Chapter 20 Time Management for Top Managers

If you were to ask the average manager what a well-organized day looks like in their head, most would probably answer, "I think the time should be much tighter than it is now, 9:00 At 10:00, I still don't have a clue" or "I guess I should just close the door and get to work, so a lot of things are already done." Most people think of an organized, productive day as being achieved through tight controls, and they assume the CEO must do the same.But what surprised me the most was that the chief premise of the CEO's organization of the work turned out to be highly flexible schedules.What they focus on is not to control their own time, but to focus on controlling the things that should be done across the infinite variables of the day.

Is there a best time in your day that can be called a productive time?The answer is of course yes.Most people are most awake in the morning, and some people are at their best in the afternoon.The point of discussing this is to allocate the most challenging tasks to the time you are best able to do. Some still believe in the words of the 18th-century thinker Matthew Henry: "He who achieves great things wakes up early." Robert A. Iger, the boss of Disney, gets up at 4:45 every day, goes to the gym to exercise, enters the office at 6:00 to read various materials, and holds the first meeting of the day until 7:00. “I think people have their own circadian rhythms,” he said, “but for me, mornings are the peak time, when it’s a little more peaceful.”

Jeanette Wagner, vice chairman of the board of directors of The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. in New York City, likes to schedule routine tasks such as signing letters and writing checks to the end of the day and when she feels tired."On the other hand, if I'm really dealing with something important, whether it's a complicated personnel issue or something that requires a lot of brainpower like how to run a mid-management meeting, I'm going to do it on the weekend," Wagner said. Dedicated personal time or early morning quiet time to process. Sometimes 3:00 in the middle of the night can be a very creative time." "I don't sleep too long," Wagner continued, "I often wake up in the middle of the night Come here, get out your scratch pad and jot down ideas that you think are important...sometimes, I'm even able to solve a problem or sketch out an outline of a complete project proposal that was hard to come up with before. "

Waking up at 5:00 in the morning may be unimaginable for many people.But if you normally get up at 6:30, you can gradually advance by half an hour, and then an hour earlier. Many people have found that cutting some sleep time is not so terrible in this way, and the benefits gained from this , such as completing more work, the pace of work throughout the day can be relieved, etc., but it is huge and long-lasting. Another quiet time outside the office is the journey to and from get off work. The reason why many managers can gain efficiency from the travel time is because they have special drivers to pick them up and go to get off work. Ordinary people can also use the following two methods to achieve this Effect.

1. Use public transportation.Mary Barnby once said: "I'm very productive in the morning, I always bring a stack of papers to deal with when I get on the subway, and I spend an hour and 20 minutes on the road, which is really a very good opportunity. " Whenever I leave Manhattan to go to the airport early in the morning, I think that the most time-wasting thing is to sit on the highway that leads from Manhattan to Long Island on the other side (dubbed by locals as "the longest parking lot in the world"). Field") waiting in a motionless car.Why, I asked myself, would they rather be there honking their horns, enduring this annoyance and such a huge waste of time, than take the subway and make the most of the time on the way?I really can't figure it out.

In fact, in addition to private cars, many commuters also have two options: subways and buses.Just imagine, the freedom and comfort you sacrificed by not taking a private car is more cost-effective than the efficiency gained by taking the subway to take advantage of the quiet and undisturbed time on the road? 2. Take advantage of the time saved by rational use of the car.Many commuters in the same area, if they could gather in one place, might also adopt the now-popular practice of "basking" in Washington, D.C.There, commuters who don't know each other take someone else's private car at a predetermined stop and quickly enter the city through the express lane dedicated to multi-passenger vehicles.The most important thing is that the "receiving base" car must be kept quiet. There is no music, no one chatting, and no cell phone interruptions. You can work, think, read, or rest in it.

These tricks include: 1. Retreat.If you have the freedom to come and go as you please, if you're not at your desk and your manager doesn't ask "Where's Gary?", you can retreat into an empty conference room, or get up and walk around the office area Take a walk in the cubicle, or take some reading to a coffee shop. A division manager at General Foods used to sneak into an empty frosted-glass office next door every day so he could think undisturbed. A lawyer in New York goes to work and greets his colleagues every day, then turns around and takes another elevator downstairs to Starbucks coffee to meditate for an hour.

2. Negotiate with your boss to get some quiet time for yourself.If simply retiring doesn't work, you can talk to your boss about getting some quiet time for yourself.From your boss's perspective, this has the advantage of freeing you to focus on something he or she considers important. Rigid group breaks are usually of no use, and too many unexpected things will make the entire work team completely divorced from their mission. 3. Use WordPad.With the door closed, people can still come to you.Many companies have an open door policy, and people frown at closed doors.But for Niekelodeon, an executive at one of the cutting-edge children's TV stations, on and off can make someone come to him, and he installed a clipboard and pen on his door.When his door closed, those who wanted to see him had only to write a reminder on the clipboard.The reason it worked was that as soon as he showed up at the clipboard, he would immediately follow the directions to find those people, so that everyone knew they could find him without breaking into his office.

But then again, being extremely cautious about going to people who leave you messages is the only way to make your "escape time" work for you and your colleagues.Tip: What if your colleague doesn't have a clipboard on the closed door?A yellow post-it can be placed above the doorknob so that visitors can easily use it to write a message and stick it on the door. 4. Set up a no-interference period.If you are the leader of the group, you can ask your colleagues to give you uninterrupted time, a lawyer mentioned in my early book "The Organized Manager" told his firm's Colleagues:

5. Stagger peak hours.Leave the office an hour before lunchtime starts. If you arrive early, say 11:30, many restaurants will allow you to sit in or do some work early. Almost everyone is overwhelmed by the speed of communication at present. A relationship manager in the financial industry once told me: "The most unbearable thing is that whenever I am going to deal with a matter at hand When there are a lot of things to do, there will be calls from customers for consultation, and at the same time, emails will come, which makes me really at a loss. Finally, when I am about to leave work, the things on my desk have not been processed, and they are still constantly Pile up. Just like that, all the best plans, the best intentions, all in one go."

