Understanding the importance of time management

The importance of time management cannot be denied as it plays an important role in life of every individual. We all are just dependent on time. With-out time we are nothing.

Time applies in our every walk of life. From sunset till night, the high tide and low tide due to moon, our seasons everything is totally dependent on time. Time never wait for any one.

Everybody has same number of hours in a day, the 24 hours in whole daytime is important form student till the managing director of some company but what makes difference is the efficient use of the time.

Time is a precious commodity which cannot be stored or kept in pocket. Every man no matter how rich or poor spends time the same way, it doesn’t speed up for the rich and slow down for the poor.

Time is scarce and rare and once it is gone it cannot be bought back at any cost.

Every work or activity in one’s life needs some time and everything needs time to materialize. With time management, each task is given enough time to be finished. By giving a sliver of time for each of your goals and accounting for it wisely, you will be able to achieve them, plus make time for other activities.

With the help of effective time management you would be able to finish more jobs with less effort. If you are allotting a certain amount of time for each activity, you don’t have to worry about the next thing that you will do. With time management, you become more organized and the things you do become more habitual than panic-driven. By making it a habit, you can increase your efficiency and productivity.

Thus time management increases chances of success as it will make you productive using improved time management skills and tools, and can accomplish more with less effort and time. It will help you reduce wasted time and energy, help you become more creative and productive, and enable you to do the right thing at the right time. Definitely it would increase chances of you success.

Time management will enable you to do more things in your life. Once you have established a list of tasks and prioritized them, you will find that you can get much more accomplished.

By tie management you feel that you have a greater control over your life. When you are prioritizing and getting tasks completed, you have more time for things that you want to do.

Time management skills and techniques help a person to identify and set ones priorities. Time management makes it easy you make conscious choices, so you can spend more of your time doing things that are important and valuable to you. By managing time you can also can learn to find the time for the things that are important to you. Unexpectedly a small amount of time once a day, or even once month, will take you closer to your goals and objectives.

It Reduce stress because by managing time you can do what you want to do .Hence it will make you more happy and reduces stress as Stress leads to long-term health problems.

Time management skills

Make Lists and write down your goals

Make plans everyday by either you are walking, driving, showering, or otherwise “dead” times to plan. Think about what your goals are for that day or the next. Which goals are most important to you?

Concentrate on One thing at a time because the human mind works more efficiently when it is focused.

At any cost and in any situation avoid procrastination.

Set up your Personal deadlines and monitor yourself that you are going in the right track or not.

It is not possible for a human to do all the work and overestimation of one’s abilities, though not necessarily a bad thing can often result in stress and more work for an individual. Thus delegation saves time.

Set up a Long Term Planner or maintain a personal calendar.

Personal goals

As a student i would like to take my own example. If i am not working hard throughout my whole semester, I am just wasting time. What will happen in the end of semester if i will not been able to clear the semester. By managing time i would be getting good grades and making my career but i should also maintain a balance in all areas of life and will enjoy my best.

Organizational objectives

An organization just has the life equal to time of employees. It pays its employees to spend their time in making and earning profits. But it employees are spending their time and skills in unnecessary tasks then the purpose would not be achieved.

In an organization there are a number of employees performing a unique task and delay in one task can disturb the whole system for example if research department do not present its research about launch of new product than a marketing manager cannot go on. So organizations have to manage time in order to avoid chain effects of time wastage or delay in activities.

TASK 2: PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL SKILLS FOR EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT

Discuss what managers do or the role of a manager and based on the discussion prepare a list of ALL the skills required for effective management? Separate the skills under the two headings of personal skills and professional skills. (See lecture notes for the Role of the Manager)

Analyse (discuss the skills), with supporting examples, three personal skills and three professional skills that make managers effective in their roles. (It may be easier if you select skills that we have discussed in class for example, assertiveness, presentation, coaching and counselling, emotional intelligence, time management, stress management, influencing, delegating, motivating, conflict management, problem solving, decision-making, communication etc.)

Present an analysis of your management style based on the questionnaire

Manger must have some personal and professional skills in order to perform the jobs effectively. These skills are developed over a period of time by hard-wok and motivation.

