Time Management

How much is your time worth?

Value of Time

Have you ever wondered what your time costs per hour or per minute?

Please do this exercise.

1 Write down your annual salary along-with bonus, perks, LTA, HRA, P.F., Commissions etc.

2 Add 100% of your salary for overheads (Office space, AC, Travel, Telephone, Secretaries, Administrative help etc.)

3 Total amount

4 Divide the total by the number of working days in a year after deducting annual leave, casual leave and holidays to get your total cost per day.

5 Divide your daily cost by 8 to give your cost per hour.

6 Finally divide your hourly cost by 60 to get your cost per minutes.

Keep the last two figures in mind while dealing with unnecessary phone calls, unproductive meetings or unwanted visitors.

Ask yourself, “Is what I am doing worth my per minute cost?”

Self Organisation

Are you well organized?

Few things do more to undermine an executive’s credibility than a reputation for being badly organized. Bad working habits can only lead to a loss of respect from your boss and / or the people who work for you.

The key to organizing others is to be well organized yourself.

Answer YES or No to these questions:

Do you have a plan for how you will spend your day when you arrive at the office?

Do you give priority to the things that must be done rather than the things you like to do?

Do you have a regular time each day for dealing with correspondence and administrative activities?

Do you deal with most of your mail / paper on the day that it arrives? Do you know what time of the day you work most effectively, and, therefore, use this for working on your most difficult task?

Do you keep your desk clear of all papers except those on which you are working?

Do you set aside a period of time each day to make important outgoing telephone calls?

Before calling do you make notes on all the key points you would like to cover?

Do you make full use of your diary for noting down dates, times, places, names, addresses, telephone numbers etc.?

Do you have an efficient reminder system?

Do you devise effective procedures for dealing with routine work?

Do you know which papers are in which drawer of your desk?

Do you have a efficient filing system?

Do you cut off your telephone during important meetings rather than suffer constant interruptions?

Do you let your secretary / colleagues know where you can be contacted if you leave your office for an unscheduled meeting / activity?

Indicate your reaction to each of the statements as follows: