Teryl @ Work

How many times have you heard? The days really aren't long enough There is too much pressure Being a manager has never been more difficult. Work's not fun anymore I have tried delegating, but end up doing it myself, anyway   All of the above have been said to me over and over at various functions and meetings, and I think I've said a few myself.   Twenty years ago, every manager had a secretary or assistant, then in came desktop computing, and we all started doing our own typing, setting up business models etc, and the day of the shared assistant, and then no assistant at all drifted in. Two types of time managers often emerge during stressful times, those that can't say no, and those that say ''its not my job''.   Methods of dealing with urgent issues divides the leaders from the followers. One of my favourite stories is from entrepeneur Albert C. Black Jnr and its about the cow in the ditch.   To paraphrase, first get the cow out of t...

Sometimes Right Now feels like an impossible dream, being able to work to a plan, tick all the items in my To Do list, and work from 8 until 5... So many things get in the way of running according to a schedule.   We have implemented a number of different initiatives at  +Accsys (Pty) Ltd  to try and allow people to complete tasks by deadline and take the pressure off.   But we do find that there are incoming tasks and requirements that are part of corporate life that throw out all the best laid plans. So can a Right Now model change that?   To an extent, yes.   In one of my meetings today, one of my managers told me that it was taking a long time to finalise some of her requirements from a shared resource, and yet mine had been managed in a very brief time frame.  Its true that I do have seniority, but I also attached an absolute deadline to the job that had to be done.   So the Right Now model is very much around setting boundaries and time ...

South African expressions are unique.   And Just Now is a really special one.  Its meaning can range from 1 minute away to never. When it comes to Time Management, though, Just Now, can be used to resolve the less urgent issues, which do need to happen, just not now.   Where I went badly wrong with this model, at the beginning, was with the methods I used (and still do, sometimes). Made notes in various notepads and diary systems; Used the Outlook reminder system Converted the eMails back to unread Set up tasks in Outlook The above can only work if you read each one of them, every day, otherwise they simply add to the accumulation of tasks. So what does work?   The only way for me is to schedule time to handle the load.  I started by blocking out parts of my diary for "catch up", and, of course, everybody who could see my diary kept asking whether that time was available, the same happened if I put in Private time.   Now, I block off the time fo...