Knowledge Sharing - Time Management

Time Management 

Time management is the practice of applying good physical, mental, and temporal organization techniques to achieve increased productivity, reduced stress, and greater self-realization and activity prioritization capabilities. Knowing how to apply time management techniques helps to avoid errors and misconceptions about multitasking (the act of working on multiple tasks simultaneously).

To avoid this type of error, it is necessary to understand the trap of multitasking and the fundamental principles of time management: space, mind, and time.

Multitasking

Multitasking is the apparent human ability to perform more than one task or activity in a short period of time. However, this ability contains several flaws that cause a loss of quality, an increase in stress, and often ends up increasing the time we spend completing a task. This misunderstanding exists because we have been accustomed to parallelizing activities such as writing emails, answering calls, and delegating tasks simultaneously, without ever realizing the flaws that end up happening. Nevertheless, these flaws are less noticeable in passive activities such as listening to music while working or reading a book while traveling on public transport.

The Myth in Practice

To better understand how this ability can be illusory, let's do a small exercise:

1. I propose that you write the following sentence with the highest quality and pride possible and measure the time it takes to complete the task: "Multitasking is a myth". ​
2. Then, write the numbers from 1 to 23 with the highest quality and pride possible and measure the time it takes to complete the task. ​
3. Finalmente, repitam os passos 1 e 2 com uma nova restrição: para cada letra da frase (1) escrevam um número do conjunto (2). Clarificação: escrevam ‘M’, escrevam ‘1’, escrevam ‘u’, escrevam ‘2’, e daí em diante; sempre com a melhor qualidade e brio possíveis e meçam o tempo que demoram a cumprir a tarefa.

Conclusion

The purpose of the previous exercise is to provide a different perspective on performing tasks in parallel (multitasking), trying to demonstrate that task 3 will take longer to complete than the sum of tasks 1 and 2 and/or that its quality will also be sacrificed.

The explanation for this phenomenon is associated with our ability to pay attention to only one activity. When we focus on a task and give it our full attention, our productivity levels increase, and thus, we complete the task with higher quality and in less time. However, when we try to perform two tasks simultaneously, by the time we focus on one (e.g., writing the letter 'M'), our brain is already processing the next number; and this leads us to not be 100% focused on the task at hand.

The Practice of the Myth

To have a better perception of how this problem can affect our productivity and quality of work, let's look at real activities related to our roles. Let's reflect on the following scenarios:

- A surgeon in an operating room performing surgery; if their attention is not 100% focused on the task at hand, a life could be in danger. What distractions could be on the mind of a surgeon during an operation? The marriage of their best friend? Their wife's birthday? Their child's theatre party? All these possibilities are plausible and possible to happen; perhaps not every day, but they will happen at some point in time.

- An executive, on a city street, trying not to be late for the meeting they scheduled to discuss the purchase/merger of a company. Has this person forgotten any important documents at home? Will they feel comfortable presenting to the investors? These and other distractions could lead to an accident, and even if that doesn't happen, they will certainly lead to increased stress levels.

- A teacher at home, grading tests for three classes of 30 students, while thinking about the household chores that still need to be done. Has the daughter done her homework? Did the son take the dog for a walk? Did the husband make dinner? The mother is sick, how much will the medicines cost at the pharmacy? And amidst so many distractions, it's the students' grades that suffer.

Solution 

The solution to this problem is knowing how to say "no" to distractions that make us lose focus and attention on the tasks at hand. To do this, we need to organize our activities in a way that allows us to give our maximum attention only to the one we are working on at the moment. This solution is applied through the Fundamental Principles of Productivity.

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Fundamental Principles of Productivity

Our organization is fundamental for our productivity to be focused on a single activity. This organization is divided into three components: space, mind, and time.

Space

Our spatial organization is related to the work environment. Our desk and all the belongings we keep; the boxes, drawers, and files; the bags and backpacks, and the pockets; all spaces where we can store information are considered Gathering Points. These meeting points are not restricted only to the office; they exist in the car and/or at home. Nor are they limited to physical spaces; the mailbox, voicemail, text messages, and conversations, calendars, and task managers; all digital places where we can store information can be considered a meeting point (Gathering Point). Our mind is not a Gathering Point.

Zen Master vs. Chaos Master

In general, people are characterized, regarding time management, on a spectrum of personal organization, ranging from the Zen Master – someone who is naturally organized – to the Chaos Master – someone who is naturally disorganized. On one side of the spectrum, the Zen Master typically manages 7–9 Gathering Points. On the other side of the spectrum, the Chaos Master manages more than 100. This does not mean that disorganized people are less productive or less successful; it means that these people have found a way to achieve success despite being disorganized.

Conclusion

The goal of time management, however, is to provide tools to improve the quality of work, reduce stress, and reclaim time to invest in higher-value activities. And thus, the goal for the first Fundamental Principle of Productivity – space – is to reduce Gathering Points to the lowest possible value. Typically, the target value is 5: the box of belongings and non-belongings; the laptop bag; the voicemail box; the mailbox, and the "little box" of ideas – a space to put our ideas and thoughts (e.g., a notepad). It is possible to exceed this target value and maintain productivity levels; but the higher that value, the more work it will require to manage.

