Working independently Look at the effect of working independently a time management

Job & involvement A job is a collection of tasks and responsibilities allocated to an individual or team In a team the tasks can be set as goals and targets To allocate the job and task effectively requires a job description giving an outlines of all tasks and responsibilities required within the job

Time management Expression ‘Time is Money’ – Time is a resource in a business as is money, information, materials and equipment – If you don’t have it, you can’t work effectively – You need to be able to manage time, so the work is completed efficiently and effectively – Main principles of Time Management is (John Adair) Set Goals Formulate Action plans Set priorities Focus Urgency Organisation

Tasks You can have your routine tasks- daily, weekly & monthly – Example Daily: opening post, distributing post, checking s & responding, preparing cheque listing, prepare sales invoices & filing Weekly: send quotation request and purchase orders, prepare credit notes for goods returned and end of week activities Monthly: prepare sales invoice & credit note listings (ready for credit control or statements)

Tasks You could be asked to complete unexpected tasks These are not your routine tasks – Could be one off requests – Cover for absence/sickness – Assisting a colleague complete a task – Enquires from internal and external customers These tasks can be classified as general working life activities You may be required to change your work routine to fit the unexpected into the work load

Tasks Some tasks can be classified as URGENT, need to be completed for a deadline Other tasks can be classified as IMPORTANT, have a major value to the organisation or potential consequence to the organisation – Important is classified if: – Other people or tasks rely on the completion of said task – The consequence of non-completion has a high impact on the business – Has been requested by a higher member of the organisation (internal) or higher organisation (external)

Urgent and important Note: Not all urgent tasks are important and Not all important task are urgent – You must prioritise – Plan the order the tasks must be completed in

Urgent & important prioritising Urgent and important Tasks that must be done in the very near future Important to you and others in the organisation Example- monthly reports for meeting next day Not urgent but important Tasks that are important but not due immediately If non-urgent left too long they become urgent Example - Request for a report made on Monday due on Friday Urgent but not important Tasks which are urgent but do not impact on others in the organisation. Example – milk for drinks! Not urgent and not important Tasks that can be slotted between routine tasks, they do not have a major impact in you or others in the organisation Example- house keeping functions, move reconciled documents, archiving old files, shredding out of date data

Prioritising tasks If tasks are equally important and urgent you must determine the order in which they are completed – Arrival time, performing tasks in the order they were requested in – Nearly finished! Complete the task nearest completion first – Shortest task first, allows you to get lots of short tasks completed quickly – Longest/ difficult task first, by starting the task first allows you start gaining momentum and achieve a greater opportunity to complete within the time range – Difficulty of handover, complete tasks that would be hard/difficult to handover to a colleague, where an arranged absence (accessibility of resources)

Scheduling tasks After prioritising tasks including the urgent and important tasks you will need to schedule the tasks within the work routine Determine the time the task will take from routine to non-routine Where no experience of task ask for guidance from colleague

Scheduling Time schedules should be determined by different methods – Forward scheduling, adding the estimated duration time of each task from scheduled start time/date to give a target completion time/date – Backward scheduling, subtracting the task’s estimated duration time from the completion time/date (deadline) this gives the latest possible start date. Useful for complex tasks requiring more than one participant – Slotting your tasks in between other tasks in order of priority. You must ensure the daily schedule duration agrees with the working hours for the day, week or month

Scheduling and protecting time Time management involves: – Planning your time As previously mentioned – Controlling your time – Protecting your time Delegating work (less important) to colleagues, freeing up time for you Be assertive, state what is required and say NO where demand are unrealistic Good planning aid for scheduling is: – To do List – Diary or Timetable (shared) – Planning schedule/chart (shared) – Action plan

Monitoring Plans Plans and schedules require monitoring to ensure on track Where not, adjustments are required to return to set deadline or plan Checklists are useful to monitor what has & hasn’t been done The use of plans, schedules and work requests/communication will enable the individual : – Check work is on track with current schedule – Review and keep track of original requests, plans and situation changes – Monitor the need for follow up – Review scheduling and workload management for self and supervisor, see how effectively you have translated requests into plans and schedules

Meeting Deadlines Deadline is a set/agreed time when a task must be completed – Some deadlines are obvious (meetings) – Some are less obvious (request for information on one day that is required for another day) Failure to complete by deadline can effect more than one person – Reasons, workload too great, the chain of information was not relied to you on time, not planned effectively, not worked efficiently and unexpected higher-priority demand placed on your time

Problems Whatever the reason for not meeting the deadline you must report the fact to the individual requesting the work, supervisor, line manager or colleagues This allows: – 1. the person awaiting the deadline can adjust their plans and notify others as required – 2. the manager can take action to enable the deadline to be met – 3. the manager can put pressure on employees who are holding you up – 4. lighten existing workload, free you up to complete/ meet the deadline – 5. provide additional resources (time or colleagues time) – 6. adjust plan to make more time

Adhering to working practise and policies Important to adhere to working practises Failure to, can cause disruption to plans and damage to working relationships Risk of issues - health & safety, confidentially, integrity of data