Working time is the time that any employee devotes to the performance of his labor function. Its duration is regulated by labor legislation.

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Working time planning is an integral part of its management, that is, time management. This fashionable word today means not just time management, but its effective planning to achieve the goals of the enterprise. After all, time is one of the resources that must be used rationally.

Why and who needs it?

Talking about time management is not entirely correct. Its course does not depend on human actions, it does not accelerate or slow down.

It is worth managing the use of this time. And for the enterprise it is important at all levels - from the head to ordinary employees. Effective use This resource directly affects labor productivity, and hence profits.

For any company, planning of working time is also important.

The number of employees of the enterprise, and hence the financial costs associated with personnel, depends on what fund of working time is required to perform production tasks.

Reasons for lack of time

Scarcity means lack. In our case - the lack of working time to complete the task assigned to a particular employee, department or enterprise as a whole.

The result may be a delay in the execution of the order and its adverse consequences. Most often, the lack of time is associated with the incompetence of the leader.

There are three groups of reasons leading to lack of time:

• personal qualities of the leader;
• manager's actions;
• independent reasons.

The personal qualities of the leader, leading to loss of time, can manifest themselves in such phenomena as:

• fussiness, that is, the hasty commission of erratic actions;
• constant haste;
• lack of proper rest due to the completion of the house.

Illiterate actions lead to the fact that there are:

• low or no motivation among employees;
• violation of communication;
• lack of ranking of cases according to the degree of importance;
• inability to delegate authority.

Reasons independent of the manager, leading to a lack of time for the manager and his subordinates, are:

• too much big number tasks, cases, assignments;
• unplanned events (time thieves).

These causes usually do not occur in isolation. They flow from one another.

The result is a vicious circle, out of which only correct and rational planning will allow. And control over the implementation of the planned activities and the time spent on them.

What tasks can be solved?

Planning is one of the tools for making various management decisions. It involves setting goals and identifying ways to achieve them. That is, this is a kind of opportunity to look into the future of the company and decide how exactly and for how long you can get there.

Planning and managing working time allows you to solve the following tasks:

• increasing the level of performance:
• control of actions and time spent on them;
• work schedule optimization;
• improving techniques for using time;
• elimination of time-inefficient types of activities;
• rational planning of the most important cases;
• clear separation of work and personal time.

Kinds

Time planning in an enterprise, like any planning, can be divided into types according to various criteria:

• by coverage (general and particular);
• by content (strategic, operational and current);
• by objects (personnel, production, financial);
• by periods (short-term, medium-term, long-term);
• possible changes (hard and flexible).

General fund planning

Planning the general fund is impossible without calculating the cost of working time. In order to understand how much this resource is required, various methods are used.

Then work time it is necessary to normalize, that is, based on the results of cost calculations and scientifically based standards, to derive the optimal time for the manufacture of one unit of production or the completion of a task.

Rationing is the core of planning the general fund of time. It is on this basis that the quantity necessary personnel, costs for , incentive criteria.

The general fund consists of:

• calendar;
• nominal (calendar without days off and holidays, but taking into account shortened pre-holiday days);
• effective (how much one employee worked in the planning period).

Individual

No less important than overall planning will be the time management of each employee.

Here it is important to know who to set a rigid schedule, and who knows how to plan his time as efficiently as possible. Still, there are a few important points.

For example, maintain a ratio of 60/40. That is, plan 60% of the working time for solving current problems, and leave 40% for unforeseen tasks and creative activity (two blocks of 20% each).

This and other important principles of planning individual working time were formulated by L. Seivert.

He did not single out fundamental differences between managers and specialists in terms of the efficiency of using working time. However, I would like to point out some aspects.

Leaders

For a leader, planning skills are especially important.

This is its function: to set goals, determine the time frame for achieving it and control the result, as well as delegate authority, getting rid of those tasks that specialists can perform.

Specialists

The specialist plans his time, based on the tasks set by the manager. For him great importance have self-discipline skills.

Planning of working time at the enterprise

Any plan must be recorded in writing, otherwise it does not exist. Electronic planning will help facilitate time management. Usage modern technologies will not only allow you to visualize the to-do list.

Modern gadgets are able to remind their owners of important events.

General rules

• The plan must be drawn up in the evening and amended in the morning.
• All the cases included in the plan must be divided by time into short, medium and long-term.
• The volume of cases should be realistic, do not try to embrace the immensity.
• Record not only goals, but also expected results.
• Determine priorities.
• Set precise deadlines for completing each task.
• Delegate authority.
• Plans should be updated regularly.

What to include in the plan?

The plan must include absolutely all the things that have to be done during the day. This will ensure that nothing is missed in the next steps.

It is necessary to write down everything - from a meeting with the head, to congratulating a colleague on his birthday by corporate mail. You need to start with those that have the exact time: meetings, appointments, conferences, etc.

In addition to the assignments of the management, it is worth including those cases that contribute to career advancement. For example, professional development or creative work over the project.

Prioritization

In order for time planning to be really effective, it is necessary to rank everything entered into the daily (weekly, monthly, etc.) according to their degree of importance and urgency. And then do it in descending order of importance.

