The most effective ways of time management. Time management for the week: a step-by-step plan Time planning time management table

The article brought to your attention will not touch upon the basics of time management, ways of dividing tasks into primary and secondary ones, principles of organizing working time, etc. Enough has already been written about this, and I can’t give better advice than reading specialized books on time management (primarily those presented on this site). The purpose of this article is to get acquainted with a very specific system of accounting and organizing time, which I myself use.

The proposed time accounting and organization system was developed during 2004. The start of keeping a diary was laid in February 2004, and this practice continues to this day. Gradually, the system underwent some changes, trimmed and adapted to current tasks. To date, she has finally gained sufficient harmony and strength for me to take the risk of bringing her to the public court. I hope that the proposed system will be useful for people who want to establish some order in their own lives. At least my experience allows me to hope so.

The diary is kept in a regular Excel file. The capabilities of this program allow you not only to plan your day conveniently, but also to sort tasks, keep an archive and keep track of the time spent.

TIME RECORDING

Having graphed an Excel sheet in a certain way, you can easily and conveniently take into account the time during the day. For this, the following scheme is used:

In the figure, each hour (the top line indicates hours) is divided into 4 columns, that is, the accuracy of timekeeping is 15 minutes. Greater accuracy makes accounting inconvenient, while less accuracy allows for too large losses in accounting.

The leftmost column reflects typical time-consuming graphs (thn - reading, rbt - work, doc - document management, everyday life - solving everyday problems, lchn - personal time, rzvl - entertainment, dv - movement, nchg - nothing, loss of time).

During the day, the past time slots are filled. To simplify calculations, the number "1" is used as a placeholder. Then, using the Excel formulas entered in the appropriate columns (the formulas are written in the example file attached to the article), it will automatically calculate the time spent on a particular type of activity.

At the end of the day, the timesheet looks like this:

This scheme, if desired, allows you to restore the whole day (overslept, quickly packed up, went to work, worked, chatted with a colleague, worked, dined, worked, went to a meeting, waited for a late partner, held a working meeting, returned to the office, reported to the boss, went home, had dinner, read, watched a movie, got ready for bed, read before going to bed, summed up the day, fell asleep).

But in practice this is rarely required, so most days leave short summaries of the time spent. They look like this:

Such summaries allow you to soberly assess how much time is spent on a particular type of activity, and, in addition, derive an average based on the results of a week or month. Further, if you wish, you can draw conclusions about the need to devote more or less time to a particular type of activity.

PLANNING

Let's start with the usual list of tasks for the day. In my version, it looks like this (NEG tab, today):
As you can see, the sheet uses 4 working columns: St - status; Vr - time; Fri - priority; and a column for the day and task description.

About the "Status" column, a detailed discussion will follow below. The "Time" column, I think, is self-explanatory. Now we will focus on the consideration of the "Priority" column. It uses the following characters:

! - the main task for the week

!! - part of the weekly task to be completed on the current day; or secondary task for the week

30 - priority tasks for a specific day (tasks for which the time is determined or to be determined)

40 - Priority Daily Quests

50 - less important daily tasks

60 - tasks for determining the results of the day

70 - summing up the day

80 - tasks to determine the results of the week

90 - summing up the results of the week

Knowing this classification, it is quite easy to both distribute tasks for the day and plan them for the week. The weekly plan in my file looks like this:

The actual weekly plan can be seen at the bottom of the page. Immediately below the column with the designation of the first and last days of the week, tasks for the week are recorded. This is followed by the designations of each individual day, under which specific tasks for that day are recorded.

The columns at the top of the page are daily and weekly tasks, which are simply copied into the appropriate sheet when drawing up a daily plan.

The monthly plan is compiled using the following scheme:

EFFICIENCY MARK

Now let's return to the analysis of the "Status" column. It is this column that allows you to evaluate the effectiveness of your days. The "Status" column indicates whether the scheduled task has been completed or not. 3 possible characters are used to indicate the status:

V - done

B - partially fulfilled, or not fulfilled due to objective reasons

N - not fulfilled

During the day, as tasks are completed, the sheet takes on the following form:

Using the "sorting" function (menu item - Data), you can automatically sort tasks:

With this sorting (Status => Priority => Time), all completed tasks will be at the top of the list. You can no longer pay attention to them, focusing it on the remaining tasks.
At the end of the day, when all the columns are filled, the proposed system allows you to impartially and objectively evaluate the efficiency of time use.

