Time management for managers
Just some few thoughts about the difference of the time management of a manager and of someone who does “real work”. You know what I want to say… In my work life, I have had both types of jobs, alternatingly. The really hard jobs are those where I am a manager and am expected to do real work. Because this in practice means that I am a manager as long as the sun shines and I am a worker during the night and week-ends. Without kidding!
The Manager
The manager is someone who is doing his work by communicating: listening to presentations, giving presentations, talking on the phone, reading and writing emails, publications, meeting protocols and press releases. His days are fully booked by several weeks in advance. One meeting follows the other and between the meetings does 5 minute tasks.
Such 5 minute tasks are phone calls, organizing something, reading or throwing away unread journals and emails, planning trips and sticking train tickets on paper.
This rhythm of work makes his time planning very predictable. His secretary always knows where he is and when he will be busy and when he can be called by phone.
Top managers even manage to be at two places the same time, i.e. they book several meetings for the same time and then just skip or two – or all of them, if something even more urgent pops up.
In fact, a manager´s stress is born by the fact that there is always more information crying for his attention then a human brain can take up, and there are always more meetings than he can attent.
Therefore, he needs a clear strategy and vision which helps him to decide what is important and what is less important.
But the good news is that many meetings can take place without him and he can do his job without having read all emails and all publications thrown onto him. Often, it is even not so important
whether he managed to bring all projects to fly because not starting a project is less a problem than not finishing a project.
Managers always are in hectic and must be well-organized, especially take good notes. As they do not work deeply in any project but instead supervise many of them, they easily get confused, start mixing up different projects and forget what they said yesterday, because they say so much. When I am a manager, I have 5-10 meetings/ phone calls a day and write 30-50 emails per day.
When a manager must do “real work” like reading a longer text or writing something or programming something (some managers do), he must sit on it late in the night because during the day´s hectic, between all these meetings and with the phone ringing frequently, he can not concentrate on anything for longer than 10 minutes.
Among the managers, there are not only those with a manager´s job title, but also secretaries, teachers, call center agents, doctors and hospital personnel, and many more.
Those who do the “real” work
Not everyone can organize and manage things, talk and listen. Some people must also do real work like writing text, programming software, building houses, baking break and all these basic activities where you must sit or and for a while and concentrate on something for a longer time. They all produce something and the more hours they work, the more they concentrate, the more the produce.
Often, they need some time until they have prepared the tools for their work and at the end of the work, they must clean tools, wash their hands, range material, park the tractor.
Many productive activities make no sense when you have only 20 minutes for them, especially complex knowledge work where you need 20 minutes until your brain is fully prepared for the task.
While some of the productive work can be boring, it is also relaxing and when you have routine, you can listen to music or feel the famous flow in your brain, you can become faster or better or try different variants of something. You become calm and beautiful results leave your hand like magic.
Meetings, phone calls, any disturbance keeps you not only from working and producing, but it also interrups your flow. Usually, the worker´s usefulness is measured by the number of products he produces, sometimes also by their quality. Therefore, these persons must be able to work under high concentration as long as they wish, without being disturbed.
When they work on innovative tasks, things always take 2-4 times as long as expected, and this can even happen for tasks which they have done before.
Often, there is a deadline until which things must be finished, and this is what causes the stress. The worked, too, always has more to do than he can do during your work day, but unlike the manager, no tricks are possible. Maybe, he can skip a meeting, but he can not skip or delegate his work. He must do it. He needs a clear strategy what to do in this case. Working more hours? Delivering late? Doing sloppy work and like this save time?
It is also an art to apportion large blocks of work on a longer period of time, like a marathon runner must apportion his forces.
Because of these differences between manager and worker, it makes not much sense when managers gives hints on good time management to their staff, because what works for the manager does not work for those who do the productive work.
The Manager
The manager is someone who is doing his work by communicating: listening to presentations, giving presentations, talking on the phone, reading and writing emails, publications, meeting protocols and press releases. His days are fully booked by several weeks in advance. One meeting follows the other and between the meetings does 5 minute tasks.
Such 5 minute tasks are phone calls, organizing something, reading or throwing away unread journals and emails, planning trips and sticking train tickets on paper.
This rhythm of work makes his time planning very predictable. His secretary always knows where he is and when he will be busy and when he can be called by phone.
Top managers even manage to be at two places the same time, i.e. they book several meetings for the same time and then just skip or two – or all of them, if something even more urgent pops up.
In fact, a manager´s stress is born by the fact that there is always more information crying for his attention then a human brain can take up, and there are always more meetings than he can attent.
Therefore, he needs a clear strategy and vision which helps him to decide what is important and what is less important.
But the good news is that many meetings can take place without him and he can do his job without having read all emails and all publications thrown onto him. Often, it is even not so important
whether he managed to bring all projects to fly because not starting a project is less a problem than not finishing a project.
Managers always are in hectic and must be well-organized, especially take good notes. As they do not work deeply in any project but instead supervise many of them, they easily get confused, start mixing up different projects and forget what they said yesterday, because they say so much. When I am a manager, I have 5-10 meetings/ phone calls a day and write 30-50 emails per day.
When a manager must do “real work” like reading a longer text or writing something or programming something (some managers do), he must sit on it late in the night because during the day´s hectic, between all these meetings and with the phone ringing frequently, he can not concentrate on anything for longer than 10 minutes.
Among the managers, there are not only those with a manager´s job title, but also secretaries, teachers, call center agents, doctors and hospital personnel, and many more.
Those who do the “real” work
Not everyone can organize and manage things, talk and listen. Some people must also do real work like writing text, programming software, building houses, baking break and all these basic activities where you must sit or and for a while and concentrate on something for a longer time. They all produce something and the more hours they work, the more they concentrate, the more the produce.
Often, they need some time until they have prepared the tools for their work and at the end of the work, they must clean tools, wash their hands, range material, park the tractor.
Many productive activities make no sense when you have only 20 minutes for them, especially complex knowledge work where you need 20 minutes until your brain is fully prepared for the task.
While some of the productive work can be boring, it is also relaxing and when you have routine, you can listen to music or feel the famous flow in your brain, you can become faster or better or try different variants of something. You become calm and beautiful results leave your hand like magic.
Meetings, phone calls, any disturbance keeps you not only from working and producing, but it also interrups your flow. Usually, the worker´s usefulness is measured by the number of products he produces, sometimes also by their quality. Therefore, these persons must be able to work under high concentration as long as they wish, without being disturbed.
When they work on innovative tasks, things always take 2-4 times as long as expected, and this can even happen for tasks which they have done before.
Often, there is a deadline until which things must be finished, and this is what causes the stress. The worked, too, always has more to do than he can do during your work day, but unlike the manager, no tricks are possible. Maybe, he can skip a meeting, but he can not skip or delegate his work. He must do it. He needs a clear strategy what to do in this case. Working more hours? Delivering late? Doing sloppy work and like this save time?
It is also an art to apportion large blocks of work on a longer period of time, like a marathon runner must apportion his forces.
Because of these differences between manager and worker, it makes not much sense when managers gives hints on good time management to their staff, because what works for the manager does not work for those who do the productive work.
AndreaHerrmann - 20. Nov, 20:03