Technology and methods

The most commonly used methods for prioritization and time planning are the Eisenhower Matrix and the Pareto Law.

Briefly, it looks like this:

• all cases are divided into important and urgent, important and non-urgent, less important and optional;
• most of the time (up to 80%) should be devoted to the most important and urgent;
• this must be done at the beginning of the working day.

Performance analysis

It is possible to check how efficiently any employee uses his working time mathematically. For this, various coefficients are used, for example, extensive use of time.

Its calculation formula looks like this:

Ke \u003d (general fund of time - breaks in work) / total fund of time.

The ideal value would be one. The more Ke differs from it, the more inefficiently working time is used.

• through the fault of the employee and for reasons beyond his control;
• for personal needs.

To do this, the numerator of the formula is substituted desired value(in minutes), and the denominator remains the total fund of time. Here the relationship is reversed. The closer this value is to one, the more irrationally the working time is spent.

Examples

Planning a working day, week or other period largely depends on the specifics of the profession. Especially if it involves elements of creativity.

Consider what you should pay attention to representatives of such professions as a legal adviser and a manager in the banking sector.

For a lawyer

A feature of this profession is participation in court hearings. Consequently, the work schedule necessarily includes a schedule of trials and procedural terms for the preparation of certain documents. These are the most important and urgent matters.

The time of meetings and negotiations with clients is coordinated based on the remaining free intervals. What remains as a result is spent on analytics and reporting.

The plan for the day will look something like this:

Time	Tough deadlines	Flexible Tasks
9-00	operational meeting
10-00		Write a report for the boss
11-00		View again the documents for process N
12-00	Court session in case N
13-00		Dinner
14-00		View supply contracts
15-00	Meeting with A, filing a claim
16-00	Prepare an appeal for a case
17-00		Check deadlines for procedural documents

For a bank manager

The working day of a bank loan manager will consist of several blocks:

• appointments tied to time;
• drawing up contracts based on the results of meetings;
• cold calls to expand the customer base;
• preparation commercial offers etc.

The day plan for such an employee may be as follows:

And a few last tips:

• When determining the importance of a task, it is worth asking yourself the question: “What will this give me?” And proceed with the execution only if the answer suits. If you don't like the answer, then you can probably postpone the task for the time being.
• First of all, in the morning, it is worth doing the most unpleasant, but important things.
• Large and complex tasks are best accomplished when broken down into small and easy ones.
• It is vital to give yourself a good rest from work.

I am sure that each of you has noticed yourself many times: you seem to be plowing like hell all day, incredibly busy with something, but by the end of the day, thinking about what you managed to do today, you realize with great surprise that there is no significant result.

How does a day usually go for the average Russian? Woke up, ate (if you already have something to eat). I went to work with thoughts: “Today is an important day. Everything needs to be done today! I arrived, sat down at my desk and looked at the monitor: So, where would it be better to start ...?. It would be necessary to check the mail ..., well, in contact on the way to go for a minute ... Two hours passed. I remembered that I had to work. I had just started working, when suddenly the men called for a smoke, went with them, half an hour passed unnoticed by the conversation. And then lunch will be soon, why bother straining, because after lunch there is a lot of time, you will have time for everything. After dinner, the boss suddenly sent me to a meeting with partners. You arrive at the office in the evening, you realize that you haven’t done a damn thing, you stay at work to finish everything. Suddenly you remember that today is the birthday of some close person, you call him, congratulate him, and say that you won’t come, because. a lot of work. You come home from work, there is no mood, tired as a dog, you take a couple of bottles of beer to improve your mood. There is no desire to play with children, with a wife (husband) now is also not the best time to spend time. He turned on the TV and soon passed out in his chair without even finishing his beer. And so day after day...

I hope you are making the most of your day. However, a lot of people live like this every day. Naturally, what I gave as an example is a tiny part of what really happens to people. There are a bunch of others side effects. And all due to the fact that a person lives for today and spends it the way circumstances develop. Hence the productivity, both in the work plan and in the family, is close to zero. Fortunately, there is a way out. Daily planning of your day will help increase your productivity.

Daily planning of your time is an integral part of any successful person. After all, when a person always knows what he wants and what needs to be done at a certain point in time, he manages to do much more than someone who spends his day “how it goes”.

I will give ten basic rules, adhering to which you can create your own work schedule as efficiently as possible. Of course, this is not a panacea, and everyone can edit their diary in accordance with their strengths, workload, task speed, sleep, rest, etc.

PLANNING YOUR TIME. 10 RULES.

1. Try to stick to the 70/30 principle.
Planning absolutely all your time is impractical, because. in this case, your actions will be completely at odds with your schedule. Yes, and the complete “imprisonment” of your time in a diary will lead to the fact that you will be in too tight limits and constantly feel like some kind of robot, whose whole life is scheduled every minute.

The optimal solution is planning 70% own time. Agree, some events are difficult to predict, and almost every day there is a kind of “surprise effect”, so you should always leave some time free. Or, alternatively, make a certain stock in each time period.

