Working time planning time management(eng. time management), effective organization and management of your working time

There are many different approaches to the topic work time scheduling and time management in excel, on paper or in special programs,

Below is one such approach, successfully tested in practice and implemented in everyday life. In order to understand it is right for you, test it on your affairs and tasks.

Time management in Excel and on a regular sheet of paper, as well as a free timer for your laptop or for your smartphorn, this is all you need to effectively organize your time, and you can find, watch and download all this on our website, all the necessary links are on this page, let's start in more detail how to organize time management in excel.

Time management in an Excel file, we write things down for a week,
and we look at things for the day in Excel and it is more convenient to write them out in a notebook

The basis working time planning and all cases were taken for a week, i.e. flexible scheduling on a weekly basis. The week is a key indicator in planning of working hours: year-month-week-day.

Let's start with a month:
On the last weekend of the month, a list of results is compiled (let's call each result a Project). These are the desired monthly results that you intend to achieve during the next month. (Define for yourself 3-5 main results of the month).

It is necessary to take into account the achieved results in terms of goals and the mistakes made over the past month when planning activities in the new month, adjust, improve the goals and objectives when planning the new month, taking into account the required improvements, let's call these actions to improve KD (Adjustments to Action). For example: it was necessary to read a book, it was not possible to read the book, they forgot, they did not read it every day. We set the CD for this problem: I read 10 pages every day.

The list of results for the next month is your goals for the month, when you set them for yourself and formulated, you can start planning to achieve them.

So, once a week, for example, every Sunday, a list of tasks is drawn up within each Project - this is planning the week... These tasks are basic steps for the next week. These steps-actions are scattered over the days of the week in the Excel file.

When planning the affairs of the coming week, you also need to determine 3-5 main results of the week, these are the most important things of the week, according to them at the end of the week you will understand how effectively your week went.

planning of work for the week is kept in the Excel file.
Every evening before leaving work, this Excel file is opened and the plan for the next day is corrected and supplemented ( this is planning the day).

After that, the tasks for the coming day from the Excel file are written out on paper (a list of planning tasks for the day), this is your approved to-do list for tomorrow.

Working time planning - Time management in excel and on paper - important points:

1. Working time planning time management based on the week- this is flexible planning, it is possible and necessary to adjust-postpone tasks within one week, this does not harm the plan and the expected results, it is convenient to do it in an excel file.

2. Make a plan for the next day the night before- a key moment in the organization of time. In the morning, you don't have to think about what to do, everything is scheduled, turn off your head, just do it. If there is no clear plan in the morning - usually because of thinking about what to do in the morning, the whole day is crumpled and nothing is done. It is convenient to write out the plan for the next day from the excel weekly plan on a regular sheet of paper.

3. Write out tasks for the day ahead on a piece of paper it is very desirable, this is your signed contract with yourself, your material promise to yourself, and then - it is very pleasant to cross out the deeds done on a piece of paper.

4. When planning day, week, month, year prioritize, select from all the planned tasks the three most important of them: plan the three most important results of the day, the three most important results of the week, the three most important results of the month, the three most important results of the year. These are your most important goals as you move towards.

When planning the most important results (day, week, month, year) use the following questions:

• WHY do you need to achieve the result?
• WHAT DOES A SUCCESSFUL RESULT MEAN (what are the criteria for a successful result)
• HOW TO REACH (step by step plan: do one, do two, do three)

Expected result: criteria for the success of your time management

We perform the tasks ourselves in order to achieve some specific result, otherwise the tasks are nonsense.

It is better to start planning the result with “criteria for successful achievement of the result”.

For instance, Expected Result without criteria for the success of achieving the result: read the book "Book", then the task: to read 30 pages a day

And with such a formulation of tasks, the expected result can be achieved (the book will be read), but the quality of the result may not triple.

Therefore, at the planning stage, we lay criteria for the success of the desired result:
1.the book is read by the end of the month
2.after reading, a review was drawn up with a list of ideas for implementation
3. useful ideas put into practice

task to item 1. reading under the project, find at least 3 new ideas on the issue of "finding new clients"
task to point 1 while reading with a marker to highlight useful ideas
task to item 1. read 30 pages a day
task for clause 2 to analyze marker pomace, write a review on 1 sheet

This article will not touch upon the basics of time management, methods of dividing tasks into primary and secondary ones, principles of organizing working time, etc. Quite enough has already been written about this, and I cannot give better advice than reading specialized books on time management (primarily, those presented on this site). The purpose of this article is to familiarize yourself with a very specific system of recording and organizing time, which I myself use.