The list of tasks at the end of the day looks like this:

Using different colors after sorting allows you to visually show the effectiveness of the day.
In the above example, out of 13 tasks for day 9, 9 were completed, 3 were not completed, and 1 was not completed due to objective reasons. Considering that “B” points are counted as 0.5/0.5, the results of the day look like this: in total - 13; plus - 9.5; minus - 3.5. I count a day as successful if more than two-thirds of the total number of "plus" tasks; half successful - from half to two thirds of the total; unsuccessful - if there are more than half of "minus" tasks. Other proportions are possible, depending on your exactingness to yourself.

A similar system is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the week. In the archive, the past week looks like this:

A similar system is used to evaluate the effectiveness of months and years. Month:

In the same way, it is possible to sum up the results of a year, a decade, and so on, up to summing up the results of a whole life :)

You can also store your own telephone directory in one file with worksheets and timekeeping.
It is especially convenient to use the proposed system in the presence of a pocket computer. In this case, the file with sheets of tasks and time tracking will always be with you, and you can make changes to it during the day.

You can simply print sheets of tasks and time tracking on the printer. I recommend leaving a certain number of columns empty in order to enter emerging tasks into them during the day.
I hope that the above system will be as useful to you as it helped me organize my life myself. Good luck!

Alexey Fedorov, December 2004 Contact: [email protected]. Editing - Gleb Arkhangelsky,
The article was written specifically for the site. Document address on the site:
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Greetings! Everyone knows that the term “time management” literally translates as “time management”. But this is not entirely correct - after all, a person still does not know how to manage time. But we can effectively manage our affairs (and not only workers) taking into account time constraints!

Productivity is what separates successful people from everyone else. During his life, Nicholas Roerich painted 7,000 paintings and 30 books and traveled half the world. And how do you spend your irreplaceable and most valuable resource?

In my opinion, time management is a set of tricks and tricks that make it easy to cheat your own laziness. I offer personally proven time management tools!

The name is certainly funny, but the method is quite serious. 🙂 The Pomodoro tool is needed for maximum concentration. In my opinion, this is one of the most effective ways to get any job done in a short time.

What is the point?

• Clearly define the task you will be working on
• Set a timer (maybe in the form of a tomato) for exactly 25 minutes
• Work without distraction until the beep
• Take a short break of 4-5 minutes
• Move on to the next 25 minute segment
• After every sixth stage, take a long break for 15-20 minutes

The tool is great for solving one task on which you need to fully concentrate: write a report, make a website design layout, translate text from English.

Priority Planning

The method is based on the Eisenhower matrix, which I am talking about. It is a quadrant of four squares with two axes. Horizontally, the matrix is ​​divided into "urgent" and "not urgent", vertically - into "important" and "not important".

Each task is assigned a priority based on two criteria (urgency and importance). There can be only four options: A, B, C, D.

How does the priority planning method use the Eisenhower matrix?

1. Write current tasks in columns A, B, C, D
2. We carry out tasks "A" (if any). Good planning suggests that there should be as few “urgent and important” cases as possible. Category “A” tasks can spontaneously appear during the day! Therefore, time for them must be reserved in advance.
3. Tasks from the "C" square (urgent, but not important) are delegated to someone else. A classic example: the head of a company often delegates tasks such as “pick up dry cleaning”, “reserve a table in a restaurant” or “book plane tickets” to a personal assistant.
4. Start completing the tasks from the "B" quadrant (important, but not urgent). These are the main things that take the most time and effort.
5. Tasks from square "D" (not urgent and not important) can be completed after all the others or ignored altogether. Or, in extreme cases, use as a short break throughout the day

Alps Method

One of the simplest and most visual time management tools for planning a working day.

• Making a list of tasks
• Setting priorities
• We calculate the time to complete each task and the total need for time
• We reduce the total number to 60% of the whole day
• We delegate to others everything that can be delegated
• At the end of the day, we control the implementation and transfer all outstanding to the next day

Schwab method

Bethlehem Steel president Charles Schwab paid consultant Ivy Lee $25,000 to create this planning method.

