Well not really, you have to know where you are and where you want to be in order to improve anything. So deciding that your time management skills are poor, and learning how to get better and where you want to be is time well spent. How ever in saying that if you've been searching for time management information for days now, and are still looking for a perfect solution there's a chance you’re procrastinating. Just one trait of someone with poor time management.
So what can you do to start improving your time management right away?
Make lists and prioritize
Often it's not that people aren't effective with their time rather they just don't spend the time they have doing the right things. We're all guilty of this at one time or another, but some of us are habitual with it. The easiest way to determine if you do this is to make a list each morning, or the night before of the things you need/want to accomplish
the following or that day. Once you have your list prioritize the items from greatest to least importance. Now spend a day and perform the tasks in the order you prioritized them. This does two things.
a.) It shows you what you need to accomplish in a day so you now have some urgency because you know there are other tasks to get done not just the one your currently working on.
b.) It ensures that the most important items are being taken care of first.
There are times when we can't finish every item on our list but at least we took care of the most important issues first.
Learn to say no
You can't do everything for everyone. Following our list exercise above it's obvious that if you have a list of 20 things and only time for 10 of them in a day then it's hard to accept additional activities from others. Of course there are trade offs that a more important task could come along and you exchange it for another task you were going to do that day. This gets into another discussion on life priorities such as friends, family, career, remember balance is also important. But you can't do everything so if the boss wants you to work late that night, but your supposed to see your son’s hockey game
you have to be able to say no somewhere.
Don't book every moment of your day
Now while we've preached lists, daily organization, and learning to say no you do need to leave some room for flexibility. Booking up every moment of your day so that you're on a minute-by-minute schedule can be a big problem if a mini crisis occurs in the day that wasn't accounted for.
Use other tools
Using day planners, or PDA's to keep track of appointments and to do lists will save time and promote organization on all levels. Also keeping good contact information whether it be in a contact database on your computer or in an address book will save time when you need to contact people. (Ian Henman)
Friday, April 20, 2012
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Employee Evaluations: Four Tips to Help Managers with Performance Review Conversations
Managers talk with the people on their teams every day. Whatever the topic, most of these conversations happen with no stress, little anxiety, and minimal tension. But when the conversation is about an employee’s performance, anxieties often abound. Here are four ways to reduce the tension and defensiveness that too often surround performance evaluations.
1. Don’t wait for the meeting to deliver the performance appraisal form.
I worked for large corporations for fifteen years before beginning my consulting career. Every one of those companies — GE, United Airlines, PepsiCo — took performance appraisal very seriously. And my bosses at those companies also took their responsibilities for performance evaluation seriously as well. But all of my bosses kicked off the appraisal discussion in a way that was guaranteed to get it off to a bad start. How did they begin? They set up the time for the meeting and then waited until I was sitting across the desk to hand me their completed appraisal form.
At the start of the meeting my boss would give me his appraisal form and I would engage all of my speed-reading skills, whipping through the document as fast as I could to see what he had said about my performance. While I was reading the evaluation (and probably missing some key points in my haste to take everything in) my boss would be behind his desk, pretending to work, but in truth trying to gauge how I was reacting to the evaluation he had written.
What a terrible way to begin! Don’t wait until the meeting starts to give the employee your performance appraisal document. It’s far more effective to go up to the employee an hour or so in advance of the meeting, and say something like this: “Mary, you know we’re getting together at two o’clock to go over your performance appraisal. Here it is. Why don’t you take some time between now and then to review it? Read it carefully and jot down any questions that you’d like to ask.”
Giving the person the appraisal to review in advance of the meeting can lessen defensiveness. It allows her time to think about what you’ve written and prevents spur-of-the-moment reactions. You’ll usually find that giving the person a chance to read what you’ve written in advance produces much more effective business discussions.
2. Set a time frame (and give yourself an extra fifteen minutes).
Your discussion of a person’s performance evaluation may be one of the most important interactions you'll ever have with that individual; make sure you’ve allowed enough time. In most cases, an hour should be sufficient to review the appraisal document itself as well as discuss many of the other subjects that often pop up during performance reviews — development activities, career plans, and future goals and projects. Make certain that the very next activity you’ve scheduled after finishing the review isn't one that must begin at a set time. If you provide yourself with a little flexibility at the end, you can take the time to wrap up the discussion comfortably.
3. Don’t start by discussing the form itself.
Yes, the form is important, but the form simply serves as the formal record of your assessment of how well the individual has done over the past year. Rather than beginning with the first entry on the appraisal form and moving lockstep through the document item-by-item, it’s more effective to start by asking a general question that requires the employee’s thoughtful consideration: “Tim, you’ve had a chance to read the appraisal. Why don’t you start by telling me how you feel the past year has gone?” Then listen as the individual responds and continue the discussion from there.