The proposed system for recording and organizing time was developed during 2004. The beginning of keeping a diary was laid in February 2004, and this practice continues to this day. Gradually, the system underwent some changes, trimmed and adapted to current tasks. To date, she has finally gained sufficient harmony and strength for me to risk bringing her up to the public. I hope that the proposed system will be useful for people who want to put some order in their own lives. At least, my experience allows us to hope so.

The diary is kept in a regular Excel file. The capabilities of this program allow not only conveniently planning the day, but also sorting tasks, keeping an archive and keeping track of the time spent.

TIME ACCOUNTING

By drawing an Excel sheet in a certain way, you can easily and conveniently keep track of the time during the day. For this, a scheme of the following form is used:

In the figure, every hour (the top line denotes hours) is divided into 4 columns, that is, the accuracy of time recording is 15 minutes. Greater accuracy makes it inconvenient to keep records, less - allows too large losses in accounting.

The leftmost column reflects typical graphs of time expenditures (reading - reading, rbt - work, docking - keeping documents, everyday life - solving everyday problems, lchn - personal time, rvl - entertainment, dv - movement, nchg - nothing, waste of time).

During the day, the elapsed time intervals are filled. To simplify calculations, the number "1" is used as a placeholder. Then, using the formulas entered in the corresponding columns, Excel (the formulas are written in the example file attached to the article) will automatically calculate the time spent on a particular type of activity.

By the end of the day, the time sheet looks like this:

This scheme, if desired, allows you to restore the whole day (overslept, quickly got ready, went to work, worked, chatted with a colleague, worked, had lunch, worked, went to a meeting, waited for a late partner, held a work meeting, returned to the office, reported to the boss, went home, had dinner, read, watched a movie, got ready for bed, read before bedtime, summed up the day, fell asleep).

But in practice, this is rarely required, so from most days there are short summaries of the time spent. They look like this:

Such resumes allow you to soberly assess how much time is spent on a particular type of activity, and, in addition, to deduce the average for the week or month. Further, if you wish, you can draw conclusions about the need to devote more or less time to this or that type of activity.

PLANNING

Let's start with a simple to-do list for the day. In my version it looks like this (NEG tab, today):
As you can see, the sheet uses 4 working columns: St - status; Вр - time; Fri - priority; and a column for the day and task description.

The column "Status" will be discussed in detail below. The column "Time" seems to be self-explanatory. We will now focus on looking at the Priority column. It uses the following characters:

! - the main task for the week

!! - part of the weekly task to be completed on the current day; or a side assignment for the week

30 - priority tasks for a specific day (tasks for which the time is determined or to be determined)

40 - Priority Daily Quests

50 - less important daily tasks

60 - tasks to determine the results of the day

70 - summing up the day

80 - tasks for determining the results of the week

90 - summing up the results of the week

Knowing this classification, it is quite easy to both distribute tasks for the day and schedule them for the week. The weekly plan in my file looks like this:

The actual weekly plan can be seen at the bottom of the page. Immediately below the column with the designation of the first and last days of the week, tasks for the week are recorded. This is followed by the designation of each individual day, under which specific tasks for that day are recorded.

The columns at the top of the page are daily and weekly tasks that are simply copied into the appropriate sheet when drawing up the daily plan.

The monthly plan is drawn up using the following scheme:

EFFICIENCY MARK

Now let's get back to the analysis of the "Status" column. It is this column that allows you to assess the effectiveness of the days lived. The "Status" column indicates whether the scheduled task has been completed or not. There are 3 possible characters used to indicate the status:

V - done

B - partially fulfilled, or not fulfilled due to objective reasons

N - not fulfilled

During the day, as the tasks are completed, the sheet takes on the following form:

Using the "sorting" function (menu item - Data), you can automatically sort tasks:

With this sorting (Status => Priority => Time), all completed tasks will appear at the top of the list. You can no longer pay attention to them, focusing it on the remaining tasks.
At the end of the day, when all the columns are filled, the proposed system allows an impartial and objective assessment of the effectiveness of the use of time.

The task sheet by the end of the day looks like this:

Using different colors after sorting allows you to visualize the efficiency of the day.
In the given example, out of 13 tasks on day 9 were completed, 3 were not completed, and 1 was not completed due to objective reasons. Taking into account that points "B" are counted as 0.5 / 0.5, the results of the day look like this: total - 13; plus - 9.5; minus - 3.5. I count the day as successful if there are more than two-thirds of the total number of "positive" tasks; half successful - from half to two-thirds of the total; unsuccessful - if there are more than half of the "minus" tasks. Other proportions are possible, depending on your exactingness towards yourself.

