I preach commonsense because it appears many are losing theirs. A sensitive issue like Time management has been on the front burner especially in our modern world of sophistication, technology and fast living. Now and then I come across personal development specialists who claim to help everyone who wishes to manage his time effectively. They then proceed with elaborate sometimes complicated solutions that end up consuming even the little time we have left. Implementing some of the time management advice out there leads one deeper into time management problems. So what is the best approach to time management?

If there was one single best way to manage time all time management books and advice will dwell on it. Commonsense, like in so many other aspects of human life, makes time management easier. Commonsense time management consists of the following practical advice;
a) Daily planning and maybe, weekly: One of the basic lessons I learnt while setting out as a young, inexperienced entrepreneur was to plan each day the night before or in the early hours of the day. It remains to me the most effective way to get the best out of your day. Day planning should involve opening the next page of your daily planner and drawing a line down the middle. On the left column list all the tasks of the new day and on the right delegate as many as the tasks on the left column as possible. After doing that check through what you’ve done once more . Then pick the phone and begin to delegate the releasable tasks. That done, take on the rest of the tasks, one after the other, as urgency determines.

Some experts suggest weekly, monthly and even yearly planning. How on earth can you know what you’ll be doing the whole month or even the whole week. Such long term time planning should be restricted to goal setting. Set your goals for the week, month and year and leave them at. If you insist, you can also draw up your weekly time schedule but keep it flexible as you’ll be doing quite some tasks you didn’t plan for.

b) Delegating: This is one of the fundamentals of effective time management. To so many hands-on individuals they find it difficult to release some tasks to others to do for them. They always think nobody can do the work as good as they can. Choking up your day with tasks that some person can easily do for you leaves no time for you to engage in more fruitful tasks. Learn to delegate all tasks that do not require you to do them. A good rule of the thumb is to delegate all tasks that you can get or pay someone else to do. If you are entrepreneur the only really important tasks are the tasks of refining your system, strengthening the marketing and sales procedures. All other thinks such as financial recording, routine mail, customer service only need supervision from you. If you are a start-up you are likely going to do many of these tasks yourself and your aim should be to delegate them as soon as possible to free up your time for more strategic duties.

Always go through your tasks and delegate right away such ones that can be delegated to competent persons. That way you are actually in control of your time and you will definitely produce more.

c) Spend a Few Dollars to Free Up Your Time: To accomplish more it is sometimes wiser to pay for regular tasks to be done for you by somebody else. If you are an entrepreneur or a self employed professional it pays to focus on paying for services so you can really do those things you do best. Some persons look at the money they are going to spend paying others to do something they could do themselves but it is sort of penny-wise pound-foolish to think that doing all those routine work yourself will save you money whereas giving them to someone else will allow you engage in the real process of making more money.

Jeff Davidson in his book {“The Complete Idiot’s Guide: Managing Your Time} gave examples of people who thought that to pay a few extra dollars for routine services was uneconomical but who on his advice saw that paying those few dollars for the routine services didn’t actually dig holes in their purse and that more importantly they freed up several hours of their day by letting people do those tasks for them. These extra hours they were able to employ either in gaining needed leisure for themselves, having more time to spend with their loved ones or in making more money in their business.

Use the services of part time employees to help you;

Send or sort mail, clean your house, walk your dog etc.

For the starting entrepreneur who is bogged down with tasks to carry out, the services of low charging part time employees could be employed in these areas;
Sending/sorting mails
Making deliveries and pickups
Typing mailing lists or any typing work at all
Keeping things tidy and in good repair
Surveys and cataloging new information
Tracking inventory
Serving routine customer needs

Identify all tasks you don’t like to do, one for domestic, one for career/business in a task matrix form like the example below;
TASKS Option 1 Option 2 Option 3
Task A ……………. ………….. ……………
Task B …………… ………….. ……………….
Task C ……………. ……………. ……………..
Task D …………… ………….. …………….

If you don’t have good options for some of the tasks you don’t like, advertise and interview for part time service volunteers who’ll accept low wages for such part time work as you want them to do. Students and retirees are the best bet. Make a list of all possible helpers and part time workers you’ll gather and use the list when the need arises. If the house is due for cleaning, you go through your services workers’ list and call the best ones available. Do the same thing for every other tasks you would rather not do.
This commonsense time management advice like most commonsense stuff looks simple only if it will be applied.

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According to Peter Drucker, the most important skill in the 21st century is the skill of learning new things. It has long been the habit of top management of big fat corporations to forget how fast things change in our modern world. Every time a new, radical perspective of doing business comes around they react slowest. The corporations they head comes off worse for it.

Peter Drucker ought to have included the very singular importance of learning to unlearn old things and outdated management techniques.

The manager who desires to excel must have an incredibly fluid mind, quick to grasp new dimensions of doing business and fast to discard obsolete information. The manager who insists on going by old trends when new ones are being given far greater attention stands to loose.

The willfully strong Mr Ford had built up his successful Ford car business but at an important time it was necessary for him to switch designs of his model T car he refused to acknowledge the fact that car shapes and designs were becoming sleeker. He fell too much in love with the old situation and resisted change. He paid for it in lost sales and reduced market share.

Severally, I encounter managers who find it difficult to acknowledge the fact that a business practice they found handy a year ago is no longer effective. They desperately want to hold on to the old order while the fast ones move on. This particular factor in Business Management is always encountered in technology-related issues.

Looking at a scenario in the animal world which illustrates this learning factor;

A mouse is faced with two glass compartments containing a piece of fish each. The first glass compartment is open while the second piece of fish is screened off by the glass. The mouse attempts to pick the second piece of fish but is unsuccessful even after several attempts. He reverts attention to the first piece of fish and bingo! He is able to touch at and grabs it.

If another piece of fish is used in replacing the first one it makes a move for it but surprisingly meets a glass wall. Meanwhile the barrier on the second piece of fish had been unsuspectingly removed. Our friend, the mouse most likely will conclude that now both fishes are unreachable and makes do with the one he has eaten whereas he could have enjoyed another piece of fish if he had the knowledge that what he knew before about the second fish no longer applies.

That is what the inability of managers to unlearn causes their companies. They lose further profits and give up market share. The best bet for a business manager is to study all new methods and practices as they come and to constantly be in pole position to take on the potential good ones. Most importantly a manager has to acquire the knack to discard and unlearn techniques, information that no longer matter and quickly adapt to new and better techniques.

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