4. Don’t fixate on getting the employee to agree with your performance appraisal.
One of the most common questions managers ask me during training sessions involves how they can gain an employee’s agreement with what they’ve written in the performance appraisal, particularly when what they’ve written isn't entirely favorable. “Don’t try!” is my advice to them.
What is a performance appraisal? It is a formal record of the supervisor’s opinion of the quality of the employee’s work. Pay attention to the key phrase, “. . . the supervisor’s opinion . . .”
Of course the employee is going to have a different opinion — all of us believe we’re above average. The goal in the performance review discussion is not to gain the employee’s agreement, although it is nice if that happens, the goal is to gain the employee’s understanding. As long as the employee understands how you came up with the evaluation, you’ve done your job. Of course, he may disagree (particularly if you’ve set the bar high and have tough, demanding standards). But don’t waste time trying to convince a person that you’re right and she’s wrong. The important thing is that she understands your expectations and how her performance was assessed.
There’s a lot more to conducting good appraisal discussions, of course. But these four tips should make a tough job just a little bit easier. (Dick Grote)
1. Don’t wait for the meeting to deliver the performance appraisal form.
I worked for large corporations for fifteen years before beginning my consulting career. Every one of those companies — GE, United Airlines, PepsiCo — took performance appraisal very seriously. And my bosses at those companies also took their responsibilities for performance evaluation seriously as well. But all of my bosses kicked off the appraisal discussion in a way that was guaranteed to get it off to a bad start. How did they begin? They set up the time for the meeting and then waited until I was sitting across the desk to hand me their completed appraisal form.
At the start of the meeting my boss would give me his appraisal form and I would engage all of my speed-reading skills, whipping through the document as fast as I could to see what he had said about my performance. While I was reading the evaluation (and probably missing some key points in my haste to take everything in) my boss would be behind his desk, pretending to work, but in truth trying to gauge how I was reacting to the evaluation he had written.
What a terrible way to begin! Don’t wait until the meeting starts to give the employee your performance appraisal document. It’s far more effective to go up to the employee an hour or so in advance of the meeting, and say something like this: “Mary, you know we’re getting together at two o’clock to go over your performance appraisal. Here it is. Why don’t you take some time between now and then to review it? Read it carefully and jot down any questions that you’d like to ask.”
Giving the person the appraisal to review in advance of the meeting can lessen defensiveness. It allows her time to think about what you’ve written and prevents spur-of-the-moment reactions. You’ll usually find that giving the person a chance to read what you’ve written in advance produces much more effective business discussions.
2. Set a time frame (and give yourself an extra fifteen minutes).
Your discussion of a person’s performance evaluation may be one of the most important interactions you'll ever have with that individual; make sure you’ve allowed enough time. In most cases, an hour should be sufficient to review the appraisal document itself as well as discuss many of the other subjects that often pop up during performance reviews — development activities, career plans, and future goals and projects. Make certain that the very next activity you’ve scheduled after finishing the review isn't one that must begin at a set time. If you provide yourself with a little flexibility at the end, you can take the time to wrap up the discussion comfortably.
3. Don’t start by discussing the form itself.
Yes, the form is important, but the form simply serves as the formal record of your assessment of how well the individual has done over the past year. Rather than beginning with the first entry on the appraisal form and moving lockstep through the document item-by-item, it’s more effective to start by asking a general question that requires the employee’s thoughtful consideration: “Tim, you’ve had a chance to read the appraisal. Why don’t you start by telling me how you feel the past year has gone?” Then listen as the individual responds and continue the discussion from there.
4. Don’t fixate on getting the employee to agree with your performance appraisal.
One of the most common questions managers ask me during training sessions involves how they can gain an employee’s agreement with what they’ve written in the performance appraisal, particularly when what they’ve written isn't entirely favorable. “Don’t try!” is my advice to them.
What is a performance appraisal? It is a formal record of the supervisor’s opinion of the quality of the employee’s work. Pay attention to the key phrase, “. . . the supervisor’s opinion . . .”
Of course the employee is going to have a different opinion — all of us believe we’re above average. The goal in the performance review discussion is not to gain the employee’s agreement, although it is nice if that happens, the goal is to gain the employee’s understanding. As long as the employee understands how you came up with the evaluation, you’ve done your job. Of course, he may disagree (particularly if you’ve set the bar high and have tough, demanding standards). But don’t waste time trying to convince a person that you’re right and she’s wrong. The important thing is that she understands your expectations and how her performance was assessed.
There’s a lot more to conducting good appraisal discussions, of course. But these four tips should make a tough job just a little bit easier. (Dick Grote)
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