Time Management

Delivery: 1-day workshop

(Onsite or by remote meeting with phone/web)

It is a pretty crazy world out there. People are working longer hours and cramming as much as they can into their day. Unless you have taken on six full-time jobs, you might feel that you are slacking off. Taking on more work, or just trying to do more in each day, can cause you to stretch and grow. However, just cramming more tasks into a day can also lead to poor performance when your focus is totally shot with interruptions, or when numerous tasks are started and few of them are completed adequately.

This one-day workshop provides hands-on use of numerous time management skills focused on helping individuals from any background (technical and non-technical) get more out of their time. During the workshop, students learn and use the practices described to plan their work. They focus on allocating time for their primary project work and overlaying these large boulders with smaller to-dos that always pile up. The class discusses steps to reduce, avoid and manage interruptions that hamper productivity. Scheduling tactics are described to utilize the peak time of each person’s day, along with strategies for handling numerous incoming work requests so that they are not forgotten.

Collaborating with remote teams is a common practice in the work environment, but one that is the drain of many productivity hours. Problems with delegation, misunderstanding of assumptions, poor communication and follow-through lead to individuals and teams being unable to get as much work done as they need.

Audience

Technical and non-technical employees.

Learning Objectives and Agenda

At the conclusion of this workshop, participants will:

• Understand and use the principal of chunking to achieve more
• Understand and have used a personal planning process:
  • List the work using predefined lists
  • Organize the work
  • Set priorities
  • Use four quadrants of time usage
  • Schedule the work
• Learn scheduling tactics
• Learn strategies for avoiding, reducing and managing interruptions
• Manage large new requests
• Understand the role of multi-tasking in accomplishing work
• Run effective meetings
• Manage team and personal email
• Learn collaboration skills for remote teams
  

In the workshop, students plan their next 1-3 weeks of work.

A related article is at http://www.processgroup.com/pgpostoct08.pdf

The Process Group principals have experience in conducting workshops for companies in the U.S., U.K., Switzerland, Canada, India, Singapore and Japan. We are authorized SEI CMMI appraisal leaders and provide consulting services that enable you to operate your organization more efficiently and profitably. We also offer public speaking engagements that help management and employees understand the various techniques for--and benefits of--improving the development process.