Course Highlights:
The programme takes a more proactive approach to time management and focuses on identifying the key aspects of professional time management that you personally need to work on. This is achieved through the use of our highly effective job analysis model that will provide you with some unique insights into your personal productivity. The course will also give you a thorough grounding in all the essentials of time management best practice, focusing on the principles and techniques that have been implemented and utilised by leading organisations.
Course objectives:
Over two intensive days you will learn:
- How to develop a robust prioritisation strategy
- Practical strategies for identifying and conqueringthe major “time stealers”
- Techniques for increasing the productivity of your interactions with others
- The importance of setting and achieving professional goals
- How to conduct a detailed analysis of your activities
- Proven strategies for beating procrastination
- How personal strategic planning can revitalise your career
- Strategies for getting the most out of meetings
- Techniques for effectively managing all the different demands on your time
Course Outline:
Developing a Robust Prioritisation Strategy:
- Developing a workable strategy for efficiently prioritising your working day:
- Setting achievable goals and objectives
- Understanding the goals and objectives
- Why it’s essential to plan ahead
- The importance of scheduling time to maximise your productivity efforts
- What criteria should you use when prioritising your workload?
- Identifying and focusing on high payoff activities
- Developing a prioritisation action plan for:
- Daily tasks
- Weekly tasks
- Monthly tasks
- Annual goals
- How to effectively cope with the challenge of changing priorities
- Aligning priorities with the goals of the department and organisation
Practical Strategies for Dealing With the Major “Time Stealers”
- Making meetings purposeful and productive
- The framework for effective meetings
- What do when things go off track
- Getting the desired outcomes
- The importance of setting call objectives
- Dealing with unwanted interruptions
- Implementing a call priority strategy
- Making your telephone more effective
- How to communicate when interruptions are not acceptable
- Implementing a screening plan
- Establishing and scheduling quiet time for maximum productivity
- Defining acceptable parameters for unexpected visits
- Why you must have a strategy for managing the email deluge
- Applying your prioritising strategy to email
- Email protocols
Maximising the Productivity of Your Interactions With Others:
- Defining your objectives for the interaction in advance
- Developing agendas and sticking to them!
- Responding to the demands of others
- The importance of being able to say no
- How appropriate assertive behaviour can help get things done
- When and how to delegate tasks effectively
Understanding the Importance of Setting and Achieving Goals:
- The powerful rationale for setting goals
- The difference between goals and “To do” lists
- A step by step guide to setting S.M.A.R.T. goals
- Defining and setting goals based upon your business activities
- Setting personal goals and priorities
- Developing a goal setting framework incorporating short, medium and long term goals
- The importance of maintaining an effective work / life balance
- Successfully setting goals for others
- The Goal Orientated Time Management System
Current Planning and How to Integrate Long Term Goals With Day to Day Work:
- Understanding the decision matrix – how should you use your time?
- Personal strategic planning
- Short term
- Long term
- Medium term
- Elephant Eating. Taking large and sometimes indigestible tasks and making them more edible
Job Analysis – A Detailed Analysis of Your Activities and Key Areas:
- Identifying the balance of importance of your Key Areas
- Identifying the activities in which you are involved within a representative time span
- Assessing the contribution that your activities make to your Key Areas
- Seeing the correlation between importance of a Key Area and the effort that goes into it
- Seeing the correlation between time spent on an activity and the value of that activity
Identifying the Key Concepts That Underpin Time Management:
- The holistic approach and the home/work balance
- The importance of handling procrastination
- Having the right attitudes to Time Management (self-management).
- Being Assertive
- Looking at the values level for each delegate
Building an Effective Structure for the Future:
- Identifying Key Results areas and understanding their importance
- Looking at effective to do lists as part of this workable structure
- Making the link between Key Areas and the time domain
- Running an effective bring forward system
Setting Up Key Areas for the Future:
- Looking at the conscious, pre-conscious and sub-conscious and how they impact on Key Areas
- Identifying the major tasks, elements, and objectives within each key area and understand how they cascade
- Taking tasks, elements and objectives down to the action planning level and prioritising both in terms of urgent and important
- Using examples of tasks and objective from delegates as models in the key areas
WORKSHOP STYLE:
A mixture of short presentations, interactive discussion, individual exercises and group work. The emphasis throughout is on a practical approach using case material and examples.