A similar system is used to assess the effectiveness of the week. In the archive, the past week looks like this:

A similar system is used to assess the performance of months and years. Month:

In the same way, it is possible to sum up the results of a year, a decade, and so on, up to summing up the results of a whole life :)

You can also store your own telephone directory in one file with the task and time tracking sheets.
It is especially convenient to use the proposed system in the presence of a pocket computer. In this case, the file with the sheets of tasks and time tracking will always be with you, and you can make changes to it in the course of the day.

You can and simply print job and time sheets on the printer. I recommend leaving a certain number of columns empty in order to enter the tasks that arise in them during the day.
I hope that the above system will be as useful to you as it helped me organize my life. Good luck!

Alexey Fedorov, December 2004 Contact: [email protected]... Editing - Gleb Arkhangelsky,
The article was written specifically for the site. Document address on the website:
It is allowed without additional agreement with the author to publish in free Internet publications, while maintaining the integrity of the text, including this notice, and working hyperlinks. Publication in paid online editions and paper media requires agreement with the author.

If you are doing something all day and, in the end, do not have time to do anything, then you should familiarize yourself with a few simple principles that will save you time.

Professionals say that by spending 10 minutes planning things, you can save up to two hours a day.

Before you do something, you need to analyze how you did it before and identify your mistakes. In this case, you need to find out what your time is spent on. For this it is used timing technique.

That is, during the week, you should write down how much time you spent on this or that business. Check your watch, download a free multifunctional reminder ModernAlert(a reminder, a scheduler, a stopwatch, a timer and many other useful tools, you can find an overview of it on my YouTube channel).

You can use online services for counting time or browser extensions - as long as you know exactly how you spend it.

Controlling your every step is not easy, but this is the only way you will understand what time is eating up.

Time management planning

Your brain will consider unwritten tasks to be unnecessary, so record them - in electronic form or on paper, the main thing is that everything should be written down.

But remember that in the basis of any plan are three principles: regularity, consistency, consistency.

• Regularity helps form the habit of making a plan.
• Consistency implies the systematization of affairs: from the smallest to the main goal, from the most important to the least important.
• The sequence means that you should not do many things at the same time: do not start a new business without finishing the old one.

Planning techniques

✔ Target crushing method.

3 goals of the year
3 goals of the month
3 goals of the week
3 purpose

✔ Template of the week

⇩Monday Schedule
⇩Results of the day
Friday review

Explanation: it is best to start planning your time with short-term periods: in the evening, make yourself a plan of action for the next day, then act according to the planned plan in the morning, analyze its implementation in the evening and plan the next day.

✔ ABC analysis or gradation of cases according to the degree of importance

Ⓐ Important things of the day
Ⓑ Important but not urgent matters
Ⓒ May be done someday

Explanation: you should organize your affairs according to the principle of importance: "A" means the highest degree of importance, that is, important things of this day, "B" - medium (important, but can wait), and "C" - the least (routine, little things, which you do not want to do, you can do it someday).

Time management efficiency

Several laws of time management that you need to know in order to effectively manage your time.

Parkinson's first law

For example, if you decide that you will spend three years on renovating an apartment, rather than three months, you will be doing it all three years.

Pareto principle

That is, by choosing the right minimum (20%) of the most important actions to achieve the goal, you can quickly get a significant part (80%) of the planned full result. Further improvements (80%) will be ineffective (20%) and may not be justified.

For example, 20% of buyers generate 80% of the profit; people in 80% of cases wear only 20% of things from their wardrobe, etc.

A few more tips for efficiency:

• If you plan the most important and unpleasant things for the morning, then you will feel relief, freeing up your day and relieving yourself of nervousness.
• For some little things, such as walking the dog, jogging, washing dishes, wet cleaning, set aside a certain time, for example 20 minutes (you can read about the 20 minute rule in my article) and stick to them.
• The daily biorhythms of a person should also be taken into account - for example, during the day we experience a surge of energy, ideas and a desire to move mountains. Then you should take on the most difficult cases, and leave the lungs for the period when fatigue comes. Briefly about daily biorhythms at the end of the article.

Unload your brain

✓ Create a personal diary. Make lists of everything you need to do, buy, travel lists, etc. and organize all your lists with a daily planner. You can read how to do this in this.