How to use the Schwab method?

• Write down the most important tasks
• Determine the sequence and number them
• We work on solving problems in a given sequence
• Having finished work on one task, we check if new ones have appeared and if priorities have shifted in favor of others
• Adding new cases to the list, respecting the priority
• We continue to work on tasks as their importance decreases.

Having tested a bunch of methods and planning tools on myself, I realized that everything is not so simple. Some of the techniques didn't work for me. Others gave amazing results, but ... not immediately. By the way, Gleb Arkhangelsky offers a bunch of working tools in his book "Time drive. How to manage to live and work.

• Choose your scheduler

If your day is not too busy (or you do not like gadgets), then the ideal option is a regular paper notebook. If you constantly work at a computer, a convenient scheduler in electronic form will do. Well, if you cannot imagine your life without gadgets, then the best assistants are applications for smartphones and tablets.

• Plan the day ahead

The next day is better to plan the evening before, and not in the morning of the “reporting” day. The same can be said about the plans for the week. It is desirable to make them on Sunday evening, and not on Monday.

• Consider force majeure

Previously, I stubbornly made the same mistake: I made a schedule where things went one after the other without a single “window”. Within a week, I realized that constantly living in a state of deadline is a sure road to neurosis.

Firstly, some cases could not be squeezed into the time that I assigned them. Secondly, during the day, new tasks appeared that were not taken into account in the schedule. Thirdly, a couple of times a week there were bound to be force majeure: a puncture in the wheel, a terrible traffic jam on the way to a meeting, or a friend asked for help with repairs. Such unforeseen cases, as a rule, take a lot of time and force you to radically revise your plans for the day.

Conclusion: every day leave "windows" for force majeure. If nothing “unplanned” happened, time can be spent on:

• Rest
• Cases from the category "for later"

By the way, I have long wanted to tell you about such a useful tool as “deeds for later”. In your planning notebook (or electronic planner), select a separate page.

There we write down all the “non-urgent” cases, to which the hands never reach. We immediately divide them into three categories: “up to one hour”, “two or three hours” and “half a day”. For example: “put in order the utility bills for the last year”, “go to the dentist for a routine check-up”, and “buy and change the faucet in the kitchen”.

As soon as a window suddenly appears in your schedule: open the to-do list “for later” and choose something that suits your mood. In just six months, you can, without straining, redo EVERYTHING that has been accumulating for years!

What time management tools do you use? Subscribe to updates and share links to fresh posts with friends on social networks!

If you constantly do not have enough time, then, most likely, you simply waste it irrationally and do not pay due attention to its planning. Learn to manage your time correctly with the help of specialized computer programs and online services.

The pace of development of the modern world over the past hundred years has been accelerating... Accordingly, the rhythm of life of an ordinary person is increasing. Many of us work most of the day, then run home, somehow manage our daily household chores and go to bed, so that the next day we can do it all over again ...

It’s also good if on the weekends you manage to allocate at least some time for doing your favorite hobby or just a good rest. Many of us fail to do this either, because the weekend is devoted to solving everyday issues. That is, we are witnessing a total lack of time!

However, if you look from the other side and analyze at least a couple of your weekdays (or better weeks), it turns out that most of the time we spend not on the boss's tasks, not on the road from work / to work, and not even on household chores , but on various, meaningless in their essence, deeds!

Useless conversations in the "smoking room", browsing social networks or just aimlessly sitting still - that's all that takes away our precious time, which we could spend for the benefit of business or our body!

If you constantly feel a lack of time and have seriously decided to do something about it, I suggest you learn rational time management using modern computer technology!

A little about the theory of time management

The history of domestic time management begins in the 20s of the last century, when the concept of "scientific organization of labor" (SOT) appeared under the conditions of the new economic policy. Its main goal was to optimize the working day of workers with the maximum benefit for production and minimal stress on a person.

During the entire period of development of the NOT, many different schemes and principles have been developed, however, almost all of them boil down to the fact that all cases and the time spent on their implementation must be carefully planned. The general algorithm for such planning can be represented as a step-by-step scheme:

Based on this scheme, before taking on any business, you should first analyze all possible ways of its successful completion. Then define goals and break the whole process of implementing the plan into small tasks. Only after carefully planning everything and choosing the most successful algorithm of actions, you can begin to work.

