While there are considerable differences between organisations and even between teams in the same organisation, everyone has experienced incidents of wasted time at work. These include the poor application of some team members, lost documents, errors, slow and confused responses, poor meetings, computer downtime and so on. This article highlights the problem of wasted time and suggests some actions that could be taken to reduce it.
A study by Proudfoot Consulting, carried out in seven countries, found that the average Australian worker wasted about forty percent of the workday. This figure was higher than in Germany and the US and lower than in the UK and France. The study, which, if anything, probably underestimated the amount of time wasted in an average day, highlighted the problems faced by every organisation.
While the categories and their interpretation can be questioned, the overall time wasted from the various causes given looks quite probable. It is interesting to note that insufficient planning and control is regarded as the major cause of inefficiency or wasted time. This is clearly a very broad description of poor work processes, problems that are ignored, lack of controlled procedures and generally a failure to organise work.
There is no doubt time is wasted, but the question is what can be done about it? On the one hand it could be unproductive or even counterproductive to force workers to reduce their wasted time, particularly as management seems to be one of the major reasons given for wasted time.
On the other hand, to disregard it not only creates lower quality outcomes in the workplace but increases tensions and conflict in the workplace. Wasting time in the workplace is jointly caused by management and staff but in the end management has to accept much of the responsibility by allowing any poor work practices and behaviour to continue. It often reflects a failure to fix problems or barriers that cause time-wasting and, indeed, not identifying them in the first place.
Wasted time is as much a function of confusion as workload. For example how many of your team can immediately relate their top 4 roles within the company? These are the duties which are highly strategic or important in helping the company realise its goals. If we are not absolutely clear on this it is almost impossible to prioritse activity effectively. This usually will manifest in us spending large amounts of time on ‘now’ issues. You will know if this is happening because your level of job satisfaction decreases markedly. You finish the day tired yet feel you haven’t achieved much.
Activity can be broken up into 4 quadrants:
| 1. Important / Urgent | 2. Important / Not Urgent |
| 3. Urgent / Not Important | 4.Not Urgent / Not important |
If important means activities which drive us toward our goals what kind of personal and business activities would you like to focus on?
It’s interesting to note that some of the most important things in our life are often not urgent. This means we must consciously act on them in order to make them happen.
What do you suppose happens if you fail to spend time working on Quadrant 1 activities? Often they migrate over to quadrant 2. Now they are important and Urgent – A crises. How much time do you spend putting out bushfires?
Why does this happen? Because urgent acts on us. What urgent activities take a lot of your focus?
People who are under stress will often spend time in quadrants 3 & 4. For example, how often have you heard people say they are extremely busy and then proceed to open the mail or get a cup of coffee? These activities are not wrong, in many cases they are a great circuit breaker however they can be a sign of stress and overload.
Time management is really self-management.
By consciously focusing on quadrant 1 activities you can make a large and sustainable difference to your quality of life.
Like most processes, the theory and practice of time management has developed through a number of stages. At the basic level we keep notes and checklists while a more advanced method relies on calendars and appointment books. More recently people have come to realize that the time management system they use needs to allow for prioritsation as determined by a clear set of values and goals. The problem seems to still remain though, efficiency and time management just don’t seem work well together.
We often lament the lost opportunities for spontanatiety and fun that efficiency often denies us. As a result, many people have become disillusioned with time mangement systems and programs.
Howevever there is another level. To truly succeed we need to constantly work on developing our self management. This moves our focus from things and time to relationships and results. We need to get results, not in one or two areas of our life but in all the roles we hold.
Our first thoughts should focus on identifying our roles, values and purpose.
Now we can begin developing or finding a system that caters for this more integrated approach. Use the following checklist:-- Make sure it is Coherent, ie. it can record your mission statement and your goals.
- Make sure it has balance so all your roles are catered for.
- Make sure it has the correct focus - needs to keep you in Quad 2. May need to work on a weekly basis rather than daily, as daily promotes reactive activity.
- Flexibility -it needs to be able to cater for changing circumstances.
- Portability - it needs to accompany you easily
The following diagram is one example of a weekly activity sheet
If you would like advice on finding a time management tool that suits you please contact us
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