Time Management

What Is Time Management?

The modern concept of time management - the act of planning the amount of time you spend on which activities - really began with Frederick Taylor's scientific management techniques. His goal was to increase worker productivity. To do this, he conducted time and motion studies and began to focus on the best ways for jobs to be performed to maximise the work completed in a given amount of time.

Why Manage Time?

Time management has come up as a subject in the management field to reach the goal of increasing productivity, especially among white-collar workers for whom work output may be hard to measure. For example, an assembly line worker's output of 60 widgets per hour can be compared to a factory average and deemed as acceptable or not; however, white collar outputs tend to be difficult to compare to standards. So, modern managers in these areas look for ways to monitor worker productivity in terms of time use.

Examples

Modern time management goals are still to increase productivity, but the best way remains elusive. Many researchers have explored the subject and come up with different theories on effective time management. Here are the theories of a few big names in the time management field:

In her 1994 book, Thinking Smarter: Skills for Academic Success, Carla Crutsinger defined effective time management as the process of:

• Setting goals
• Prioritising those goals
• Deciding how much time to allocate to specific tasks
• Adjusting plans as they change
• Revisiting the goals and priorities regularly
• Observing results

Academic leader Neil Shipman feels that the critical skills for time management are:

• Being aware of yourself - your habits and ways of working
• Structuring your time
• Setting goals and priorities
• Increasing personal efficiency and effectiveness
• Scheduling specific time for each activity
• Scheduling relaxation time in order to regenerate

Time management may be aided by a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific tasks, projects, and goals complying with a due date. Initially, time management referred to just business or work activities, but eventually the term broadened to include personal activities as well. A time management system is a designed combination of processes, tools, techniques, and methods. Time management is usually a necessity in any project development as it determines the project completion time and scope.