Mindset

​In the midst of our work environment, as we try to focus on a task, we are constantly bombarded with distractions and ideas from our subconscious; the same distractions that lead us to practice multitasking. And as we saw above, "our mind is not a Gathering Point."

Thus, it is important for our mental organization to extract these distractions to our approved Gathering Points. And for that, a process is recommended that forces us to reflect on sets of concepts, ideas, and topics, so that our thoughts arise and can be noted in their proper places (gathering points). This process is a Mind Clearing supported by Mental Triggers.

Mind Clearing

Mind clearing is just that, a cleaning; a sweeping away of all our activities, ideas, projects, and tasks that distract us from what we need to do at the moment. And this sweeping doesn't end; it is something that should be recurrent, from time to time, so that we can always have a clear mind and be prepared for important tasks.

When performing the Mind Clearing process, it is supposed to take some time; it is possible that some topics do not elicit ideas; it is possible that others take up a lot of our time. The important thing is to be aware that transferring all this information to paper or to an application frees us and empowers us to be more productive and not be constantly distracted by it.

An example of this technique can be applied to the topic of Finance, where all thoughts related to finances (e.g., accounting, savings, taxes, banking, loans, increases, expenses, etc.) are placed in a Gathering Point. Let's use a sheet of paper (note: part of the notepad) for this iteration. After jotting down everything that comes to mind, we place that sheet of paper in an easily accessible place, to later process everything that's there. Meanwhile, we won't think about that information anymore, except in cases of emergencies, urgencies, or things that cannot be postponed.

Conclusion

Our mind is not a Gathering Point. Our productivity depends on our ability to focus on a single task and execute it effectively and efficiently. For this, we need a clear mind, free from distractions. One last piece of advice: whenever you have an idea or something that distracts you, simply jot it down and don't think about it anymore.

Time

The third and final Fundamental Principle of Productivity is Time. After we know how to organize our space (physical and digital), and after we know how to clear our mind of distractions, we need to allocate time to all the activities, projects, and tasks that we listed earlier. And it is in this allocation that we can ensure better results in our time management.

"Time is money" – it's an expression often used when we think about wasting time; but there are other perspectives that are important to highlight in this expression. Indeed, time is money; and just as we pay interest when we borrow money, we also pay interest when we borrow "temporary" time. Just as we manage our financial budget, we also need to know how to manage our time budget accordingly.

Our calendar is probably one of the greatest tools we can use in our time management. Once all the items from the list of activities, tasks, and projects that occupied our minds are processed, we can allocate time to those items to be more productive and effective in our time management. Additionally, there are other tools that can help us, such as task managers.

Before we start with time allocation, prioritization, and execution of our activities, two important concepts regarding our time need to be introduced: (1) the Einstein Window; and (2) the 80/20 Rule.

Einstein Window
The Einstein window is a concept that defines a time interval where we reach the peak of our productivity. To understand this concept, we can compare the lives of students; many say they like to wake up early and study in the morning, while others prefer to stay up late studying into the night. These preferences are nothing more than their Einstein Windows, meaning the time intervals in which they are most productive and their minds are most adept and prepared for mental exercise.
Therefore, it's important to identify your Einstein window and understand when you are most productive – in the morning, afternoon, or evening? And you should protect this time by allocating the most valuable tasks to it, following the 80/20 rule.

80/20 Rule
Once identified and protected, our Einstein window is a space where we should concentrate all strategic and important work; all work that deserves the peak of our productivity; and all work that is a priority. This is one aspect of the 80/20 Rule.
The 80/20 rule refers to the Pareto Principle, which states that 80% of effects come from 20% of causes. In a professional context, it's a principle that says 80% of the results of our work come from 20% of our actions. And the 80/20 rule is the application of this principle to our productivity, meaning allocating the most important 20% of our activities to the Einstein window, thus maximizing the results obtained.

Conclusion
The application of these two concepts (Einstein Window and 80/20 Rule) gives us important tools to manage our time and improve our productivity. The next step is to allocate our activities to our time; and for that, we move on to the final step in our time management: Getting Things Done.

Getting Things Done

The practice of the Fundamental Principles of Productivity ensures good time management. To apply these principles, there are strategies and processes.

Strategy

There are several strategies regarding the organization and execution of our activities. The strategy explored here follows the following steps: (1) capture; (2) clarify; (3) organize; (4) reflect; (5) execute.

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Capture​

The first step begins with the application of the first and second fundamental principles. In an organized manner, we can invest between 1 and 6 hours to clear our minds and capture all the items that need to be processed into a Gathering Point.