Professional skills

Planning and organizing

delegate

motivate staff,

communicate effectively

counselling

coaching

meeting

conflict management

technical knowledge

leadership skills

adoptability and flexibility

motivating

Personal skills

emotional intelligence

Self-Confidence

Dedicated and hardworking

time management

communication skills

honesty

energy an passion

intellectual abilities

Communication

One of the first thing considered in management is communication because management is divided into two phases .in the first process a manager communicates his ideas to be followed and in the second phase he actually motivates the employee to do what has been communicated. Thus it is not possible to me a good manager if u are not able to communicate effectively. Throughout the history it can be seen that a common trait in all the great managers and leaders is effective communication and persuasion skills. Manger should know how to communicate to his subordinates, seniors and other stake holders. A manager must understand the communication process and should be aware of internal and external barriers in order to make his communication effective.

Correctness

Conciseness

Clarity

Completeness

Concreteness

Consideration

Courtesy

Correctness

This is the first element of communication and one should say about which he is sure and don’t misguide others because saying correct would build your credibility.

Conciseness

It includes the Eliminate wordy Expressions and Include only relevant material.

Clarity

Clarity implies that business message should be correct concise complete concrete and with consideration

It should use the right level of language and Proper punctuation make the writing clear

Completeness

A message must be completed to bring desirable results. It must include everything the reader needs for the reaction you desire. Make sure that provides all necessary information, Answer the questions asked and give some extra time if it is desired.

Concreteness

Do emphasize on se specific facts and figure and use graphs, images. Pie charts and, facts and figures.

Consideration

Consideration means to sympathize the human touch and understanding of human nature. One should try to visualize always the listener’s desires, problems, emotions circumstances and context.

Courtesy

Courtesy is also very important in business and organization. One should be polite and humble to others.

Stress management

The job of manager is becoming more and more stressful because a continuous growing pace of the modern business techniques puts more demands on our stress management skills. As every organization one is motivated to accomplish more and more every year with less resources and shorter deadlines and employees are overwhelmed by the challenges in maintaining balance between your work and family life. Whichever sources stress is coming from a mangers has deal with all the situations in very humble manner and unless if as a student of management I do not improve my stress management abilities, i can’t be a good manager. According to doctors Stress has been linked to a major portion of health problems, from premature aging to heart attacks. Even when stress does not causes the illness directly, it can accelerate development of existing conditions or make A person more vulnerable to health problems, as well as to threats from Ones home or personal environment.

Self confidence

If a person is not confident about his own skills and knowledge then how come he develop and motivate others .Most of the time we are underestimating ourselves and thinking inside the boxes which limits our capabilities despite of the fact that we have enormous skills. Thus Self-confident managers can develop, motivate employees and inspire teams. Managers with high self esteem are able to take initiative, cope with new situations and perform multiple tasks with courage and commitment and concentration and motivation .Thy have the ability to inspire others because of their believe and personal charisma and get the work done by employees

Coaching

With the passage of time the requirement of a manager are also changing because a manager ha to work an collaborate teams. He has to train , coach and guide the team to deal with the multiple challenges of dynamic and unstable business world.

According to CIDP survey coaching develops the human resource in an organization It is also stated in CIPD, 71% employers now use coaching in their organization and also says that The importance of coaching skill in a manger is very much in demand in the business world due to increased pressure to perform, growing awareness and limitations of traditional management styles and personal development techniques, growing recognition of a responsibility and greater desire to achieve suitable staff retention and well being of an organization.

It’s a very essential skill a manger should have in order to be effective in his job role. Therefore it can be said that develops people , gives them vision and direction, creates the capacity for continuous improvement and help them to reach their higher potential by making them aware of their skills and abilities. similar if we see at personal level, coaching reduces the fear factor, aids learning and career progression, meets individual needs, generates responsibility, induces trust and confidence and provides a sense of ownership and confidence.

Decision making

A manager has to be bold and courageous. It’s a core task of manager to analyze opportunities and threat and then based on the strength and the distinctive capabilities of his team take a quick and firm decision that is in the best interest of the team and organization. A wrong decision of manager can have far reaching effects on an organization revenues and repute. These are some steps which help in decision making process.

First identify the purpose of your decision. Ask yourself that what is exactly the problem to be solved and Why it should be solved?

Second is to Gather information and determine that the relevant factors and variables.

Third is to Identify the principles to judge the alternatives like What standards and judgment criteria should the ideal solution meet?

Fourth is to brainstorm and list different possible choices. .

Fifth is to Evaluate each choice in terms of its consequences and  use your set standards and judgement criteria to determine the cons and pros of each alternative and method.

Then determine the best alternative. 

Take action and Transform your decision into specific plan of action steps.

