A full schedule tells us we are busy, we are ‘in demand’, but it doesn’t tell us whether our time is going towards work that matters.

Perhaps you are an ‘optional’ at a meeting?

Perhaps a meeting is no longer required?

For program and project managers, the competing demands are familiar. Operational issues need attention. Stakeholders need decisions. Reports have deadlines. Meanwhile, planning, team development and improvements to the way we work can keep moving into next week.

This article seeks to help us manage those competeting demands and in doing so help us answer the questions, What deserves our attention? How much time are we giving it? And have we made room for it in the diary?

1. Distinguish urgency from importance

An activity is important if it has ‘High Benefit’

An activity is urgent if delaying it reduces the benefit of completing it.

The two can coincide, but they are worth assessing separately.

A deadline tells us when something is due. It does not, by itself, tell us how much value the work contributes. For example, a recurring report may be due tomorrow, while a decision needed to resolve a delivery dependency has no formal deadline. The second may still deserve more attention.

As an example, check out the Eisenhower Matrix here.

2. Making time for progress tasks as well as maintenance tasks

Perhaps the most important piece of advice, schedule time to progress, not just maintain. Don’t always be treading water, start swimming.

It is easy to see why maintenance often comes first. It is familiar, visible, readily justified and frequently urgent. Improvement work can be less certain and harder to justify. It is consequently easier to postpone, even when it would reduce future demands on the team.

3. Examine where time produces value

The Pareto Principle of an 80/20 split is useful to prompt a review of effort and results. Those proportions are a useful question to investigate, rather than an assumed measurement of every working week.

Where is our time actually going? A short record can reveal repeated administration, avoidable interruptions and activities whose purpose has become unclear. It can also show where a relatively small investment of attention makes a substantial contribution to delivery.

The point is to examine the relationship between effort and value. Essential controls, customer service and quality still need time, even when their contribution is less visible than a completed milestone.

4. Schedule important work but retain flexibility

It is important to guard against excessive planning and therefore some time should be left uncommitted. A schedule filled with meetings can leave little room for preparation, analysis or follow-up. Those activities are part of the work and need to be allowed for when we assess capacity.

There is also the temptation to treat future time as spare time. An empty afternoon three weeks from now can look available simply because the usual demands have not yet reached the diary.

5. Keep priorities realistic

Split your time into categories, for example:

• Category 1: Essential to complete today.
• Category 2: Desirable to complete today.
• Category 3: To be addressed after the first two categories.

The list complements the schedule.

Larger activities receive scheduled time;

Smaller activities are captured and ranked. They DO NOT disappear between meetings.

A list also makes competing commitments visible. If everything is essential today, we need to revisit the priorities, discuss capacity or consider delegation.

It is very very easy to create an impossible list that will do little to resolve the underlying problem.

6. Match the activity to the best time of day to complete the activity

There are 2 useful concepts, INTERNAL PRIME and EXTERNAL PRIME.

Internal prime time is when we are best placed to concentrate, think or act. External prime time is when an activity can most effectively involve other people.

Detailed analysis may benefit from a quiet period of strong concentration (INTERNAL PRIME TIME).

A stakeholder discussion (foe example) depends on the other person’s availability, preparation and ability to make a decision (EXTERNAL PRIME TIME).

Our preferred time may not be theirs.

Grouping similar routine activities, such as correspondence, can also reduce the fragmentation of the working day.

SUMMARY

Prioritising our workload is key. Understand how we can move forward, without leaving deadlines missed (and stakeholders unhappy).

These solid, tried and trusted techniques have hopefully showed how to control your time better.

But of course, once we know our priorities, how do we defend them, how do we protect them effectively?

For the answer, read on to Part 2 : Protecting Your Priorities

Take Contol of Your Time – Part 1: Choosing Your Priorities