Crazy colour card for time management

What is Time Management?
Time management is about making the best use of your time to achieve your goals and objectives. This is because time can't be managed, it will tick away at the same rate whatever you do. You can, however, manage your use of time and prioritise your activities using this Crazy Colour Card.

Top Task Tips
1. Measure a task’s importance by its relevance to your goals. 2.Measure a task’s urgency by the proximity to its deadline. 3. Set your priorities a week ahead, i.e. assign next week’s priorities this week. 4. When asked to give time to something review it against your priorities and confirm it’s relevant to your goals. 5. Schedule extra time to allow for unexpected delays. 6. If there is a task you keep avoiding, make sure that next time you either do it ordrop it! 7. Group similar tasks, e.g. write all emails together.

Crazy Colour™ Cards
Helping you work more effectively

Managing Meetings

Hitting Your Hot Times
All of us have times of the day when we operate best, and times when we can only cope with routine tasks. Think through the hours of the day: ! Which are the hot blocks of time (typically 2) when you operate best? ! Which are thecold blocks of time when you are least effective? ! Schedule creative and high productivity tasks in your hot blocks. ! Schedule mundane and routine administrative tasks in your cold blocks. ! If you want to achieve something new or special, schedule it for a hot time.

! Manage meetings: don’t let them manage you. ! Ask yourself, ‘is this meeting necessary?’ and, ‘Do I
need to be present?’Question the need for every meeting, especially regular ones. ! Insist on a clear agenda with timings for each item. ! Control time - even if you aren't the chairperson. Tip: Be assertive, point out when it’ necessary to move on. s ! Take regular breaks - most people can't concentrate effectively for more than an hour, often less. Get everyone out of the meeting room for a 10 minute break. ! Ensurerelevant decision makers are present if any decisions need to be made. Tip: Every meeting should have a clear outcome, e.g. a decision made or actions allocated.

Crazy Colour™ Card for Time Management

Crazy Colour Task Priority Grid
Prioritise tasks by using the categories in the grid below. After identifying the “Urgent and Important” tasks, make sure that the “Urgent but not Important”tasks do not dominate your time over “Important but not Urgent” tasks. Tip: “Important” means important for your goals. Also consider dropping “Neither Urgent nor Important” tasks.

The Art of Delegation
Assess tasks by answering the following questions: ! Does it really need doing? ! Why should I do it? ! Why shouldn't someone else do it? ! Who else can do it? Tip: Learn to let go. If someone ismanaging a task on your behalf do not be tempted to micro-manage every detail.

Urgent but not Important

Urgent and Important

Urgency

Time Management Checklist

Important Neither Urgent nor but not Urgent Important Importance

]Have you set short, medium and long term goals? ]Have you broken your goals into manageable tasks? ]Are you identifying your top ten tasks each week? ]Areyou making best use of your most effective times
(hot times) of the day?

SMART Goal Setting
Use this checklist to help set your goals to be: Specific: write down a clear and specific description of what you want to achieve. Measurable: decide how you will measure its progress. Attainable: planning clear steps for how you will achieve your goal will make it more attainable. Rewarding: check thegoal is worth achieving, by imagining how you will feel when the goal is finally reached. Time limited: decide how much time you are prepared to dedicate to achieving the goal.

Using Goals to Drive Your Time Management
Develop 5 to 10 goals that contribute significantly to what you want out of life. Break these down into tasks (lasting from minutes to weeks) and schedule time for them. Goals...