2. Make a plan for the next day tonight.
Planning the next day at the end of today is commendable, but in order not to forget anything, be sure to write down everything you do. Separate tasks by importance by dividing the notebook into two columns. In the first write down what needs to be done immediately. In the second - which is less important and in case of force majeure it can be rescheduled for another day.

Cross out the tasks and tasks that you have completed, one by one. This will serve as an additional incentive for you and add new strength to solve the remaining tasks. The fewer tasks you have left, the more confidence that you will cope with them, you will receive.

At the end of each day, at the very bottom, you can add an inscription like: "Hooray! I did it”, “Well done! But this is just the beginning!”, “I managed everything! I am cool! But there is still a lot to do!”. This inscription will also stimulate you in the morning to achieve your goals and at the same time not to relax.

3. Try to complete most of the planned before lunch.
When you realize in the middle of the day that the most important thing for today is done and is already behind, it is much easier to carry out the remaining tasks. Take advantage of your lunch break to deal with your personal matters (call relatives, answer missed calls, discuss loan issues with the bank, pay bills, etc.). Leave the minimum for the evening (negotiations with the developer, going to the salon, buying groceries, working out in the gym).

4. In each working hour, add minutes of rest.
Mandatory rule for everyone. The more often you rest, the more productive your activities will be. Everyone chooses the most convenient scheme for himself, but two schemes work especially well: 50 minutes work / 10 minutes rest or 45 minutes work / 15 minutes rest.

While relaxing, it is not at all necessary to smoke bamboo and spit at the ceiling while lying on the couch. After all, this time can be put to good use. Warm up: do push-ups, pull yourself up, stand on your head (if space permits), do exercises for the neck and eyes. Lead workplace tidy, clean your house or office, read a book, take a walk fresh air, make scheduled calls, help colleagues with something (family if work is at home), etc.

5. Try to create realistic planning.
Don't overwhelm yourself with work that you can't handle. Don't go to the extreme of over-planning (like you're up to any mountains) and plan only as much work as you can realistically handle.

Please do not confuse planning with goals. Your goals can be super-grand, they, in principle, should be so. But in order to achieve these goals in the shortest possible time, there must be realistic and competent planning of the tasks set. This absolutely does not mean that you have to work every day until you lose your pulse in order to achieve your goal as soon as possible. It is better to do one thing in small portions steadily every day than to do the same thing from the beginning to the end of the day chaotically and hastily. Then you will not be exhausted, and the achievement of goals will take place systematically.

In addition, at the end of each day, add a column “Plan completed by ____%” and enter there the percentage of your completed tasks for today. This will serve as an additional stimulation for you, as well as provide an opportunity to compare results and subsequently make appropriate adjustments when planning your time.

Try every day, at least not much, but overfulfill the plan. Those. try to additionally close those tasks that were not indicated in the plan. Naturally, their solution should be taken only after all the planned tasks have already been completed. Agree, it's nice to watch your super-productivity, looking at the numbers 105%, 110%, 115% at the end of each working day.

6. Do large tasks in small parts.
This tactic is also called the “slicing salami” tactic. Einstein also noted that most people enjoy chopping wood because the action is immediately followed by the result. Divide your goals and projects into small portions and complete them for a fairly long time, every day devoting about two hours to this work. Upon reaching the first intermediate goal, certain results will also be identified that will stimulate the implementation of the remaining tasks.

For example, let's take the creation of some product: Every day you can stupidly add the line “Create a video course” to your diary and work on this course. But in this case there is a few big cons:

• you do not have the opportunity to predict the duration of your course in advance
• every day you don't know how to continue working on the course
• you do not feel satisfied with the work done until you have completed your course completely

If, however, the creation of the course is divided into many small portions and closed gradually, then all of the listed disadvantages can be easily avoided.

Those tasks, the performance of which causes you, to put it mildly, dissatisfaction, or in which you are incompetent, feel free to delegate to other specialists who perform such tasks for fun. You will save a lot of time, and the planned work will be done more professionally.

7. Be quiet for a while.
It often happens that the TV in the next room, the radio that works for days on end, someone's voices, people passing by you, a building under construction on the next street, as a result, are so annoying that it is simply impossible to concentrate normally on doing important things. Instead of permission specific tasks Pantyhose for 574 rubles that your employee bought today, or Justin Bieber's last super-mega-hit, which is now playing on the radio, are spinning in my head.

To perform extremely important tasks, it is necessary to be able to work quietly, without any interference from outside. It is in this case that you can, with maximum concentration, achieve the highest productivity and effectiveness.

8. Put things away when you're done using them.
This will save you a lot of time in the future and will also help you avoid clutter. Not for nothing they say: “If you want to know about your future partner, look at his desktop. What order is on his table - such order is in his affairs.

I advise you to generally throw out all your old and unnecessary things, get rid of excess rubbish so that only the most necessary things for work lie on the table.

Keep things in well-defined places. For example, keep all documents in a separate folder or box, receipts and receipts also kept chipped in a certain place, pens and pencils in the most convenient place for use. Fortunately, now you can easily purchase special kits, boxes, cases to solve this problem.

