being taken advantage of! GOOD LUCK!!

Answer 2

Yes, in this climate of immediate communication, what you're experiencing is just a sign of the times.

Time Management IS a buzz word but if you use make full use of it, it can go a long way to reducing stress and rebalancing the work/life ratio.

One of the rules I learnt on a time management course was to aspire to handle something only once: "deal with it" or "file it" or "bin it". The theory sounds wonderful, if one can make it work!

Try to be more proactive, rather than reactive. If something's coming in that will take up a lot of time, put the relevant people on standy, get the necessary materials in, etc so when it hits, you're ready for it.

If you have an "open door" policy, you could have, say, 30 mins/an hour, etc, in the morning and/or afternoon where your door is shut (indicating to others that you do not want to be disturbed) and you blitz your emails and or return phone calls. What is urgent, what can wait a day, what can wait a bit longer and try to steam through them.

Delegation is also a good thing to incorporate into your working life, if possible.

I'm not sure if you'll be able to use any of the above, but there's not much worse in office life where you feel obliged to stay behind/take work home whether or not you want to.

Answer 3

A Buzz Word? - you need to Think Outside the Envelope, for End User Upgrade (training) or get some Lateral Promotion (more responsibility - same pay) then you can send the BMW's (Bitchers Moaners and Whiners) back to being On Task (working). Finally you'll find yourself Out of Runway. (The point when you realize that no matter how hard you work it'll be impossible to meet an approaching deadline)

Answer 4

time management is an invention for people who work in cloud cuckoo land and only have a few different topics of work to deal with at any one time, i like u have a never ending stream of emails telephone calls and queries from my staff to deal with that are impossible to manage, the only way i cope with this is to take my laptop home turn off the mobile and spend the odd afternoon catching up on my work, as long as u enjoy the work keep going but try to go home early to do the work.

Answer 5

Time management works as long as you have the time to finish your work,but saying that, i did a course a few years ago and learnt some valuable lessons on time wasters and how to deal with them.So if you can get on the coarse,if its still no help, talk to your manager about your work load.
p.s if your in Management yourself, yes this is pretty much the norm.

Answer 6

no it's not normal. Sounds like you're a talented, driven lady who could easily find a job where you're allowed to draw breath occasionally.

(gosh! do I really?)

Answer 7

Yep. You'd think technology would make life easier but it doesn't. It just makes you forget about how much easier life isn't.

Answer 8

The same here... is it only you who can answer the phone? i have an advantage then: I am stuck with e-mails