If you want to manage your time effectively, you need a full picture of your entire workload. We can become overwhelmed with our workloads and frustrated by a lack of time to accomplish all of our tasks.

In this session, we will start by talking about one of the biggest time traps of all: email. You will analyze how much time you spend on email and think about ways to reduce that amount. You will also help Mary Marvelous address a workload crisis and think about how to apply those lessons back in your workplace.

Managing Email

One of the greatest demands on our time is email, and so it is important to put it in proper perspective with the demands of our jobs. We have become a society where we expect replies to email immediately. Many people send emails out to more recipients and with more frequency than is often required.

While email is beneficial in many ways, it is also a huge contributor to people’s stress. And it is not enough to just be able to check an email on a computer somewhere; many managers have a smart phone or other device that allows them to be connected to their email 24/7.

Let’s see what kind of an impact email has on your day, in terms of time.

How many emails do you receive in an average day?

How many of those emails do you reply to?

How many emails do you send (not including the replies)?

Let’s say that an average email takes up three minutes of your time (and that is only if they are short and need minimal thinking on your part).

Take the total, multiply it by three minutes per incident, and put the total number of minutes per day that you manage email

Look carefully at that number. It is not unusual for managers to receive, reply to, and create up to 100 emails per day. One hundred emails a day is equivalent to 300 minutes, or five hours of time each day!

Since we normally have lots of additional tasks in the day in addition to email, is it any wonder that we struggle to get through the day?

Extra Information

Here are some excellent tips for tackling your email.

Check your email twice a day.

Try first thing in the morning and again after lunch, or find two periods that work for you. This will stop your email from interrupting you over and over again, and allow you to get more done. You can set most email programs up to check for new messages on your schedule and turn the notifications off altogether so that you get to your mail when it makes sense for you to do so.

For those of you who are addicted to your email, this can be a hard switch to make. If you have trained people so that they know you answer emails 24/7, and always right away, you will have to adjust their expectations so that they know your new schedule. Try it for a week and then see just how much more relaxed your work pace becomes, and how much more you can accomplish.

Deal with each message right away.

Try to read an email only one time, and decide what you want to do with it as you read it. Our rule of thumb is that if it takes three minutes or less, reply immediately. Any longer than that means that you need to set it up as a task or in your calendar or delegate it to someone else. Do not leave emails open to answer when you get a chance. When we do this, we tend to have multiple messages open, and then we have to re-read all those open emails to decide what to do with them.

Deal with it the right way.

Consider whether email is the best way to deal with something, or whether another method is more efficient. Emails that go to large groups of people, have multiple strings of replies, or include a lot of information are often best dealt with in a meeting or a conference call.

Workload Analysis

Many people will recognize themselves in the case study. A workload analysis will help you get out of the sort of situation Mary was in.

What are the Benefits of Workload Analysis?

Workload analysis ensures that an organization’s resources are used effectively and efficiently, while enhancing productivity and improving performance.

These questions form the basis of workload analysis:

• What are the things you have to do every day? How much time must you allot to each thing?
• What are the things you have to do each week? How much time do you allot to them?
• What are the things you must do each month? How much time does each item take you?
• What are the things you do quarterly or annually? How much time do they take?

Time Management Systems are frameworks and techniques designed to help people manage their time better. There are many different approaches, from working for a certain number of minutes and then taking a break for a certain number of minutes, to ways to organize tasks. Several of these systems are discussed here: https://blog.hubstaff.com/time-management-tools/

Course Summary

Congratulations! You have completed the course “Time Management.”

We began this course by looking at what time management is, and the six principles of time management.

Next, we covered how to set goals using the SMART method.

Then we explored different planning tools and their uses.

We then looked at how to set priorities in order to decide in what order tasks should be done. As well, we discussed how to manage interruptions and distractions.

Next, we moved onto ways to make decisions, which is important for managing your time.

Then, we learned about delegating and how this is an effective tool for managing your time well.

Next, we shared tips for creating a schedule, including tips for estimating how long it takes to complete tasks.

The next session discussed procrastination, and how this affects time management.

Because disorganization is a time waster, we then looked at ways to create order through decluttering and using good organization techniques.

Then, we explored ways to manage paper and electronic files, including email.

You should now feel ready to effectively manage your time for peak performance.