✓ All that is possible - delegate, everything that needs to be remembered - write down on paper or use electronic reminders or calendars (link to a program that will help with this, at the beginning of the article).

A compiled list relieves the brain and relieves anxiety - as if not to forget something.

The visualization board is also effective - for writing lists with a marker or for stickers and notes.

✓ Bring your daily must-do tasks to automatism. We sway for a long time, thinking whether I want to do this or not.

✓ Cleaning, washing dishes can also take different time depending on how you do everything. Work out certain schemes according to which your efficiency will be maximum.

For example, I found out for myself that washing dishes can take less time if you act in three stages. This significantly reduced the time that I began to spend on this "pleasant" activity.

✓ Put things in order (in the apartment, office, on the table) and maintain it as much as possible. The external corresponds to the internal and vice versa. This will save time looking for the right document or thing.

Carry out planned tasks

You can plan anything, but sticking to the plan takes willpower and self-discipline.

It is well known that the longer we think, the less we do. The optimal ratio is this: 20% of the time should be spent on thinking and planning, and 80% on execution.

Parse the results

No less important is the last principle of time management - the analysis of results. It allows you to take into account mistakes, identify where to find extra time, and your positive results will be the best self-motivation for the next steps.

Human daily biorhythms

From 11:00 to 13:00 and from 13:00 to 15:00 - the time of maximum possible stress for the body.

From 10:00 to 12:00 - the best performance and a burst of energy. The memory department of the brain, which is responsible for mathematical actions, is especially active.

After 12 hours, efficiency decreases, fatigue appears.

14:00 - at this time we are less stress-resistant. Do quiet work, no brainstorming.

15:00 - a new burst of energy, long-term memory is working.

16:00 -19: 00 - a high level of intellectual activity.

17:00 - repeated peak of activity, the most stress-resistant period of the day.

At 18:00, the activity of the nervous system decreases.

After 19:00 hours - concentration of attention improves and reaction increases.

After 20:00, the mental state stabilizes, memory improves, thought processes are a good time for learning and memorizing complex information.

After 21:00 - physical decline.

And after 24:00 a new physiological rise begins - therefore, it is difficult to fall asleep after midnight.

If you constantly do not have enough time, then, most likely, you are simply wasting it irrationally and do not pay due attention to its planning. Learn to manage your time correctly using specialized computer programs and online services.

The pace of development of the modern world over the past hundred years is accelerating ... Accordingly, the rhythm of life of an ordinary person is increasing. Many of us work most of the day, then run home, somehow manage our daily household chores and go to bed to do it all over again the next day ...

It's also good if at the weekend you manage to set aside at least some time for your favorite hobby or just a good rest. Many of us do not succeed either, since the weekend is devoted to solving everyday issues. That is, we are witnessing a total lack of time!

However, if you look from the other side and analyze at least a couple of our weekdays (or better weeks), it turns out that most of the time we spend not on the tasks of the boss, not on the road from work / to work, and not even on household chores , but on various, inherently meaningless, cases!

Useless conversations in the "smoking room", watching social networks or just aimlessly sitting still - that's all that takes away precious time from us, which we could usefully spend for the cause or our body!

If you constantly feel a lack of time and seriously decided to do something about it, I suggest you learn rational time management using modern computer technologies!

A little about the theory of time management

The history of domestic time management begins in the 20s of the last century, when, under the conditions of the new economic policy, the concept of "scientific organization of labor" (NOT) appeared. Its main goal was to optimize the working day of workers with maximum benefits for production and minimum workloads.

During the entire development of NOT, many different schemes and principles have been developed, however, almost all of them boil down to the fact that all cases and the time spent on their implementation must be carefully planned. The general algorithm for such planning can be presented in the form of a step-by-step diagram:

Based on this scheme, before taking on any business, you should first analyze all possible ways of its successful completion. Then define goals and break the whole process of implementing the plan into small tasks. Only after carefully planning everything and choosing the most successful algorithm of actions, you can start performing the work.

An important point is also the final control of the implementation of the assigned tasks. Thanks to the control, you can analyze your time costs and, possibly, in the future, when performing similar work, even more optimize your labor costs.

Today, there are quite a few time management techniques. However, in fact, they all boil down to one of three main ones, which differ in the principles of the approach: the "Eisenhower Matrix", the "Timekeeping" technique or the "Pomodoro" method. I propose to consider each of the methods and select programs for their implementation.

This planning technique got its name in honor of the American president and famous military leader Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was able to manage his time quite successfully.