An important point is also the final control of the implementation of the tasks. Thanks to the control, you can analyze your time costs and, possibly, optimize your labor costs even more when performing similar work in the future.

Today, there are quite a few methods of time management. However, in fact, they all come down to one of the three main ones, which differ in the principles of the approach: the Eisenhower Matrix, the Timekeeping technique, or the Pomodoro method. I propose to consider each of the methods and choose programs for their implementation.

This planning technique got its name in honor of the American president and famous military leader Dwight Eisenhower, who was able to manage his time quite successfully.

The Matrix is ​​based on the principle formulated by the late 19th century Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto that only 20% of all efforts produce 80% of the result (also known as the 20/80 principle). Eisenhower slightly revised the Pareto principle and made it more utilitarian, sorting his tasks in the field of such a schedule according to their degree of urgency and importance:

The matrix is ​​a conventional coordinate system, where the importance of cases is displayed horizontally, and their urgency is displayed vertically. The intersection of these two axes divides the sheet plane into 4 parts, different in priority level:

1. Important and urgent matters. This category includes those tasks that require the fastest possible solution and are important in your field of activity. For example, this can include such things as calling clients, completing current projects, etc.
2. Important but not urgent matters. In this section, you will have cases that are important for your work in general, but their execution is not urgent. For example, it can be regularly recurring or planned for the near future tasks.
3. Not important but urgent matters. Here you may have matters of secondary importance that practically do not relate to your work or do not affect its result, but require our prompt response. For example, you need to congratulate a colleague on his birthday, meet an aunt from Bobruisk who suddenly came to visit, or buy bread on the way home.
4. Not important and not urgent matters. The most extensive section of activities that do not affect the results of our work in any way, are not urgent, but "devour" the lion's share of our time. These are meaningless conversations, and unsystematic browsing on the Internet, and useless computer games, and a lot of things that we really want to do, but there is little sense from them.

Thus, using the principle of Occam's Razor, you can identify only the most important and urgent tasks that will bring real benefit to the business you are doing. The rest of the activities that are not urgent and important, you will learn to limit over time, respectively, getting more time at your disposal for productive activities.

If you decide to use this planning method, then a program called Chronometer can help you with this:

This program does not require installation, so it can be run from any media, but on some systems (for example, on Windows XP) it cannot automatically create a database. If you run into this problem, just create an empty text document and rename it with the extension changed from txt to sqlite. Or just download the finished file from our website. Specify the downloaded file as the program database and everything will work.

When the program starts, you will be able to create your first to-do list and tasks for it. Please note that each task can be marked as important and / or urgent, as well as set deadlines for it. This is necessary so that the Chronometer can automatically sort all tasks in the form of an Eisenhower matrix:

As you can see, the representation of the matrix here is a little different from what we discussed above, but the principle is the same. Just swapped the coordinate axes. By looking at the matrix, you can quickly prioritize and complete important and urgent things as soon as possible in order to deal with the unimportant and not urgent :)

Timing

If you like to do everything in detail and consistently, perhaps a technique called "Timekeeping" will suit you. This technique gained fame in the USSR in the 70s thanks to the book by D. Granin "This Strange Life".

"Timekeeping" is based on the principle of fixing all actions performed by a person over a certain period of time (optimally - two weeks). At the end of each day, a person should conduct an ongoing analysis of the work done and identify those actions that take time, but are not of practical use.

At the end of the two-week observation, a general analysis is done. As a result, we have two benefits. Firstly, we get complete information about what our time is spent on, identify its main "devourers" and see what we can save it on. Secondly, over the period of observation, we learn self-discipline and develop the right sense of working rhythm.

You can record your actions in any way convenient for you: on paper, in a text document on a PC, in a phone notebook or even using a voice recorder. However, if you have access to the Internet, it is best to do this with the help of special services, like Time-Master.ru

This service is a kind of online organizer in which you can record any of your already completed actions and tasks that have yet to be completed.

By default, the "Working day" tab is open, where you can enter all current actions (according to the terminology of the service - "Events") and tasks. To enter, you can use the "Schedule" tab (all data is entered using a pop-up window as in the screenshot above) or use the simplified input type in the "Diary" tab.

