Time Management
Dr. Allah Nawaz Sultan
Assistant Professor, Pediatrics
Sharif Medical & Dental College, Lahore
Objectives
At the end of presentation, participants
should be able to …
Understand the importance of time
management
Identify the common distractors
Categorize the tasks and manage
accordingly
How to think about time?
Management of resources
“Time is the most important
resource. Unless it is managed,
nothing is managed”
Finite resource
60 sec per minute, 60 minutes per
hour, 24 hours a day
Time? Time? Time?
45% each day meeting biological
needs (8 hours sleeping, 2 hours
eating, 1 hour dressing and
grooming)
40% at work
Total 85% time gone
Shopping? Outing? Exercise?
Meditation? Reading? Family
commitment?
Time Management
To be successful, you must learn
to manage time.
Time management is a skill.
Like any other skill, it is learnable.
“He who fails to plan, is actually
planning to fail”
(Winston Churchill)
Set Clear Goals
Determine your goals, then
organize your goals by priority
and value.
Write down on a paper what you
actually want in each area of life.
Make your short term, medium
term and long term goals.
Plan your each day, preferably a
night before.
You can proceed for the goals by
following 80:20 rule or ABCDE.
Separate Urgent from Important.
Apply 80: 20 rule.
Give more importance to those 2
out of 10 tasks that adds more
value in your life.
Stay focused on those 2 tasks all
the time.
ABCDE Rule
Divide your list in 5 groups.
A. Very Important. Major consequences
B. Tasks that you should do.
Consequences are minor.
C. Nice to do task. Have no
consequences at all.
D. Tasks that you should delegate.
E. Tasks that should be eliminated.
Analyze your to do list
Necessity
Appropriateness
Being doing each item – Ask “is it
important?” – delegate where possible
Effectiveness
Is it positioned against your objectives
Efficiency
“Is this a better way”
URGENT vs.
IMPORTANT TASKS
• Important tasks have an outcome that
leads to the achievement of your
goals, whether these are professional
or personal
• Urgent activities demand immediate
attention and action, and can have
significant consequences if not
completed in time.
STEPS
List all activities that you feel you have to do
On a scale of 1 to 5, assign importance to
each of the activities
Evaluate its urgency. Plot each item on the
matrix according to the values that you've
given it.
The Time Management Matrix
Urgent Not Urgent
I II
Do it now and do it Plan (and do ahead)
properly
This is the key to all
Important May be ‘crisis’ progress and results
Pressing problems - Achievements
Deadline-driven projects - Quality of life
III IV
Not Important
Spend minimum Delegate, or plan
and spend
time on it minimum time on
- Say no or negotiate it
- Delegate Preferably:
Don’t do it
The Big Quadrant 1
Urgent Not Urgent
II
I Results:
Important • Stress
•Burnout
•Crisis management
IV
Not Important
III
An Effective Time Manager
Urgent Not Urgent
I II
Results:
• Vision
• Balance
• Discipline
Important
• Control
• Few crises
III IV
Avoiding self inflicted
delays
Delaying decisions
Failing to handle distractions
Leaving tasks unfinished
Can’t say NO
Doing easy or trivial first –
postponing the difficult
Procrastinations
The telephone: Tool or time
thief?
Controlling the incoming monster
Manage screening – set guidelines
Taming the outgoing monster
Call & routine work
Distractors & Time Wasters
Work-Life balance
Meditation
Regular exercise
Adequate sleep
Thinking and Meditation
“Education is not the learning of
facts but training the mind to think”
(Albert Einstein)
Keep at-least sometime for daily
reflection and further planning.
Focus
Identify and concentrate on the
critical tasks that have the
greatest impact on your
professional goals.
Category “A” tasks.
Important but non-urgent tasks.
Importance of time
management in Medicine
Better patient care
Better productivity
Stress reduction with healthy
work-life balance
Ask Yourself ???
1. Why am I on the payroll?
2. What are my highest value
activities?
3. What can I do to make a real
difference in my place of work?
4. What is the most valuable use
of my time now?
Self Analysis
Meditation time ?
Screen time <2 hours/day ?
1 hour walk/gym ?
Book reading 2 hours/day ?
Professional grooming ?
Workshops/Courses
Conferences
Medical writings
Take Home Message
• Learn to manage your time wisely
• Categorize the tasks into Important and
Urgent
• Most valuable thing you do is “THINKING.”
Give time for meditation
• Most important thing for the success is
“FOCUS”
• Ask yourself “why am I not learning/earning 2
or 3 times of current”: Reason?? DISTRACTORS
• Get rid of obsession with screen.
• Learn to negotiate with time wasters
THANK YOU
