I recently started reading Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive. Peter Drucker is a well-known productivity expert who is also known as the “Father of Modern Management.”
With this, he starts his recommendation of being effective as something that relates to time. I’ve shared this before, and I will share this again. Time is the scarcest resource a person has. It’s something so unique that no one can replenish it. Once time passes by, that’s it, whether you like it or not.
Drucker shares that effectivity starts with managing one’s time. And coincidentally, it does not start with planning, but rather it starts by finding out where your time actually goes. Before reading this, I was actually in a belief that it starts with planning! I’m quite surprised with this.
I’ve read a number of books already about productivity and time management, but I don’t think I’ve come across a book that shared the same sentiment. Drucker, one of the most influential people in the field of time management and personal productivity, advises that we begin with time tracking rather than time planning.
Most conventional suggestions or knowledge begin with planning.
In this post, we will discuss:
Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity. It is a juggling act of various demands of study, social life, employment, family, and personal interests and commitments with the finiteness of time.
It is a critical skill that can benefit all people. It may be especially important for those who have trouble organizing and prioritizing tasks, or for those who have a hard time saying “no” to requests for their time.
Time management is important because it allows you to accomplish more in a shorter period of time, which leads to more free time, which lets you take advantage of learning opportunities, lowers your stress, and helps you focus, which leads to more career success.
It also allows you to set priorities, so that you can spend your time on tasks that are important as opposed to reacting to demands that may not be as important.
Good time management can help you get things done faster and increase productivity.
And according to Drucker, how can you manage others if you can’t even manage your own time?
Time is a limited resource, meaning we only have a certain amount of it each day. We can’t save up time for later. Once today is over, it’s gone forever. It is the limiting factor. All of us has the same amount of time, and it’s the scarcest resource that we all have. Coincidentally, time is also unique. It’s something that cannot be replenished, whoever you are and whatever you have. One cannot obtain more time. Which is why according to Drucker, he believes that the most effective people love and care so much about their time.
If time isn’t managed properly, it can cause stress, restlessness, and missed opportunities. If we don’t set our priorities and make a conscious effort to manage our time, we may end up doing things that don’t really matter as much as other things on our list.
“But one cannot even think of managing one’s time unless one first know where it goes” – Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive
For you to be more effective in what you do, you must first understand how you spend your minutes and hours each day. You can claim that you don’t have enough time to do everything, but when you track your time, you discover that you spend 2 hours per day on Social Media. From there, the solution appears rather self-evident.
1. Start Tracking How You Spend Your Time
It does not matter what your method will be for recording time. Some people have others do it for them, but for people like us, we have to do it ourselves. I usually track my time by reviewing my time blocks.
The important thing here is that recording time gets done.
2. Time Should Be Recorded At The Occurrence Rather Than From Memory
We need to be as accurate as possible when reviewing our time. By recording it immediately, we are more accurate. If you say that recording time immediately is challenging, then I do agree with you.
Inaccurate time records are useless. You can’t manage your time if you don’t know how you’re spending it. Most people find they underestimate the time they spend on activities and overestimate the amount of free time they have left to work with.
A common excuse is that “I’m too busy to keep track of my time.” But the truth is that we already keep track of our time — we just do it in our heads. The problem is that our mental tracking is inaccurate, which makes us think we have more free time than we really do.
3. Review Your Timelog Every Month
By reviewing your timelog every month, you will have a better view of how you spend your time.
Use it to make better decisions about how much time you should spend on each task.
Use it to show you where your priorities are not being met.
Use it as feedback to see how effectively you are using your time.
If you keep a time log for a week or two, you will see patterns emerge that will help you identify areas where you can save time or be more effective. You may also be surprised at how little time you spend on tasks that seem to take up most of your day!
A time log lets you answer questions like:
Once you have a system of keeping or storing your time, you can then go to the next step. According to Drucker, there are 3 steps to systematic time management:
1. Identify the activities that you should eliminate
More often than not, there is always something to do. With this, one of the things you can do is to go back to your time log and ask yourself: “What would happen if this was not done?”. With this, if the answer is “Nothing”, then obviously you should stop doing it.
If you do something that doesn’t help your team, yourself, or your company, why should you keep doing it? Why waste your time on something that isn’t important and can be completely removed from your life?
2. Determine which activities on your time record may be performed by someone else, if not more effectively
We all have so much to do. And some of us have the ability to delegate certain tasks to others. If this is the case, one of the ways we can improve our effectiveness is to employ suitable delegating tactics.
First we have to review which tasks and activities are most appropriate for us to do, and then identify the tasks and activities that can be done by other people.
Second, we also have to review which can be done more effectively by others as well. Not only will the tasks and activities be completed, but those can be completed with better quality.
By doing so, we will have more time to accomplish important tasks and activities that can only be done by us and no one else. You’ll increase your chances of being more effective, as you now have the time to work on those more important things.
3. Stop Wasting Other People’s Time
This would be fairly straightforward for managers, but could also be applied to non-managers as well.
For managers, we have the power to direct or tell our people to do something. But given this capability, are you really using that power effectively? Drucker also challenges managers to ask their direct reports: “What do I do that wastes your time without contributing to your effectiveness?”
Talk about commitment right? If you are not afraid of the truth, you are well on your way to becoming an excellent executive.
Although not stated in the book, I believe that this can be applied to non-managers as well. One could also ask their managers the same question: “What do I do that wastes your time without contributing to your effectiveness?” I believe that by doing so, the manager can communicate their expectations for this individual, and the employee can then change to meet those expectations. It benefits both parties because the employee understands what is anticipated and is thus more successful, while the management benefits from the advantage of achieving the high level goal.
A mark of an effective executive is someone that knows how much time one has to work on important tasks. And this is can actually be achieved after implementing the Time Recording and Systematic Time Management.
An effective executive also understands and recognizes that he will require a significant amount of time, time that is concentrated and designated for deep work, to do critical duties efficiently.
Working on a task for 2 hours straight is far more productive than working on it for 15 minutes at a time here and there.
And according to Drucker, the final step to time management is consolidating and analyzing the available time under the executive’s control.
For me, the morning is the greatest time to work. This is the time that I control, during which I may pick and choose which tasks to work on. For some, they are more effective in the afternoon, or even in the evening. What’s important here is to ensure that you have set you have an ample amount of time to do focused, productive, deep work.
To ensure that you can work on those vital tasks, you need also set a schedule that you keep to.
As shared, time is the scarcest resource. And according to Drucker, if time is not managed, then nothing else can be managed. If you know how your time is spent, then you are on the right track towards contribution and effectiveness.
As a leader or executive, you will only be as good as your time management skills. And while that may be daunting, I can assure you, it is something that anyone can learn and practice on their own.