Everyone has 24 hours a day- it means everyone has the same “principal”, but what we do with the “principal” will determine if we will become “bankrupt” or be “very wealthy” in the coming days. Time management is a skill everyone should master- especially managers. Speak with an average wealthy man, you will see a man that have control of his time; they have a strict routine they have maintained for many years. These routines are the foundation for their successful lives.
The MMBA program is quite thorough; juggling it with your work can be better imagined. I have delayed enrolling in an MBA program due to the same challenge. My work is already stressful enough for me to add a “burden” of intensive education for the next two years. Time management skills may be one of the most essential skills for succeeding during this program. I appreciate the fact that this course came up during the brush-up.
There is a decision matrix for time management- which is that every task should is based on two essential factors- Urgency and Importance. A task is urgent; if not done, it will lead to crises, breakdowns or affect the entire program; we consider a task important when it directly leads to actualising the organisation’s goal. We can have four outcomes when we combine the two factors: Urgent/Important; Urgent/Not important; Not urgent/important, not urgent/not important.
Urgent/Important: These are crises/emergencies; the most critical activities to goals; deadline-driven projects; last minute preparations. Because of the criticality of this to your goals- You need to do them now.
Not Urgent/Important: Preparation, planning, prevention, relationship building, capability improvement. The examples are critical activities as the first one, but they can wait. We need to plan/schedule it.
Urgent/not important: Popular activity, non-critical meetings and interruptions. The activities mentioned above should be delegated.
Not urgent/important: Trivial activities, one-off activities, time waster –these should be ignored.
We should spend more than 60%-70% of our time doing the second activity-not urgent/important. We spend the most time in crises because we do not plan well. We spend much time on time wasters, turning all our essential tasks to be very urgent. Set goals and objectives that you may want to achieve ahead; identify the constraints of every significant task- what resources do you need? what resources do you have? Where do we need to resource the gap? Give room for lags- if you need 2 hours to complete a task, you can schedule 2.5 hours. Be in a room that can help your concentration. Fix a time to read and respond to your emails because emails can distract you.