Do it and feel the incredible effect!

9. Get rid of things you don't need.
All the stocks of old things left in case “what if it comes in handy” will not bring you anything but extra dust and mess. In addition, it is believed that things sent by us “for scrap” to the mezzanine, in suitcases, under the sofa, in the pantry, on kitchen set carry negative energy.

This, as you understand, applies not only to the desktop, but also to the work and home space in general. Therefore, ruthlessly get rid of these "very necessary things that you feel sorry for throwing away." Collect all the good in a truck, take it to a landfill and burn it. If it’s really a pity, then put everything next to the entrance, the needy will quickly sort it out. Clothes and shoes can be delivered to orphanages and nursing homes. You will only be grateful.

10. Keep active and healthy lifestyle life.
If you are not yet very friendly with sports, gymnastics, water procedures, proper nutrition etc., then I advise you to add some of this to your daily routine. I give you a 100% guarantee that you will be very pleased with the results. The main thing is that you do not goof off and strictly follow your sports schedule. You will not even notice how quickly your health and general physical condition will improve. You can also easily get rid of bad habits if you set a goal for yourself and build good habits instead of bad habits.

It should be remembered that best sleep- this is a dream until midnight, tk. during this period, your body rests and gains strength in the best possible way. In other words, go to bed today, not tomorrow.

Get enough sleep, exercise, eat right. Your body will thank you with good health, high levels of positive energy and readiness for productive activities.

At the end I will give an example of my routine so that you have something to compare. Can't say it's the perfect all-rounder schedule for everyone, but personally it suits me completely. Compared to my very first routine, it has been adjusted more than once and on this moment it looks like this...

THE PERFECT PLANNING OF YOUR DAY FROM MY POINT OF VIEW

06:00-07:00	Getting up, exercising, dousing, morning run, morning procedures, shower
07:00-07:30	Breakfast
07:30-08:30	Rest, checking mail, other things
08:30-09:00	I'm going to the office
09:00-12:00	Workflow (the most important tasks for today are entered)
12:00-12:30	Dinner
12:30-13:00	Rest, other things
13:00-14:00	Reading Literature
14:00-18:00	Workflow (minor tasks for today are entered)
18:00-18:30	Dinner
18:30-19:00	Overfulfillment of the plan, planning for the next day
19:00-19:30	Going home
19:30-22:00	Housework, gym, outdoor activities, walking, entertainment, meeting with friends
22:00-22:30	Summing up, final adjustment of the schedule for the next day, preparation for bed
22:30-06:00	Dream

A few notes about the plan:

• The routine calculated on weekdays (working days) and does not apply to weekends. On the weekend, there should be a plan, but tailored specifically for rest (everything remains the same, roughly speaking, only the Workflow changes to Rest), in last resort some working moments are transferred to a day off (if something was not done or something is deadly important).
• Each time period is taken with some margin. Deviation from the routine for 30 minutes is normal.
• Everyone's morning can start at a different time. I just moved on to more early time to do more and it gave positive results.
• The time of departure from home to work and back can also be different for everyone. I chose the optimal time for myself - when traffic jams are already dissolving in the city.
• I consider daily reading of literature to be a mandatory rule for everyone. If time doesn't allow reading at work, read at lunch, on the bus, after work, before bed.
• It happens that in connection with additional cases you have to go to bed much later. In any case, try to wake up according to your schedule, otherwise your daily routine will constantly shift, and this is not good.
• On weekends, you can get up late and go to bed late, but also stick to a schedule by waking up and going to bed at the same time (for example, an hour or two later than on weekdays).

To plan your time, you can use an organizer, a notepad, a regular sheet of paper, a notebook, various special programs and applications. Personally, I use the very easy-to-use Google Calendar. In addition to the fact that it has a number of useful functions, it is synchronized with mobile devices, which means it is always at hand, wherever you are. In general, in the field of application synchronization, Google is making huge strides. This greatly facilitates the work when all kinds of assistants are at hand in one account, which are also synchronized with each other. I can no longer imagine working on a computer and on a phone without Google Chrome, Calendar, YouTube, Drive, Translator, Google+, Maps, Analitics, Picasa and many other useful services. I also advise you to use the Wunderlist Super Scheduler

That's all I wanted to tell you today. If you don’t already keep your diary and don’t set goals for yourself, start doing it immediately and keep doing it all the time! I hope the above 10 golden rules will help you in planning your time and you will start to do much more.

Time management, working time planning or working time management is an important skill business man. Success is most often perceived as high performance and as the achievement of significant goals. But do not forget: time spent with great return is another key criterion success.

Goals of time management

Working time management can solve a lot of goals and objectives, the modern rhythm of life makes us treat time with great attention, and fashionable and successful coaches develop a lot of methods that subordinate time to the business rhythm of life. But what is surprising: many of the laws of the subordination of time were discovered and formulated in the middle of the 20th century, some even earlier - a hundred or even more years ago, when business was just beginning to assert itself and the rhythm of life was just beginning to accelerate.