In addition to the current day, you can also plan goals for longer periods of time using the Calendar tab (monthly or weekly). It is convenient to control the actions performed using the "Tasks" and "Diary" tabs:

The service is quite powerful and functional, so if you decide to use it, it is advisable to familiarize yourself with the presentation that will be shown to you after registration. Otherwise, you risk losing the opportunity to use many useful features!

The Pomodoro Method

For the most impatient and those who can't stand tedious planning, there is another time management technology - the Pomodoro method (or "pomodoro", to use the original terminology)!

The method got its name in honor of the kitchen timer in the form of a vegetable of the same name (these were popular in the 80s in Europe and America). And it was invented by Francesco Cirillo, then a student at the Italian university.

The essence of the method is that you formulate for yourself the current task ("pomodoro") and set a timer for 25 minutes. During this time, you must have time to complete the task. After doing one "pomodoro" you have a short break of 3 - 5 minutes, and after doing 4 - a long one of 15 - 30 minutes.

The Pomodoro Method, for all its simplicity, allows the one who uses it to be as self-disciplined as possible. After all, 25 minutes is not so much, but you must meet the deadline :)

Due to the ease of implementation, there are quite a few programs and services that use this method for time management. However, most of them are in English. However, there are also Russians. I propose to consider some of them.

Pomodoro for Windows

For PC, there is a small free program called Tomighty:

This is the development of Italian programmers, but it is almost completely Russified and quite easy to use.

After installing and launching it, a small icon in the form of a tomato appears in the tray, which can be left-clicked to start the timer or right-clicked to access the context menu with settings.

By the way, about the settings. In the first tab, you can change the default time intervals, and in the second, I recommend unchecking the "Hide the window automatically" option and activate the ability to drag the timer window ("Allow dragging the window around"). Now everything is ready and you can open the main window and start the timer itself:

Tomighty will be displayed on top of all windows and notify you of the start and end of the task with sounds. During operation, the timer will tick. If this annoys you, just disable this option in the settings on the "Sounds" tab.

Upon completion of one "pomodoro", the program will offer you to take a break - agree :) Rest for 5 minutes and get back to work. When you have completed 4 tasks, take a long pause of half an hour, after which the timer will again start counting the next 4 "pomodoros".

Pomodoro for Android

Due to the mobility of the Android system, there are most different timers for it. Just go to Google.Play and enter the word "Pomodoro" in the search bar to verify this.

Alas, due to the fact that I have an old version of Android on my phone, I was able to test only two applications of this kind (and both in English). And the best of them I would call Simple Pomodoro:

After launching the application, we get to the screen with a timer. If you tap on it, your device will go into lock mode and a 25-minute countdown will be displayed on it in full screen. If you press the back button, you can either turn off the timer or switch it to the background to perform other actions.

In addition to the main screen with a timer, Simple Pomodoro has two more screens: a task scheduler (swipe right from the default screen) and statistics (swipe left). In the scheduler mode, you can not only create tasks in the application, but also import them from Google Calendar!

Like all similar programs, Simple Pomodoro has settings that are available in the menu on the statistics screen or by pressing the "Menu" system button:

In these settings, you can change the time intervals for completing the task and rest, set sounds, blocking options, and other parameters.

Pomodoro Online

If your work is connected with a computer and you have constant access to the Internet, then the Russian-language Pomidorka service will be an ideal choice for tomato time management:

This service is not just a timer that you can turn on whenever you want, but a task-oriented tool! To use the Pomodoro, after registration, you need to go to the "Tasks" section and set at least one goal for yourself, and then send it for execution and go to the "Timer" section:

The newly created task should appear in the list, and to start the timer for it, you just need to click on the "Play" button. In the running timer mode, you have the opportunity to pause or complete the current task ahead of schedule, which many analogues do not have. You can control your performance in the "Statistics" section.

If you need to change the default timer intervals, you can do so by clicking the "Customize Pomodoro" link in the bottom left corner of the page.

It should be said that the Pomodoro service is quite young and is actively developing, therefore, it may soon acquire some additional functions that large English-language counterparts have (for example, synchronization of cases with Google Calendar or import / export of task lists and statistics).

So it is quite possible that we will get at our disposal a worthy domestic answer to "foreign tomatoes", which will be completely free (at least the author says so)!

conclusions

I would like to end our today's article with one anecdote:

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?
- One is enough if the light bulb is ready to change!

