3 Masterful Keys on time and work life flexibility

Faced with a daunting task of completing a new project, spending time with my niece and preparing to meet with a client, I must be in a flexible state of mind. Flexibility in our personal lives and work lives takes planning. It is often our own minds that clutter the playing field with confusion, rather than taking the time to prioritize and get organized. We have to own our personal style of flexible work life practices whether we work for ourselves or a company. And how we manage our time is a huge part of that puzzle.

Last night on a whim of indecisive wisdom seeking I grabbed management guru Peter Drucker’s, The Essential Drucker. It practically fell off the shelf and opened to a chapter on Knowing Time. Hmmmm, I thought, why not take a dip into the master’s mind on the topic.

Those of you who know me, understand my love for chaos as a driver of creativity in the merging of our personal and working lives.  Enormous strides have been made from the perpetual slamming of juggling life and career. Genius, I believe can spring forth from those chaotic moments. New ideas on juggling family and work, personalized flexibility practices, and the personal creative benefits of integrating the higher aspects of both worlds.

But the father of modern management, Peter Drucker, might argue otherwise. Not about chaos leading to innovation, but perhaps the staying power and implementation of innovation which is born of chaos unless time is well managed.

In an essay from his book, he said that while a knowledge worker’s task generally starts in the planning of one’s work, while “eminently plausible,” it rarely works. 

“The plans always remain on paper, always remain good intentions. They seldom turn into achievement. Effective knowledge workers, in my observation, do not start with their tasks. They start with their time. And they do not start out with planning . They start by finding out where their time actually goes, then they attempt to manage their time.”

I am a list maker, post-it queen and forever napkin snippet writer in perpetual awareness of the signals around me which yield ideas.  I DO NOT go anywhere without a number of pens, my BlackBerry and a pad. I do plan my day, but just like money, (you have to spend money to make money) time cries for the same attention.

YOU HAVE TO SPEND TIME TO MAKE TIME. Eureka, the foundation of executive effectiveness according to Drucker as I see it. Here are Drucker’s three steps toward this goal with a little commentary from moi. He is of course speaking from an organizational perspective, but I’m applying his principles to our daily working lives.

Recording Time: “One has to record time, before one can know here it goes, ” said Drucker. Where is your time going? Do a daily inventory. It might change daily, so a weekly observation might be more appropriate. Most likely, you’ll be examining your daily routine, I suspect surfing the web, watching Tv and catching up on the career or workload will rank high. Identify the unproductive demands on your time. What is a waste of time for you personally and in work mode? Write it down, our memory might linger if you try to simple recall your day. Be as concrete as you can, it might surprise you.

Managing Time: Prioritize your time. Review the list and highlight the most productive times of the day. What were you doing? When did you get the most done? Then take a look at the achievements you made on any given day. Moments of interruption divide the day and divide the attention span on a project making it that much more difficult to return to the task. Disconnecting from the phone and internet to complete larger tasks might be better than taking a half hour for a few days to concentrate on a task. Every day does not mirror the next in priority. You have to come to your own routine of time-flex to be productive.

Consolidating Time: Drucker says that effective people in management, ” know that he (one) has to consolidate his discretionary time.” You can’t account for every moment of the day and there certainly has to be down time. But one can consolidate time. For example, sticking to only points necessary for discussion in a meeting to lead to concrete decisions, allotting a certain amount of time to take care of e-mail reading/responding in one shot and a practical response to interruptions based on whether they are acute situations requiring immediate attention –  can be put on the back burner – or taken care of in one sweeping move.

Drucker said that “time is the scarcest resource, and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed.”

‘Know thyself ,’ is almost impossibly difficult for mortal men. But everyone can follow the injunction ‘Know thy time’ if he or she wants to , and be well on the road toward contribution and effectiveness.”