But if you accept the interactive thing as a reality, instead of expecting it to leave you completely, you may instead master it, tame it, find ways to come to terms with that reality, and maintain a good working attitude within it.Here are 2 great plans for creating order and increasing productivity during a restless workday. How do you organize your changing schedule?To most of us, organizing seems to be about control, but for many top managers, organizing time no longer means assigning clear time to complete specific work tasks outside of their own priority time, but rather Means unlimited flexible schedule, few fixed frames. In the flexible schedule, it is enough to confirm that at least some of the requirements to be met in one day are met. Generally, there are three types of basic work points that must be checked, namely, function-based work requirements, content-based work requirements, and comprehensive requirements that combine both.for example: 1. Function-based job requirements: · Is the priority time guaranteed ·Call and call back · Handle documents, e-mails and voicemails with the TRAF method · Continue to focus on the work that has been done Two hours spent on non-priorities (can be spread throughout the day) ·Arranging daily short interviews with each direct reporter ·Arrange a thorough interview with the boss every day 2. Content-based job requirements.The basic requirements in terms of content generally include the following situations: · Contact with old customers ·Develop new customers ·data processing ·Authorization and staff training ·Write memos, letters, reports, marketing plans, strategic plans, etc. Any other legitimate items can be counted as comprehensive basic checkpoints, so don't just let them go.Be careful not to overload yourself and react quickly. With these checkpoints as a scaffolding, you can learn the unique work art requirements of top managers. This work art is why they can arrange themselves flexibly. root cause of working hours. All top managers are well aware that the endless bargaining between their own personal time needs and the institutionalized and stylized collective office model is an unavoidable reality, which is why top managers can become The really important art of time management for top managers.The main challenge is that you have to adjust your habit of focusing on a specific task at any time so that it can fit into smaller units of working time. Think of your haggling workday as a mosaic of small time units of 10 minutes or so.I call these small units "drizzle", "mosaic" time blocks, "a few bytes of time", etc., so that your mind will have an image memory of using this fragmented time of 10 or so minutes. You can use the hypothetical scenario below to compare the difference in your work with and without the "drizzle" concept. You hear Marvin coming down the corridor, and you know that in about three minutes, he'll be poking his head through the door and saying, "Hi, any time?" You have already worked on the budget report for 10 minutes, and you are estimated to have 20 minutes left to finish. In this case, your two reactions to Marvin's unexpected arrival are: If your goal is to get the job done right now, then it's: "Oops again, can't do anything, what a mess!" If you're thinking "drizzle," then it's: "Oh, it's okay, I'm 1/3 done. After Marvin is gone, I can catch another 1/3 before the 3pm meeting. Finish Look for opportunities to slip aside after the meeting and finish the remaining 1/3." The key is to be flexible and tactful about your schedule.There are two major benefits to doing this: first, because you welcome the uninvited guest and jump right into it, the victim's anger will be greatly reduced, and the energy "blocked" by this dissatisfaction will be released; As you go back and check your daily checklist like a magnet, you are constantly looking for possible opportunities to complete these basic tasks. Over time, you will develop a very good habit of using time, and your work efficiency will also increase. will be greatly improved, and as far as I know, this is a magic formula used by many senior managers and CEOs for success. I don't know why this flexible time management strategy around a fixed flagpole (check the checklist) works so well, but it actually works.Because as far as I know, no manager who has tried to climb to the top of the organization has followed this formula.Below is my first experience with this strategy. Joseph Vittoria, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Resort Quest International, Inc. (Resort Quest International, Inc.), when I visited him, he had written down 5 of the yellow sticky notes he would call that day. Telephone.But after he finished a phone call, someone popped in and asked about something, or asked him to discuss something with someone.For this kind of situation, our Vittoria always welcomes everyone with a smile. As soon as they leave, he makes a second call, and after the second call, he goes to visit a person on the same floor.All in all, it looks like a whirlwind is spinning around the ground.But whenever he got away from the sudden and unexpected intercourse, he was right back at his desk and made the rest of the calls.In this way, after a few hours passed, the phone call he planned to finish was finally finished. Although the "clue" was not broken, it was completed by stitches. Mr. Vittoria's day is a mixture of fixed hours and irregular hours, which is the concept of time that most senior businessmen have. To help you master the ways of arranging your work schedule flexibly, here are 5 time management techniques for you.But let's start with the story of independent consultant Sandra Kresch, a former partner at Booz Consulting, a consultant who works extremely well, as she describes a typical day in her own life, It is full of professional and personal characteristics. I have a bunch of errands to do today, take the cat to the vet, I want to go to the doctor myself; the office is full; and I'm looking for a non-profit I'm the president of A new executive director; and finally a favor for a group of friends. When thinking about how to juggle so many things, I think the most important thing is to create a full-day schedule.The only time a cat can go to the vet is at 7:00 am.So I sent it off early, and figured out how to take it home in the afternoon. After that, I have to stay at home for a long time.There are two businessmen, one in London and one in another place, who I need to contact, so I have to call their offices early in the morning to let them know, so that they can call me before I leave the house . My work schedule in the office is always arranged very tightly, focusing strongly on the 3 major things that must be done this week, without any side effects. From this busy professional's account of her day in the life, we can distill five methods she uses to maintain some kind of control over her time that I recommend to readers. 1. Use a to-do list with three or four main to-do items that must be completed this week.To remember it, say it several times a day.You can also paste this list on the work schedule planner, or enter it into the electronic schedule, so that you can check it repeatedly.This approach can help you focus on achieving your weekly work goals. 2. Mark the fixed points in the working day, that is, the daily work frame.Take the previous story, the cat must be sent to the veterinarian earlier, because it can be taken home the same day, and the call to London is best completed before noon, otherwise I am afraid there will be an unexpected meeting Conflict with other work tasks.Once the framework is in place, it's much more comfortable and easier to fill in the specifics. 3. Estimate the factors of "change". When choosing which jobs should go all out, pay special attention to those things that are limited or have no room.For example, preparing the minutes for a meeting at 2 o'clock in the afternoon is a matter of little change, whereas if it is next week's meeting, the situation may be completely different. 4. Lengthen the two ends of the working day. In Clutch’s example, we will notice that the appointment with the veterinarian is at 7 o’clock in the morning. Similarly, we should also arrange personal affairs and trivial matters at the two ends of the working day, such as Meet your stylist at 7am, get a haircut and shop at 7pm. 5. Simplification and support.You should always ask yourself: What things in this job can you authorize others to do?How can this task be made simpler and easier?