The situation is similar with time management. If you seriously decide to start organizing the waste of your own time, then it doesn’t matter which method or program you choose for this - you will succeed anyway.

However, if there is no special desire to self-discipline, then no matter what you choose, there will be no sense in it. Therefore, before looking for a miracle program for time management, ask yourself if you are ready to change. If the answer is yes, then go ahead! I wish you the most rational and useful way to spend all your time!

P.S. It is allowed to freely copy and quote this article, provided that an open active link to the source is indicated and the authorship of Ruslan Tertyshny is preserved.

Time management is considered to be one of the most important skills of a modern business person. By effectively managing time, we noticeably increase personal productivity, achieve all our goals and become the real masters of our lives. This article offers you several working ways to increase productivity with the help of competent time management . So, let's look at them in more detail.

The essence of this well-known time management method is to divide all upcoming tasks into 4 categories: A (most important and urgent), B (significant, but not too urgent), C (urgent, but less important) and D (minor and non-urgent). Time management according to a similar scheme has repeatedly proven its effectiveness, but it also requires a certain amount of experience.

At first, you may misjudge the importance/urgency of certain cases by immediately adding them to section A or B. Thus, you can overload these categories compared to the rest. However, once you get the hang of it and get the hang of it, you'll begin to prioritize quickly and accurately, and noticeably increase your personal productivity and performance.

• Mind maps (thought maps)

This is a universal method of processing and structuring information, which is also great for time management . It is based on a tree diagram, which can include tasks, goals, ideas, resources, or any other data. It is believed that its structure is much more efficient and easy to read than traditional linear lists, tables or plans.

Mind maps are a powerful planning tool that helps you easily and quickly develop plans for a week, month, year or any other period of time. In addition, this method is suitable for the preparation of any large-scale projects (for example, business plans), allowing you to describe in detail all the important details and their relationship to each other. Mind maps are a very simple method. time management , they can be compiled both on a regular sheet of paper and in digital form, using specialized Internet services.

This time management system is a pyramid consisting of 6 consecutive steps. At its top is a plan for the day (it must be drawn up daily), below it is a short-term plan for a week / month, then a long-term plan for a year or several years. The three basic steps of the pyramid are large-scale planning, which includes a master plan for achieving the current goal, the global goal of life, and key life values. Franklin's pyramid is not only a time management method, it also performs deeper and more serious tasks, helping to form a person's life guidelines.

• Gantt Chart

Gantt chart - way time management , implemented as a table, the horizontal rows of which display certain periods of time, and the vertical ones - a list of current tasks or events. The diagram indicates what period of time will be allocated for a particular project. Thus, you will be able to draw up an accurate and detailed schedule for the implementation of any work, you will be able to effectively divide even the most ambitious task into its component stages and control the timing of their implementation.

KickIdler

This is an innovative service that provides ample opportunities for tracking working time - both your own and the productivity of other people (for example, company employees). KickIdler provides a fundamentally new approach to time management using advanced technologies. The system performs a comprehensive analysis of the data received from the computer and generates detailed reports on productivity. Using KickIdler, you can effectively and quickly control how much time you and your subordinates spent on various business tasks, and how much time spent on personal matters. This method time management has a wide range of applications, it is suitable for any business (small or large), for educational institutions and even for home PC control.

As you can see, there are now very diverse time management techniques, applying them together, you will be able to achieve the best results. Experts recommend testing each exercise in practice, and then choosing among them the one (or those) that are ideal for you.

The event preparation process consists of dozens of tasks, calls, trips and meetings. In order to do everything, you need to control time and distribute it correctly, be able to prioritize tasks and not be distracted by less important things. This will help not only the knowledge of the basic techniques of time management, but also special programs created for effective control and planning of time. .|

We offer a choice of 10 convenient programs with which you can better organize and control the implementation of daily tasks.

1. TIME Planner

10. Daily agenda

Daily agenda is an app for iOS devices available on the App Store for $1.99. The program is designed to collect meetings, events and activities from different calendars and other similar programs in one list. As planned by the developers, such synchronization will help not to be distracted by reviewing notes and not to worry about the possibility of accidentally missing an important event in the daily routine.