The Matrix is ​​based on the principle formulated by the late 19th century Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto that only 20% of all efforts yield 80% of the result (also known as the 20/80 principle). Eisenhower slightly revised the Pareto principle and made it more utilitarian, sorting his affairs in a field of such a schedule according to their degree of urgency and importance:

The matrix is ​​a usual coordinate system, where the importance of cases is displayed horizontally, and their urgency is displayed vertically. The intersection of these two axes divides the plane of the sheet into 4 parts, different in priority level:

1. Important and urgent matters... This category includes those tasks that require the fastest possible solution and are important in your field of activity. For example, this can include things like making calls to customers, completing ongoing projects, etc.
2. Important but not urgent matters... In this section, you will have a list of cases that are important for your work in general, but their execution is not urgent. For example, these can be tasks that are regularly repeated or planned for the near future.
3. Not important, but urgent matters... Here you may have matters of secondary importance, which practically have nothing to do with your work or do not affect its result, but require our prompt response. For example, you need to wish your colleague a Happy Birthday, meet your aunt from Bobruisk who suddenly came to visit, or buy bread on your way home.
4. Not important and not urgent matters... The most extensive section of activities that do not affect the results of our work, are not urgent, but "devour" the lion's share of our time. This is meaningless conversations, and haphazard wandering on the Internet, and useless computer games and a lot of things that we so want to do, but there is little sense from them.

Thus, using the principle of Occam's razor, you can identify only the most important and urgent tasks that will bring real benefits to the business you are doing. The rest of the activities that are not urgent and important, you will learn to limit over time, respectively, getting more time at your disposal for productive activities.

If you decide to use this planning method, then a program called Chronometer can help you with this:

This program does not require installation, so it can be run from any media, but on some systems (for example, on Windows XP) it cannot automatically create a database. If you face such a problem, just create a blank text document and rename it replacing the extension from txt to sqlite. Or just download the finished file from our website. Specify the downloaded file as the program database and everything will work.

When the program starts, you can create your first to-do list and tasks for it. Please note that each task can be marked as important and / or urgent, as well as given a due date. This is necessary so that the Chronometer can automatically sort all tasks in the form of an Eisenhower matrix:

As you can see, the representation of the matrix here is a little different from what we discussed above, but the principle is the same. Just swapped the coordinate axes. By looking at the matrix, you can quickly determine priorities and complete important and urgent matters as soon as possible, so that you can tackle non-important and non-urgent ones :)

Timing

If you like to do everything thoroughly and consistently, perhaps a technique called "Timing" will suit you. This technique became famous in the USSR in the 70s thanks to the book by D. Granin "This Strange Life".

"Timing" is based on the principle of fixing all actions performed by a person over a period of time (optimally - two weeks). At the end of each day, a person should conduct an ongoing analysis of the work done and identify those actions that take time, but are not practical.

At the end of the two-week observation, a general analysis is done. As a result, we have two benefits. First, we get complete information about what our time is spent on, we identify its main "eaters" and see how we can save it. Secondly, during the period of observation, we learn self-discipline and develop the correct sense of the working rhythm.

You can record your actions in any way convenient for you: on paper, in a text document on a PC, in your phone's notebook, or even using a voice recorder. However, if you have access to the Internet, it is best to do this using special services, like Time-Master.ru

This service is a kind of online organizer in which you can record any of your already completed actions and tasks that have yet to be completed.

By default, the "Working day" tab is open, where you can enter all current actions (in the terminology of the service - "Events") and tasks. To enter, you can use the "Schedule" tab (all data is entered using a pop-up window as in the screenshot above) or use a simplified type of input in the "Diary" tab.

In addition to the current day, you can also schedule goals for longer periods of time using the Calendar tab (monthly or weekly). It is convenient to control the performed actions using the "Tasks" and "Diary" tabs:

The service is quite powerful and functional, so if you decide to use it, it is advisable to read the presentation that will be shown to you after registration. Otherwise, you risk losing the opportunity to use many useful features!

Tomato method

For the most impatient and those who cannot bear tedious planning, there is another time management technology - the tomato method (or "pomodoro", to use the original terminology)!

The method got its name in honor of the kitchen timer in the form of the vegetable of the same name (such were popular in the 80s in Europe and America). And it was invented by the then student of the Italian university Francesco Cirillo.

The essence of the method is that you formulate for yourself the current task ("tomato") and set a timer for 25 minutes. During this time, you must have time to complete the assigned task. After completing one "tomato" you have a short break of 3 - 5 minutes, and after performing 4 - a long break of 15 - 30 minutes.

