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Have you got a moment?

No time? Here are some quick tips to help

Getting going

Starting in the morning is always tough. It is even worse if you feel you have to start with the toughest job. If you exercise or play sport, you know the importance of warming up first. So warm up in the office in the morning. Start with a job you want to do - one you might even enjoy. Stretch the brain muscles a bit before you tackle the more difficult jobs.

Swiss Cheese

Jobs can look too big. We put them off because we don't have time to do them. So they get to look bigger and even more forbidding. So start now. Don't try to do the whole job at once, just poke some holes in it. Do a bit now, another bit later. Sooner or later, the big job is reduced to a small job.

Are you going to do it?

If you have a to do list, the chances are that one or two jobs have been on the list for some time. Ask yourself honestly, Am I really going to do this? If the honest answer is No or even Well, if I have time, then stop kidding yourself. Cross it off your list. You're not going to do it anyway so why let the guilt build up and stop you doing other things?

When to do the "to do" list

Most people make their list in the morning, as soon as they get in. Don't! This will prove to you that you have no time to do anything and so make it impossible to make a start. Write up your to do list in the evening, just before you go home. This does two things. First, it clears the day from your mind and you are less likely to wake up in the night worrying about what you haven't done. Second, it gives the unconscious mind a chance to help. While you are enjoying your evening and even while you are sleeping, the poor unconscious is still hard at work. You may be surprised how often the knotty problem has been solved while your mind was on other things.

Don't be so formal

Letters are formal and readers get annoyed by spelling errors or bad grammar. So letters take time to write. Get yourself some cards printed postcard size and whenever possible hand write notes. Oddly enough recipients actually like this - and they don't expect timeless prose in them. The same goes for email. It is much less formal than letters - and you don't have to find a stamp either.

People

Your people are supposed to be assets, not liabilities. Invest in them. Make them more and more capable and then delegate as much as you can. Put aside some time to discuss with them their readiness to be delegated to. Create a plan to increase their readiness so that you can delegate more. Read the One Minute Manager. It works. Write up a description of how you want jobs done - what reports, what checks, what standards - and teach them to your team. Produce a handbook entitled How to work with me.

Be systematic

So many people approach problems as if they have never seen them before. Get systematic. 80% of what you do is routine. Find ways to systematise as much as possible so that you can concentrate your mind on the difficult 20%. Divide the regular tasks among your people. Discuss with them how they should do what and write it down. Get your secretary to create standard report formats so that everyone can let you know how they are doing on a regular basis. Create a recall system. Go through the tasks that the team is involved with and set some review dates. Get your secretary to act on the due date and get the report for you. Remember that the urgent always drives out the important,. Reduce the number of urgent jobs by pre-handling them though your system.

Ambition

Where do you want to go? If it's the top, then recognise that the time you are putting in now is an investment in your future. It's not just work. It is earning dividends in the future. If you really resent the investment, then you have told yourself something about the limits of your ambition. Recognise that not being ambitious is really OK. Recognise also that no one gets to be Managing Director or CEO by working 9-5.

Timing

Are you a morning person or an evening person? Some people feel really good early on and then fade. Others are the opposite. They come to life in the late afternoon. So why do we all feel we have to work 9-5? If you feel good in the mornings, get in at 6.30. Use the lunchtime and early afternoon for meeting people. Get home earlier. If you feel most productive later, then come in at 11.00. Spend the day with people until about 4.00 and then get down to work. You'll achieve a lot more. Clear this with the boss first!

The boss

The more that the boss delegates to you, the more control you will have over your own time. If they are in the habit of giving detailed instructions (as and when they think about it), then you are at their beck and call. If they allocate whole tasks, then you can decide how to do it, in your time not theirs. You can also delegate bits to your team. So, how ready to receive delegation does the boss think you are? Discuss it and work at being seen as more and more ready. Re-read the One Minute Manager with this point in mind.

If you are the boss, then start to think structurally. Remember that your people are there to do the work - and good work at that. You are there to ensure that the people can do it. Review the conditions that they work under. Ensure that they know what to do, have the tools and knowledge to do it, are motivated to want to, are rewarded for success, learn from their mistakes, and feel free to come up with new ideas on how things should get done. Here are a few ideas:

Cut the Crap!

In a major retail firm's head office, there was an door right next to the CEO's. It was labelled "Cut the Crap Committee". Behind this door, a committee worked to review all the reports, controls and procedures in the company - to check that they really added value and to get rid of those that did not. In all organisations, there are processes which had value once but are now long past their sell-by date. They take up a lot of totally unnecessary time.

Competencies

Many people view movements like TQM and Competencies with disdain. Don't! They can work. Get your people to analyse every job in the firm and work out what skills are required for each. Don't make a big thing of it. It actually isn't that complicated. Review, or get someone else to review, the competencies with each job holder and ask them to decide whether they have the skills or not. If they don't, then you have a training plan. Use training strategically to fill skill gaps on a logical basis. Build the competencies into your performance review and reward system. People who know what to do, have the skills to do it and are rewarded for success, oddly enough perform better. The better your people perform, the more time that you are going to have.

Invest in IT

Email is a great time saver but so is knowledge management. Since more or less everyone produces reports these days on a PC, get someone to dump all the reports into a database. Create your own internal world-wide web. People can access what others have done quickly and easily. Sure you can have code word access if you need it but remember the need to know principle. Most people need to know everything!

Leadership

What is the leadership culture in your firm? Is there one? How much energy is lost or wasted? What style of management do you think most suited to your situation? You don't know? Then think about it. A culture that supports those who achieve and work well in teams, a culture that minimises energy loss, one that puts in place priorities that are in tune with the strategy of the firm, will use a lot less time that one that does not. And managing the culture is probably your most important task.

No time to train your staff? That is what we are here for. Start with our pathways.

Good Lord! Is that the time? Sorry, I've got to rush. Good luck!

Going further

This article first appeared in Accountancy magazine.