Parkinson's Law states: "Work fills the time allotted for it." This aphorism is ironic, but its correctness is proved by direct life. Observing himself, his loved ones, and then the work of government bodies and official institutions, the English historian noticed that both in everyday life and in public life a person is ready to waste time on useless things.

Parkinson's Law was formulated by historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson in an article published in the British magazine The Economist in 1955.

If a person does not limit himself to time frames, he can do the work again and again, endlessly correcting something, correcting, looking for flaws, as if striving to bring the matter to absolute perfection, acting not on the result, but plunging into the process.

However, the observance of this law is not a dogma. On the contrary, the task of any successful person is to overcome the inertia of this rule, to subordinate this law to his plans and attitudes.

The purpose of time management is to organize working time, prioritize, control time and spend it rationally.

Planning principles

Planning always consists of several levels:

• strategic global (planning for several years, this is a super-goal or super-goals that a person sets for himself)
• strategic planning for a year or six months (those common tasks that will slowly but surely bring a person closer to his main, main goal)
• tactical planning for the month and for the week,
• tactical planning for the day.

Each of them is presented different requirements, time-management methods are also noticeably different. They are very individual and are largely formed by the individual independently.

Eisenhower Matrix

Planning for the day is also, of course, individual, but in this case, a lot of time management experience has been accumulated in the business area. The main principle of everyday time management based on the so-called Eisenhower matrix.

On the 36th President of the United States, Dwight David Eisenhower, developed a priority matrix to optimize his busy working hours. He understood: all the things that a person needs to do in a day can be conditionally divided into important and unimportant, urgent and not urgent. The result is the following square with 4 zones:

The most difficult thing is to distribute all the responsibilities and concerns into these 4 groups: to understand which things are really important and which are unimportant. According to coaches, important things are those that bring us closer to the intended goal and are associated with planning for the year.

The first square, ideally, should be free, because if it is busy, then it says that important things were not completed on time and time trouble came. Unimportant and non-urgent matters (as a rule, these are social media, aimless telephone conversations, computer games, etc.), ideally, you can also safely sweep aside and concentrate on important and non-urgent ones, occupying a key place in the workday schedule. For urgent and unimportant matters, you can find the remaining time or delegate their execution to colleagues or subordinates.

Pareto principle

The second important principle consistent with the Eisenhower matrix and was named after the sociologist Vilfredo Pareto. The second name of the principle is the 20/80 principle, Pareto back in the 19th century. noted: "20% of efforts give 80% of the result, and the remaining 80% of efforts - only 20% of the result." It's really hard to argue with this: most of the efforts do not produce the desired results. However, taking this fact for granted and applying it not only to the results, but also to the time spent, will prove to be very effective. The main thing is to find those 20% of important information from a letter or business conversation that will bring these 80% of the result. During the day, among the cycle of affairs, isolate these 20% of your plans, the implementation of which will bring 80% of success.

Corollary of the Pareto Law: It's usually too hard and tedious to figure out what's going on, and often it's not necessary - all you need to do is know if your idea works or not, and change it so that it works, and then maintain the situation until until the idea stops working.

Another principle of time management is based on human physiology and taking into account its biorhythms. During the day human body functions unevenly, the biorhythm curve looks something like this:

When planning your working day, it is important to take into account the time of high performance and be sure to leave time for rest and opportunities to relax and disconnect, this will allow you to get rid of the negative effects of daytime stress.

Fourth principle planning may seem contrary to everything that has been described above, but its observance will contribute to a soft, calm feeling of the passage of time, a feeling that it is subject to man. A plan cannot dominate a person: the variability and flexibility of planning is perhaps the most important setting of time management. This principle implies the ability to change plans in time, to build new chains of connections between events. In practice, this means fixing important and urgent matters as the main ones that form the backbone of the day, leaving the so-called buffer zones for possible changes, new circumstances, unforeseen urgent matters.

In a word, productivity and employment cannot be mixed, planning will allow you to avoid situations of lack of time and correctly set priorities, from which the productivity of the working day will increase significantly.

10 rules for working time planning

In fact, there can be as many rules as each person can choose from the list below.

• privacy rule. At work, it is desirable to be able to remain alone: ​​to do this, close the doors, set non-reception hours, turn on the answering machine, ask the secretary for silence. The time for such work can be set in the morning or towards the end of the working day, when the working mood of the office is reduced.
• Working block rule. All work in the office can be conditionally divided into blocks: telephone conversations and business correspondence, meetings and meetings with colleagues, paperwork and paperwork. By doing work with similar blocks, we save effort, do not switch from one type of activity to another.
• The rule of small parts is the right slices. A big, difficult task, a strategic task cannot be accomplished with a single application of efforts, therefore, by daily and methodically carrying out small parts of a large project, we tactically bring the global goal closer.
• Delegation rule. The ability to delegate authority is also part of time management.
• The Rule of Regulation and the Deadline Rule. Setting a clear time frame for a business meeting, meeting or interview, as well as a frame for doing work, is to deliberately and productively violate Parkinson's law, to make him your colleague.

Voltaire: Time is rather long for the one who uses it; whoever works and who thinks expands its limits.