The tomato method, for all its simplicity, allows the one who uses it to self-discipline as much as possible. After all, 25 minutes is not so much, but it is imperative to meet the deadline :)

Due to the simplicity of implementation, there are quite a few programs and services that use this method for time management. True, most of them are English-speaking. However, there are also Russians. I propose to consider some of them.

Pomodoro for Windows

For the PC, there is a small freeware program called Tomighty:

This is the development of Italian programmers, but it is almost completely Russified and quite easy to use.

After installing and launching it, a small icon in the form of a tomato appears in the tray, which you can click with the left mouse button to start the timer or right-click to access the context menu with settings.

By the way, about the settings. In the first tab you can change the default time intervals, and in the second I recommend unchecking the "Hide window automatically" option and activate the ability to drag the timer window ("Allow dragging the window around"). Now everything is ready and you can open the main window and start the timer itself:

Tomighty will be displayed on top of all windows and notify you about the events of the beginning and end of the task with sounds. During operation, the timer will be ticking. If this annoys you, just disable this option in the settings under the "Sounds" tab.

Upon completion of one "tomato" the program will offer you to take a break - agree :) Relax for 5 minutes and back to work. When you have done 4 tasks, make a long pause of half an hour, after which the timer will again start counting the next 4 "tomatoes".

Pomodoro for Android

Due to the mobility of the Android system, there are most of all different timers for it. Just go to Google.Play and enter the word "Pomodoro" in the search box to verify this.

Alas, due to the fact that I have an old version of Android on my phone, I was able to test only two applications of this kind (both in English). And the best of them I would call Simple Pomodoro:

After launching the application, we are taken to a screen with a timer. If you tap on it, then your device will go into lock mode and a 25-minute countdown will be displayed on it in full screen. If you press the "Back" button, you can either turn off the timer, or switch it to the background to perform other actions.

In addition to the main screen with a timer, Simple Pomodoro has two more screens: the task scheduler (swipe to the right from the screen by default) and statistics (swipe to the left). In the scheduler mode, you can not only create tasks in the application, but also import them from Google Calendar!

As in all similar programs, Simple Pomodoro has settings that are available in the menu on the statistics screen or by pressing the "Menu" system button:

In these settings, you can change the time intervals for the task and rest, set sounds, blocking parameters and other parameters.

Pomodoro online

If your work is connected with a computer and you have constant access to the Internet, then the Russian-language service "Tomato" will be an ideal choice for time-management for a tomato:

This service is not just a timer that you can turn on whenever you want, but a task-oriented tool! To use the "Tomato" after registration, you need to go to the "Tasks" section and set at least one goal for yourself, and then send it for execution and go to the "Timer" section:

The newly created task should appear in the list and to start the timer for it, you will just have to click on the "Play" button. In the running timer mode, you have the opportunity to pause or complete the current task ahead of schedule, which is not available in many analogues. You can control your performance in the "Statistics" section.

If you need to change the default timer intervals, you can do this by following the "Customize Tomato" link in the lower left corner of the page.

It should be said that the Pomodorka service is quite young and actively developing, so it may soon acquire any additional functions that large English-speaking counterparts have (for example, synchronizing cases with Google Calendar or import / export of task lists and statistics).

So it is quite possible that we will get at our disposal a worthy domestic response to "foreign tomatoes", which will be completely free (at least so the author says)!

conclusions

I would like to finish our today's article with one anecdote:

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?
- One is enough if the light bulb is ready to change!

The situation is similar with time management. If you seriously decided to start organizing the waste of your own time, then it does not matter which method or program you choose for this - you will achieve success in any case.

However, if there is no special desire to self-discipline, then no matter what you choose, there will be no sense from this. Therefore, before looking for a miracle time management program, ask yourself the question, are you ready to change. If the answer is yes, then go ahead! I wish you the most rational and useful way to spend all your time!

P.S. It is allowed to freely copy and cite this article, provided that an open active link to the source is indicated and the authorship of Ruslan Tertyshny is preserved.

What questions can you find answers in the article "Time management in a week: a step-by-step plan"

You can often hear from business owners that they are so busy that they simply do not have time to plan. Thus, a kind of vicious circle is formed: there is no time to manage time. To solve this problem, you need to understand: spending 25 minutes today planning tomorrow is not a waste, but an investment. When planning your tomorrow, you will be able to allocate time for solving your main tasks, so there is no need to postpone the study of time management and wait for a more favorable moment: it is unlikely to come soon.

