Page 18 - Leadership Basics 8

Arrange

Any number of time management ‘tips’ become irrelevant if you do not arrange your time. More than
likely you will quickly regress to your old habits. By this stage you should be aware of where you are
going (goals), have analyzed how you presently spend your time, assigned priorities to your actions
and begun to plan how to eliminate time thieves. Now you need to be sure to plan. How you plan
time is a personal thing – different ways work for different people – but you should at least keep a
yearly and a week/day planner. Some people prefer to use computer or PDA based planners – such as
those included with Microsoft Outlook, whereas others still prefer paper diaries.
 A Yearly Planner
If you use a paper Yearly Planner consider recording a number of things – it may be best to use a
colour‐coded system. You may, for example, want to use green dots to indicate your holidays:
something to look forward to! Use a red ‘warning dot’ to signal when any major reports or
presentations are due: regular yearly or biannual reports, or promotion exercises. You can also
block in regular meetings you must attend and pre‐planned business trips. By recording all
these dates (and times) you will know approximately how much time you have available. You
may be surprised at how little is left. Of course, you will need to update the planner fairly
regularly. Many computer programmes do allow you to colour code.

 A Week/Day Planner
A weekly or Day planner gives you a more detailed system for planning your work. Decide what
needs to be done during the week and then prioritize your actions. Before you do this, however,
transfer relevant information from the yearly planner. So before you schedule the week’s
events your planner may already be somewhat full.

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