• Prioritization rule. Gradually, you can develop the skill, when new cases and situations arise, to mentally assign each of them a status from the Eisenhower matrix: urgent - non-urgent, important - unimportant. Then the priorities will line up automatically.
• The rule of accounting for the time of day and biorhythms. Plan important and urgent matters better in the morning. Their implementation will create a situation of success during the working day. Planning is best done in the evening: according to psychologists and coaches, then the subconscious mind itself optimally builds the schedule for the next day during the night.

• Rule of record keeping: "Think on paper." Recordings are necessary: ​​they organize the mind, form a visual picture in the head, help control oneself during the day.
• Outcome rule. A summary at the end of the working day can create a feeling of success, productivity, and help coordinate your actions and plans for the next days.

Working time planning methods

The main methods of time management are keeping records, calendars, workday cards. In this case, one or more time management principles are taken as a basis: general scheme, a template that can be adapted, used by a specific person for their routine and daily routine.

One of the author's methods is described in the book by Tracy Brian and is called "Leave the disgust, eat the frog!", It implies the division of plans into positively colored, pleasant duties and unpleasant ones. If you carefully and consciously analyze the plans for the day, then there will definitely be things that you don’t want to do (they can be conditionally called frogs or toads). It is these things that need to be done in the first place: discard disgust and metaphorically “eat this frog thing in the first place.”

Brian Tracy: Finally, this observation: if you have to "eat" a live frog, you should not sit and look at it for a long time. Path to Achievement high level professionalism and productivity lies through the acquisition of a stable habit of solving the most important tasks in the morning, without wasting time on other problems. You need to learn how to “eat the frog” first, without getting into preliminary, often idle, reasoning.

In addition to this technique, one more piece of advice: to make the aftertaste even more pleasant, after the frog, you can “eat a deed-dessert”: do something pleasant, beloved, bringing pleasure and joy in the workplace.

An interesting method of planning a working day was proposed by Alexander and Dmitry Tsyglins, representatives of the Franklin school:

Video about making a map for the day

Benjamin Franklin, the author of the well-known aphorism “Time is money”, also noted the following: Wealth depends mainly on two things: diligence and moderation, in other words, do not waste either time or money and use both in the best possible way.

The modern form of planning for the day is special programs for smartphones and PDAs (organizers), which are based on a calendar or spreadsheet capabilities, which allows you to reflect the date, time, indicate the time frame of each event, leave notes and comments, and also create not only tactical plans for the day, but also to see the strategic movement towards the main goal. They are mobile, convenient and, most importantly, effective in modern conditions life.

Sample Programs

Combining several techniques and taking into account as many principles and rules of time management as possible, you can create a program template.

It is important to understand the main thing: a to-do list is not a plan. It will only become a plan when it can live up to Brian Tracy's rule: "Planning precedes doing the right thing and preventing the bad."

If you spend a few minutes, it will be clear which things can be combined into blocks, which things are too global, but important and non-urgent (on the contrary, they should be divided into “even slices”), which things can be considered “frogs”, which things will become pleasant and delicious dessert. You can depict them in the form of diagrams or diagrams, you can paint them in different colors.

Benjamin Franklin (Benjamin Franklin) was the son of a soap maker, but thanks to self-organization and discipline, he excelled in many areas: in politics, diplomacy, science, journalism. He is one of the founding fathers of the United States of America - he participated in the creation of the Declaration of Independence and the country's constitution.

Franklin's portrait is featured on the $100 bill, even though he was never President of the United States. He is credited with the authorship of such catchphrases like "Time is money" and "Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today."

• "Frogs". Everyone has boring tasks that are constantly put off until later. These unpleasant things are piling up and psychologically pressing. But if you start every morning with “eating a frog”, that is, first of all, perform some uninteresting task, and then move on to the rest, then gradually things will be in order.
• "Anchors". These are material attachments (music, color, movement) associated with a certain emotional state. "Anchors" are necessary in order to tune in to the solution of a particular task. For example, you can train yourself to work with mail to classical music, and whenever you feel too lazy to unload the inbox, you just need to turn on Mozart or Beethoven to catch the right psychological wave.
• Elephant steak. The larger the task (write a dissertation, learn foreign language and so on) and the tougher the deadline, the more difficult it is to start its implementation. It is the scale that frightens: it is not clear where to start, whether there will be enough strength. Such tasks are called "elephants". The only way to “eat an elephant” is to cook “steaks” from it, that is, to break a big deal into several small ones.

It is noteworthy that Gleb Arkhangelsky pays great attention not only to the rationalization of work processes, but also to rest (the full title of his bestseller is “Time Drive: How to Live and Work in Time”). He is convinced that without have a nice rest, which includes healthy sleep and physical activity impossible to be productive.

Conclusion

Plan your every day. Todoist, Wunderlist, TickTick and other similar programs and services will help you with this. Divide complex large-scale tasks into simple small ones. Do the most unpleasant work in the morning so that the rest of the time you can do only what you like. Develop triggers to help you deal with laziness, and don't forget to include rest in your schedule.

