Time management

 Time management skills is the ability of an individual to know the

amount of time he has and the task to be appropriately accomplished with

the available time. This implies that everything needed in the business

organisation depends on the secretary’s ability to manage time.

The important : 

Time management is more than just managing time. It is about

controlling the use of the most valuable and undervalued resource. It is

managing oneself in relation to time. It is setting priorities and taking

charge of the situation and time utilization. It means changing those

habits or activities that cause waste of time. It is being willing to adopt

habits and methods to make maximum use of time.

Time management enables office workers or business men and

women to know the right time for a particular thing and to follow them up

in that manner in order for such person to meet up with the set task for

both the day and the week.

The Time Management Skills Required by Secretaries in Business

Organisation :

Evaluation Skill /plan your work in an orderly manner.

Evaluate how time is used as well as plan your work in an orderly

manner like writing down what you must do as the business

organisation’s secretary. The first step of effective time management is

identifying how a secretary is using his time. This can be done in two

ways which are:

To Do List or Activity Time Log.

A. To do list in many occasions enables secretaries to use their desk

calendars or a small note book for this purpose. Writing down their task

helps them in certain priority.

Example of a to do list;

a. Prepare a memo to Mr Odoh in connection with the building with

audit signature. 

b. Book conference room for September meeting.

c. Call Mr Johnson for budget provision request.

d. Prepare master letters for photocopies.

B. While activity time log is the skill that aims at how secretaries are

currently spending their time. This skill as an evaluator enables the

secretary to make the list of the activities or tasks that they spend time on.

The very act of measuring is often enough to raise their unconsciousness

where they then have a chance to scrutinize and change them. This log is

a valuable tool for scrutinizing time usage.

Activity time log requires that secretaries track all tasks, including

the routine tasks such as commuting reading, eating and attending to

telephone etc. In a systematic way and note the successive sequence from

the start, through the end of the day.

Pick activity category or categories that will encompass the entire

day. Label those below and add up the total time spent on that particular

activity category. Also include a miscellaneous category for thing that

does not fit well into typical categories. Keeping the activity log for

several day helps secretaries analyze their time and answer question like:

i.

What is the most and least productive time?

ii.

Did they achieve their goals?

iii.

How could they done what they were doing more effective.

Goal Setting or Establishing Priority Skill.

After you know what you want to do or accomplish as a secretary,

you must determine the order in which the task is to be accomplished.

Goal setting is so essential as a person’s life is a sentence of a big

and small choices that a secretary manages as regards to time. The

difference between a successful and unsuccessful secretary is the

availability and practicality of the goals they set for themselves or their

ability of establishing priority.

Goal setting is the wisdom that comes from practical experience

that helps secretaries direct their conscious and subconscious decisions

towards success, knowing that goal setting states clearly the measurable

and specific results. To be accomplished by the secretaries and time

frame to attain them.

There are two types of goals secretaries can set for themselves

which are:

• Rational goals and 

• Directional goals

Rational goal are specific and a short term goals which ask the

following questions:

* What do I want to accomplish?

* Why am I doing this task?

* Who are all involved in the task?

* What are the expected outcomes of this task?

* When can this task be expected to be complete?

Directional goals as well as domain planning are long term goals

with no predictable outcome focusing on the question. What do I want to

accomplish to stay focus secretaries in a business organisation should aim

and visualized these goals.

To manage time well, the secretary should make sure the set goals

or to be set goals are working for what he really wants but not just

something that sounds good. The goals should be high enough though

practicable. This is because high goals are pointers to the zest secretaries

have towards their work. 

Scheduling Activities /Accessing The Time Needed For Each Task To

Accomplished

After identifying the activities and prioritizing them, it is time to

create a schedule. When scheduling, it is important to plan both weekly

and daily schedules. Weekly schedule is important for the over all success

of the activity and tasks, but it is the daily scheduling or planning that

will help one to track one’s progress and determine whether or not is on

schedule.

This skill is such a sensible and calculative one in the sense that,

the right time for each task will really be or adequately be apportioned to

it after the consideration of how a visitor’s visitation might distract,

receiving of phone calls and other corrections on the task that will give it

a professional look. This is to prove the skilfulness of the secretary as

well as his confidentiality before his manager.

Developing Strategies for Avoiding Time Wasters

This is another skill that must be strictly adhered to so as to be able

to meet up with the previous skills. Obviously, distraction must set in as

far as office work if concerned but the secretary responds towards it is the

determinant.

It can be maintained through the following:

♦ Tell friends or colleagues that while you indulge talking with them,

because you have urgent task to complete. 

♦ Keep your attention and your effort on the work at hand as a way

to eliminate procrastinating during the day refer to your ‘To Do

List’ which can act as motivation to working deli gently during

each work day. 

♦ The secretary in the business organisation aught to avoid false

starts by first getting an overall understanding of what you are to

do but to as much as possible get the comprehension of tasks. 

♦ Be sure of what you are to do and have all the information and

supplies required for a task before you get under way. 

Time management skills are acquired through education which is the

key and strength to every forms of development which enable

individuals’ livelihood, business organisation and the world at large.