Time to change your mindset around time

As some of you may have created new year resolutions, which may include time management or gaining a better work life balance, we have an article from PCC associate, Joanna Fox on time management as our first blog of 2023.

Why is it that too many managers feel overwhelmed, pressured, and stressed by time (of lack of it)? How common is it for you to get to the end of your working day, and to be suddenly met with the damning thought of “what did I actually achieve today”? meaning that you had good intentions and ambitions at the start of the day, but by the end of it, were taken on a differing course, unplanned for too.

To explore this and provide some supporting examples of how you can better control your time. Let us start by introducing the concept that you have total control of your time; it is yours to own. Because time management theory reflects a person’s ability to self-manage their time.

What your time meets along its daily journey are obstacles, challenges, and sometimes outright time thief’s, some of which blind side you, as they are unintended consequences of your role. How do you recognise these, overcome them, and better manage your time throughout the day?

Don’t underestimate how much time you are a victim to emails, along with its new companion, WhatsApp! We know detail of emails of the likely contenders for disrupting time, too many come into the inbox, too many are lacking in clarity around what you are meant to do with them, too many are sent on distribution lists, and you are unsure if it was meant for you in the first instance.

How others send emails, you cannot be accountable for, however the volume of time you spend on emails and procrastinating about what to do with it, are within your control. A way to take control is to create categories for your emails – like colour coding them to be able see at quick glance which ones require your attention.

With your categories, try not to map more than ten of them, as this will help to keep your management of them concise, with no email being attributed more than a couple of tags.

TOP TIP: Do not check emails – process them and apply the tag: Action tags, should be then applied “moved” into your diary so you have allocated the time to complete this task.

It is fascinating to observe the desire to be good at time management and how our trusted old “to do lists” are getting in the way of achieving that.

I question when you have a to do list, are you writing next to each item how long it will take, and over what time you must complete it? If the answer is no, then it is time to reset your default way of working and consider a movement of “to do lists” or “task lists” into a diary where time allocation can occur.

Taking this time management approach will help you to shift from fighting fires and buckling under the pressure of perceptions of tasks being urgent, to that of ones which are not urgent but are important, for you to be working through. It will also help you to articulate to others the expectations and the boundaries you work within.

TOP TIP: Ditch the “task list,” and “Diarise the do-list,” oh and allow for “wriggle room” in your diary, this gives you breathing space

So many meetings, are they a waste of time? To help you better understand whether you should attend as many meetings as you do ask yourself this question: “Does the meeting invite have an agenda/clear purpose?” If the answer is no, do not accept the invite until it does. Why recommend you take this stance? How can you make an informed decision about where best to place your time if you are not cited on the topics and agenda items, to know whether you can contribute and thus give value or indeed take value from attending.

TOP TIP: A way to help you understand whether you should be attending meetings or not, is to do the maths quite simply on the cost of your attendance, and that of colleagues in local meetings, and to ask the question if the cost was worth its return on investment?

Recognise attention to detail is finite, reflect on the types of tasks you are achieving when you are fully focused, alert and in the zone, acknowledge at what times of your working day? What tasks are you trying to work through when you have an active attention, the times of the day when you are ticking along but perhaps attention has been stretched slightly and you are lagging slightly, where focus dips in and out, and you are quite content to be distracted.

Finally recognise when you have reached an inactive attention state, where the tank is running on empty. Is this the time to switch off the lights and go home? If you work beyond your working hours regularly, you are a suitable case study to be implementing some, if not all these recommendations.

PCC provides support to practices and others across the health service see www.pcc-cic.org.uk

Joanna Fox, Associate, PCC.