Francesco Cirillo Method

You may not be familiar with the name Francesco Cirillo, but you must have heard of Pomodoro. Cirillo is the author of this famous time management technique. At one time, Francesco had problems with his studies: the young man could not concentrate in any way, he was distracted all the time. A simple tomato-shaped kitchen timer came to the rescue.

Conclusion

At the beginning of the day, make a to-do list and get it done by measuring time with “pomodoros”. If you have been distracted for 25 minutes, put the symbol ' in front of the task. If the time has expired, but the task has not yet been completed, put a + and dedicate the next “pomodoro” to it. During a five-minute break, switch completely from work to rest: take a walk, listen to music, drink coffee.

So, here are five basic time management systems with which you can organize your day. You can study them in more detail and become an apologist for one of the methods, or you can develop your own by combining various methods and techniques.

GTD - an alternative to time management

David Allen, creator of the GTD methodology, is one of the most famous personal effectiveness theorists. His book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity was named the best business book of the decade by Time magazine.

The term Getting Things Done is a well-known term, and many mistakenly identify it with time management. But even Allen himself calls GTD "a technique for increasing personal effectiveness».

Here's how an expert on the subject explained the difference between time management and GTD.

This is not time management. Time management is impossible. Everyone has the same number of hours in a day. What matters is not the amount of time, but what you fill it with. You need to be able to process large flows of incoming information, determine what actions are needed to achieve goals, and, of course, act. GTD is about that. It is a certain way of thinking and living. GTD is also about the state of flow and the reduction of psychological stress.

Vyacheslav Sukhomlinov

Ready to argue? Welcome to the comments. What do you think is more about GTD - time management or personal efficiency? Also tell us what techniques help you organize your day.

Think back to your biggest failures in life. Quarrels, misunderstandings that changed your whole life in a negative way. Failed exams, job interviews, etc. The reasons for such failures are similar, as a rule, they are the result of poor preparation and rash actions, below we will look at how to do everything and plan your day / week.

What will happen if an athlete stops training a month before the Olympics - skills and muscle strength will significantly weaken and he will take one of last places. As in sports, in any business you need good preparation, without which the chances of success are greatly reduced.

The key factor in preparation is planning. There is "Rule 6 P": Properly undertaken planning prevents performance degradation.

Here are 7 ways to get things done with proper planning days, weeks.

Method 1: Make a to-do list for the day

What is a task list for?

First, let's take a look at how our brain works. It has been found that we can keep under control no more than 7+-2 cases or important thoughts in our heads. To verify this, count how many circles are shown in the pictures:

Rice. one	Rice. 2	Rice. 3

Rice. 4	Rice. 5

Most likely, in order to determine the number of objects in figures 1, 3 and 4, one glance is enough.

And for figures 2 and 5, one glance was not enough, it was necessary to count separately. The smaller the objects, the easier it is to manage them. The limit of the brain comes when the number Becomes more than 7+-2.

The same is the case with thoughts, at the same time in our head we can store no more than 7 + -2 tasks, the rest is forgotten.

Imagine a real life situation

You get up in the morning and go to work, on the way you remember that:

You need to buy a gift for the birthday of a loved one;
- Pay for the Internet, until it is turned off.

When you arrived at work:

Find out that you need to prepare a report today;
- I went in, a colleague asked to throw off the contract template;
- After the morning planning meeting, the boss asked me to do 3 things.

The head is already full, but time does not stop, a client may call you, close person, colleague, an unforeseen situation may happen, etc. What happens in such a case? We forget something. If we forget to buy food in the store, then nothing terrible will happen, of course, but you can forget something more important: Do not come to an important meeting, take medicine, etc.

In addition, the more things we have in our head, the worse our analytical abilities become, since energy is spent on remembering information.

Benefits of a notebook

Notebook - removes all the problems described above and has the following advantages compared to working from memory:

1) Writing down is always faster than memorizing. For example, write down cellular telephone 10-100 times faster than remembering. Also with business.

2) Energy saving. In order not to forget the important, we often remember, energy is spent on this. Notebook solves this problem.

3) Reliability. What is written with a pen cannot be cut down with an ax. Any business can be forgotten, against the background of fatigue, emotions or other things. But if tasks are written down, then forgetting is much more difficult.

You can keep a list of tasks on a regular sheet, notepad, but it is better if it is a notebook, because it has a calendar. The list of tasks for the day can be on a computer or hard copy. The most important thing is that you have it, because it is the basis for planning, like the foundation of a house. If the house does not have a foundation, then the maximum that can be built is a small one-story structure without heating made of plastic or plywood. Also, in planning, of course, you can do without a list of tasks for the day or a notebook, but you will be severely limited in your capabilities.

The most important thing on a to-do list or notebook is a list of things to do during the day. The second most important part is the calendar, in which you can see the tasks that need to be completed on a given day. Therefore, a notebook is preferable to a regular list, because there is a calendar there.

Method 2: Work with the to-do list every day

The most important thing when working with a time organizer or a notebook is to work according to a previously drawn up plan. To do this, review your notebook regularly to find out if you have done everything that you have planned for today. You can view the list after you complete the current task. It is very important to put in your organizer important things that you must do today.

