More or less?
It is the way of the world, now. Even before the phrase sub-prime morphed into world financial crisis, and finally the dreaded “R” word – recession – entered our everyday lexicon, every organisation I have ever worked with wants to improve efficiency and effectiveness. In other words, more bang for your buck. Or, put at its simplest, more for less. There is no real escape from this. And the pressure will be greater to squeeze even more out of less resource as double dip recession (if it happens) causes belts to continue to tighten.
What can we do? There is one resource that is finite. That is Time. Roger Allen wrote a seminal book “Winnie-the-Pooh on Management”, (this does exist!). He quotes Pooh Bear saying, ‘But you can’t manage time – time just is”. And that is the problem. Time can only be allocated and prioritised for tasks. You can’t make more of it. Yes, you can work all 8760 hours in a year, if you don’t do anything but work. However, you would expire without sleep and food, and more stuff will have magically worked its way into your ‘To Do’ list anyway.
So, where do we start in increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of our time utilisation?
You could make an efficient start by attending the last session at the eFin User Group at Twickenham on 10th September. We will be looking at Time Logs, some frightening statistics, job analysis, prioritising, Air Traffic Control and some personal anecdotes. You will leave with some tips and ideas to help you gain more for less. You will need to start with some self analysis. We need to understand how we currently use our time to be able to change (if needs be). You will be receiving a Time Log next week to fill in before you come to the event. We already know that some of you will not find time to do this! As well as that, you will find some ideas in the next two blogs. The first will look at the time wasters we all have to live with and what we can do about them. The next will consider some of the good habits we need to develop to fix this exemplary behaviour into our busy schedules.
Look forward to meeting you in September.
Phil Hawthorn