Time management can be compared to physical exercise: you need to increase the load gradually, and train constantly. The more regular the exercise, the better the physical shape. Therefore, the ideal option for introducing a time management program into your life is step by step, day by day, mastering techniques.

Time management: weekly program

Monday. Scheduling the manager's working time

Planning becomes the basis for effective work. It is time management (working time planning) that becomes the basis for organizing your affairs. Most people expect many different tasks on a daily basis, some of which need to be completed in a very short time frame, while others can wait. The organization of these cases in a convenient and effective system becomes the basic principle of planning your time.

I recommend on the eve of the work week, on Sunday, to divide the planned activities for Monday into the categories of “hard” and “flexible”. The rigid ones have a certain time binding (for example, a meeting at 14:00), while the flexible ones have a deadline (“preparation of the report by Friday”). To organize this scheme, it is better to use the following principle. In your planner or diary, you should divide the page vertically in half - along the line on the left we list our “hard” tasks, on the right side - “flexible” ones, without tying the latter to a specific time. Thanks to the distribution of your day in this way, you will be able to see that there is an interval of time between the “tough” tasks that can be devoted to “flexible” tasks.

Such time management will allow you to get the whole picture of the upcoming day - a person gains confidence that he is adhering to a planned, effective scheme. You don't need to worry if there are violations in your plan - after all, life always makes adjustments. You just need to adapt to the circumstances by making the necessary changes to your plan. It is also important to take into account that it is unrealistic to “rigidly” plan more than 40-60% of the working time. The more flexible the day, the better.

I recommend planning your next day the night before - the evening of the previous day. You will feel much more comfortable in the morning. It is imperative that you indicate on the list of your “flexible” cases - “draw up an action plan for the next day”.

Tuesday. Time management principles and prioritization

After training on Monday in drawing up the technique of your planning of "hard" and "flexible" cases, you should move on to a new stage of time management - taking into account the priority of your plans. Quite often, compiling a list of “flexible” cases is quite chaotic - urgent tasks are listed at the end, and secondary plans are placed at the top. This approach is bound to lead to confusion in the implementation of their plans for the next day.

To avoid this problem, you need to list cases based on their importance. Priorities are set based on certain criteria. For example, if the task is set by the owner of the business, it will be necessary to solve it immediately. If the case does not belong to its professional duties, then it can wait. The list of such criteria for each person will be individual - you need to think over them in advance.

We prioritize our flexible tasks on Tuesday morning. Various techniques can be used for this. For example, we arrange things on our list in accordance with the priority of tasks, or we color the columns in different colors that correspond to a certain degree of importance. The most important tasks can be displayed in red, less important ones - in yellow, and tasks that can wait - in green.

This approach allows you to achieve detailed planning of your day. But it is worth understanding, in detail - does not mean minute by minute. It's just that you will know what you have to do tomorrow, where you will need to start, how to end - the whole day has already been planned.

Wednesday. Goal setting and "memoir"

Goal setting is an important time management technique in terms of organizing working time and philosophically. After all, life is given once, so it must be devoted to the most important. This requires the ability to plan, set goals. However, you need to be careful not to get too carried away with fashion trends. For example, at our seminars, many participants noted that in the near future (5-10 years) they set themselves approximately the same goals - a delightful, snow-white office, many subordinates and a better car. Of course, such dreams cannot be called bad, but often a person cannot answer the question - what exactly does he do that will allow him to achieve such wealth, office and car?

Therefore, it is recommended to keep a “memoir” (for example, a separate file on a computer or a notebook, it all depends on personal preference). Indicate in it every evening the key event of the past day, and at the end of the week we define the key word of the week, then the month. Only one specific event should be selected - positive or negative, relating to work or other areas. The main condition is that it must be really key. You should start your “memoir” from Wednesday. But before that, you need to write down your goals for a certain period - for example, for 1, 2 or 10 years. Then we conduct a periodic analysis of our "memoir". Thanks to this, it will be possible to understand the key interests of your own life - what really belongs to the category of importance. Accordingly, it will be possible to assess the correctness of your movement towards the goal. Either it may be revealed that you are only moving away from your goal, or it turned out to be completely unnecessary. In my practice, every day I look at the records that were made on the same day, but in the past years - I manage to compare and analyze my own values ​​and the changes that have occurred to them.

Thursday. Time management and long-term goals

When you understand your priorities and your vision for the future, you can talk about your readiness to take the next step - a map of long-term goals. The map shows the person's long-term goals as follows. 2 axes are placed horizontally - years (starting from the current one) and the person's age. Key areas are indicated vertically (family relationships, career, personal development, etc.). Indicate approximate targets at the intersection of your years and key areas. An important advantage of making a map like this is to combine professional and personal goals in a common plan.

Of course, certain changes to your map are possible from time to time. However, thanks to her, an approximate sketch of the future is possible, depicting his own approximate route of the further path. Therefore, this Thursday we are drawing our first card of long-term goals.

Friday. "Elephants" and "frogs"

We have already drawn up a to-do plan and a list of goals, so on Friday we begin to think over the necessary motivation to achieve the set tasks. To draw up such a plan, you can recommend a fairly simple technique based on the conditional division of your tasks into “frogs” and “elephants”.

“Elephants” are any difficult, voluminous tasks that still need to be done (conditionally “eat”). Initially, it may seem that it is simply impossible to “eat such an elephant”. But ... an elephant can be cut into pieces to make many small “steaks” for your daily menu. The task is similar with complex, voluminous tasks - which are completely divided into components, separately with which you can cope. For example, at the end of the year, it becomes necessary to draw up an annual report. We have a truly large-scale work ahead - with the search for complex materials, organization of activities, etc. We need to divide the overall complex task into separate parts - for example, write 3 paragraphs every day or describe a separate topic. Thanks to this, it will be possible to cope with the preparation of the report on time without constant worries and stress. Experience confirms that thanks to this approach, it is possible to quickly solve their complex problems, spending less effort.

The situation is similar with “eating frogs”. The term "frog" implies a small but unpleasant business. Although there is no choice - it must be fulfilled. Such a “frog” may well become an “elephant” over time, if you do not “eat” it in a timely manner. For example, you need to express dissatisfaction with the accounts department with advance reports or disassemble the bottom drawers of your desk. If properly organized, the “frogs” also become tasty “steaks”, into which we also divided the “elephants”. To use this technique in practice, we take an “elephant”, which we divide into parts. Then we indicate the list of "frogs" and draw up all this information in the following table.

On the left side all "steaks" and "frogs" for each day are indicated. On the right side, the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of these goals is indicated. If a certain job was not supposed to be done on that day, leave an empty space. If it was supposed, however, it was not possible to complete it, you need to put a dash. When fulfilling a specific goal, you need to put a plus or a tick. There is no need to get upset because of your dashes, but still - if there are a lot of them in a certain column, then you should think about it and get down to business. We place this table in a conspicuous place or in our diary. It's important to see your chart several times a day - keeping in mind your goals and for additional motivation.

Saturday. Rhythm in rest and resource activities

The working week ends with the onset of the weekend. You can relax and familiarize yourself with more pleasant, suitable time management techniques for the competent and complete organization of your vacation. There are 2 time management techniques to recommend on Saturday this week.

Rhythm in rest. A person cannot concentrate his attention on one subject for more than 40 (rarely 80) minutes. Therefore, you should give yourself a rest for 5 minutes approximately once an hour. For example, while reading a book or viewing business magazines that have accumulated over this working week, you need to get rest every hour - after being in silence, taking a walk, etc. This experience from next week can be adopted for the workplace.

Resource studies. They are able to revitalize or calm down (switching as much as possible, contributing to more effective and early rest). For example, some people prefer to walk up the stairs from the 1st floor to the last and back, others embroider crosses, others take a break, enjoying coffee and rum. Here, it is important for a person to decide on an occupation suitable for oneself, contributing to the most effective restoration of internal energy. The efficiency of restoring your working capacity also depends on the quality of rest. You can devote the whole Saturday to walking and relaxing in the park or a trip to the entertainment center with the whole family. Consider what resource activities you can include in your work schedule for the next week.

Sunday. Pamper yourself, time management system is ready

Sunday is a great day to congratulate yourself on a successful weekly course that has set up your time management system. It will not hurt to pamper yourself a little. To do this, you can follow the technique of intermediate joys. Choose something that is especially pleasant for yourself - something that you love but cannot afford on a daily basis. For example, to supplement your diet with something expensive and tasty by visiting your favorite places, chatting with people you love, sunbathing, spending time in nature, simply giving an hour of idleness, etc. Such joys are established for oneself for a certain amount of work. Use this scheme to plan your working day, week, or even year. To do this, you can draw up a table - indicating the remuneration for your achievements. There is additional motivation, it becomes much more interesting to work. At the end of Sunday, you need to plan your working hours for Monday, based on the time management techniques we've covered.