The last one is to Evaluate the outcome of your decision and keep track of it.

Leadership

Leader ship is defined as the ability to influence others towards the achievement of common goals or vision. A manager has to be a leader and he should be able to lead the organization. In today’s dynamic business requirement we need managers and leaders which have the potential to go against the existing norms and bring something on the table by thinking outside the boxes. These are some attributes of a leader.

Vision

Communication and inspire

Role model

Integrity and loyalty

Flexibility and adoptability

Courageous

Self-awareness

Motivation

Need to achieve

Optimism

Self Analysis

It is very important for ever one to analyze him because if we don’t highlight our mistakes we cannot correct them and also if we are not aware of our strengths we cannot use them.

I am a very complex sort of person, usually find it difficult to make friends and socialize people. I feel some times awkward in interacting with new people and i cannot allow any body to come in my personal space. Even this thing harms my limited social circles. I am not so good in presentation skills but i recognize its importance and taking steps to remove gaps. I m good in handling conflicts and whenever a difficult situation arises related to my class , studies, home affairs or any other i deeply analyse each and every thing and then i manage to resolve my conflicts.

TASK 3 ‘A’: PERSONAL SKILLS AUDIT

List all the skills that you have identified in TASK 2 in a Table format with columns to rate them as provided below

Make several copies

On one copy rate the skills and competences yourself

Give a copy to as many of your managers or colleagues who know you well and ask them to rate you honestly

Review the rating of others and yourself, evaluate and re-rate yourself on a final rating sheet. (Include final rating in the text and present others as Appendix)

Present a brief assessment/analysis of all the skills of which you have carried out a structured self-assessment based on Questionnaire Surveys (see below for Short Assignments. Please make sure that you refer to all the questionnaires and present the filled questionnaires as Appendices.). Present also an assessment of your learning style based on the questionnaire.

TASK 3 ‘B’: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Now put together a Personal Development Plan in the format provided at the end. The following recommended step will help you.

Identify your career goals and objectives

Enlist your current or potential roles and responsibilities and identify the skills and knowledge required to meet these objectives.

Based the skills audit carried out in TASK TWO, identify the gaps or development needs (personal and professional skills and knowledge required) to meet the objectives.

Set clear objectives for each development need and put together a realistic Personal Development Plan in the format provided to demonstrate how you intend to address the learning and development needs that you have identified. Consider your preferred learning style when establishing learning actions

Make a statement about implementation, monitoring and review of your Personal Development Plan.

Audit Table

NO

Skill

Very good

Satisfactory

Needs Improvement

Poor

1.

Communication

2.

Motivational

3.

Planning

4.

Technical

5.

Time Management

6.

Social

7.

Team Building

8.

Problem Solving/Conflict Management

9.

Coaching

10.

Presentation

11.

Stress Management

12.

Analytical

Personal Development Plan

Name: …………………………………………. Date:

Your plan should identify the learning need and how this will help the organization achieve its goals. You need to consider all the resources needed to help you achieve your objectives, and build in realistic timescales for both achievement and review.

Learning and Development Need

Learning actions to be taken including resources needed to achieve them

Date for achievement/review

Assertiveness

Control aggression

Remain patient

Empathetic

Accept and invite open criticism

Coaching

Keep Reflection diary

Increase my emotional intelligence

Note my Feedback from colleagues

1 December, 2010

Coaching skills

Participate in Management development programmes

Guide my juniors and colleagues

guide my junior sister and brothers in my home

Help the students who are facing difficulties

Feedback from colleagues

Learn from proven my teachers

1 December, 2010

Time management

Make a list of my goals

Set priorities

Avoid Procrastination

Set Personal Deadlines and meet them

Set up a long term planner to monitor my ownself

Set achievable and reasonable nut motivating goals

Keep focus

Continuously try improve myself

Coaching by senior teachers and elders.

1 December, 2010

Presentation skills

Conduct research

Get sound knowledge about my topic

Practise a lot

Rehearse a lot

.watch good presentations?

Record my own presentation and then see the mistakes

Ask my friends and colleagues to provide critique on my style

Observe the others and incorporate thing in which i m weak

Guide line from my teachers good points into my own.

Hard work to improve weaknesses

1 December, 2010

Analytical

Study a lot

Read a lot

Ask questions

Increase my general knowledge

Take interest in everything around me

Concentrate

Practise in things in which i m weak

Guidelines from my teachers

1 December, 2010