Method 3: First write, then do

If a new task arrives and it is not urgent, then first write it down in a notebook and proceed only when it comes to it. Any new tasks seem very important and we begin to take on everything in a row: check mail, make phone calls etc. But as soon as you start writing down all the incoming tasks in a notebook first, you will find that there are more important tasks next to this entry.

All movements of the right side of the body are controlled by the left hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for logic. When we write a new task right hand, then we activate the left hemisphere of our brain, which is responsible for logic. Activating logic when writing with the right hand will help us make better decisions.

By writing everything down in a notebook before you start work, you will be able to complete the most important tasks during the day and will be able to resist secondary tasks that constantly distract you.

4 way. First important, then urgent tasks

All planned tasks should be carried out in order of their importance, and then by the time of execution. Starting with the most important ones and gradually move on to the less important ones. Write down the tasks in your plan for today in order of their importance, then sort by urgency and start working with the highest priority.

For example, a friend called you to chat. Phone call, urgent matter, because the phone is ringing right now, but it may not be important. If you have more significant tasks, for example, to prepare a report on work, then it is better to first do all the more important tasks, in particular a report, and then, if there is time, call back and talk with a friend. But not vice versa, otherwise, due to an insignificant call, you may not have time to do more important things.

Importance over urgency. Urgent tasks should be taken on only if you are in control of the situation and are sure that you will have time for all the more important ones.

5 way: Electronic organizer

There are a huge number of electronic notebooks. An electronic diary has undeniable advantages over paper ones:

A. Save time. On the electronic diary, you do not need to rewrite tasks from the previous day to the current one, and you can also work with it both on a computer and on a phone or tablet, synchronizing data on all devices.

B. Volumes and speed: You can very quickly copy a large amount of information to the electronic diary for further work. For example: You want to bake a banana pie in the evening and you need to write down the necessary ingredients before you go to the store. If you have an electronic organizer, then you can quickly copy an entire recipe from the Internet into a diary, in just a matter of seconds. At the same time, to write down only the ingredients by hand on a piece of paper, you will need more time than for the entire recipe in in electronic format. And in the store, it will be enough to turn on the diary on your phone to quickly understand what to buy.

B. Convenience. It is inconvenient to use an ordinary notebook in transport, in a store, on vacation, in these places it is difficult to write down and look at notes, because the paper diary is large and you need 2 hands to open it. But the electronic notebook on the phone will always be with you, wherever you are: Transport, shop, street. You can quickly take notes on your computer and then sync to have those notes on your phone in seconds.

Method 6: Plan the next day in the evening

Make a plan of action for the next day in advance, the best time is the end of the working day before you go home. This simple action will help you sleep better, because often the cause of insomnia is that in the evening we go over in our memory all the important things that need to be done tomorrow so as not to forget them in the morning. And it is these thoughts that prevent us from relaxing and falling asleep peacefully, but if you write down all your plans, you will ensure not only a peaceful sleep, but also an evening.

In addition, when you make a plan in advance, your subconscious mind will constantly work all night on how best to do the planned. The solution to complex problems can come to you at breakfast, on the way to work, or even in the middle of the night. It is in the morning that new ideas most often come and you will use this time with maximum benefit, it is enough just to write a to-do list for the next day in advance.

By the way, if you have questions that you want to get an answer to, then before falling asleep and closing your eyes, ask them to yourself, preferably out loud and immediately fall asleep. And in the morning, get ready to immediately write down all the thoughts that may appear at the moment when you wake up or later.

Method 7: Schedule complex tasks for the peak of your activity

Make a plan for the day so that the work that requires a lot of energy falls on the peak of your activity, when you have a lot of energy and you are as productive as possible. As a rule, the peak of activity begins in the morning, because after sleep you have a lot of strength and a fresh head, but it happens that the peak of activity can also occur during the daytime and even evening hours.

The most energy-consuming activities are things for which there is no talent. Typically, these are the things you don't want to do the most. These tasks in time management are called frogs, because these tasks are unpleasant to start doing. There is a rule in time management - start the day with a frog, i.e., from an unpleasant affair. This rule will allow you to work more efficiently, because it is usually in the morning that you have the most strength, and these forces are extremely important to do the most unpleasant work.

I will give an example from life, I have a technical mindset, so the exact sciences such as: Physics and mathematics are easy for me, but it’s harder with humanitarian subjects, so when I was at school, I often prepared for an English test in the morning. I got up 1-2 hours before school and studied English. It was in the morning that I had the most energy, so at this time it was easier for me to do difficult task for which I had the least talent. The results of the preparation exceeded all my expectations, I got excellent or good in a subject that I did not like.

Plan the most unpleasant tasks for the peak of activity, for example, in the morning, and you will see how you will get more done and your personal efficiency will increase.

P.S. If you have any difficulties or questions about the article you read, as well as on the topics: Psychology (bad habits, experiences, etc.), sales, business, time management, etc., ask me, I will try to help. Skype consultation is also possible.

P.P.S. You can also take an online training "How to get 1 hour extra time". Write comments, your additions;)

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