Clarify

Once we have a list of items, we clarify these items by answering some questions:

1 - Is [the item] something that requires us to take action? If the item does not require us to take action, then it could be one of three cases: (1) it's trash; something we no longer need and can delete; (2) it's something pending external factors and we have to wait to process this item or something that maybe, one day, we might want to do; (3) it's a reference, a website, a note, information that just needs to be saved. If the item is an activity that requires action, we should ask the next question.

2 - Is [the item] something strategic? Non-strategic actions can be executed in different ways; they can be systematized actions and executed automatically with the help of resources; they can be actions delegable to another person – for example, if we need to buy an item, we can ask someone who is already shopping to buy our item; or they can be actions that are completely allocated to other people or entities.

Organizing 

Organizing these items into Gathering Points also involves organizing them by context. For example, we can classify an item as a project, and this project is something that we can only do at home; in this case, we can add a label @home as a way of knowing the context of that project or action.

Reflect
This step is a retrospective of applying the fundamental principles of productivity and the steps described in this article, in order to frequently reassess the priority of our projects.

Execute
The final step will be the simple execution of an action or project. But even to fulfill this step in an organized manner, we follow a process where, for each item, we answer three questions:

1. What is the next step?
2. When will it be done?
3. Where does it belong?

Process
Knowing how to organize our space and clear our minds, the next step is to allocate our time to the activities, tasks, and projects that we captured with the strategy described above. First, we define when our peak productivity time is (Einstein Window); then, we define which activities, tasks, and projects are most valuable (Most Valuable Activities); and finally, we answer the following questions for each item, applying the 80/20 Rule.

What is the next step?
The first question pertains to the next step to be executed in completing the activity, task, or project. In this context, the next step refers to the immediate next step, i.e., what singular and simplistic action should be taken to advance the task or project's state.
For example, if one of the items is "Christmas Shopping," the immediately following step might not necessarily be to go shopping for Christmas. It can be broken down into sub-steps, the first of which could be something simple like "Make a Christmas shopping list." And it's this next step that we'll focus on for the remaining questions.
Another example, shorter, could be "Dinner," where the immediate next step could be "Decide whether to dine out or cook dinner," leading to "Choose a restaurant" or "Check if groceries are needed for dinner."
A third, longer example could be "Vacation," where the first step could be "Choose a vacation destination" or "Select a vacation date." And recursively, this project will be broken down into tasks and subtasks until only singular actions are needed to advance the project – eventually leading to something like "Call hotel X and book a room between dates A and B, for N people."
The aim of this first question is not to detail all the steps inherent in carrying out a particular activity, task, or project. The goal is to systematically simplify the decisions and executions necessary for its completion.
Even for recurring activities, e.g., "FMQ Soccer Game," it can be broken down into travel, equipment, space reservation, player call-up, etc. And for each of these subtasks, the same process of answering the three questions is necessary.

When will it be done?
The second question concerns scheduling that activity, task, or project. Thus, once broken down into singular actions, it's possible to allocate time to perform each of these actions. And for this, we need to resort to the Third Fundamental Principle of Productivity and the concepts of Einstein Window and 80/20 Rule, so that these actions are carried out at the right time.

When answering this question about a particular item, there are three responses depending on the estimated time needed to perform the action. If an action takes less than 2–5 minutes to complete, it should/can be done immediately, if the context allows. If an action takes more than 15–20 minutes, it should be scheduled. And the remaining actions can be kept on a to-do list (in a task manager) to be performed later, in a certain context.

The goal of this second question is to process all items on our list and allocate the necessary time needed for their completion. Large projects should be broken down into singular actions, so that these actions can be allocated in the same way. And other types of tasks can be done outside our Einstein Window and according to the 80/20 Rule.

Where does it belong?
The third and final question concerns the context of the action. This context can be spatial (e.g., at home, in the office, on the computer), social (e.g., with person X), or temporal (e.g., in the morning), or another applicable context.
Here, the physical and digital contexts also apply. Physical objects that do not have a well-defined purpose, or when there are doubts about their purpose, should be discarded. Digital items that serve no purpose should be kept (they can all be organized into a "Lost and Found" list, for example) since digital space has an increasingly lower cost, and the consequences have less impact.
The goal of this last question is to maintain a separation of our actions by context, so that they do not distract us during our day and cause us to lose time. Whenever we need to switch focus and pay attention to another activity, it will be easier for us to do so if everything we need to perform that activity is in a place where we already expect it, so as not to waste time organizing first.

Calendar

​The last step is to relate all the concepts learned to the most powerful of all time management tools: the calendar. Whether physical or digital, the calendar is undoubtedly the most effective time management tool we can use when applying the concepts discussed throughout this article. To conclude, let's describe an example of how to apply all the steps so far to the following list:

- Christmas dinners;

- Jalapeño Project;

- Gym and sports;

- The Girl Next Door;

- The Justice League;

- Japan;

- Photographic Review;

- Moonlight Sonata;

- Transportation;

- Desk;

- Tidying up the house;

Note: This list is extremely small and condensed, but in a real scenario, a list may contain ten times more items, and it may take several hours to process everything. However, this "processing everything" will only be done once.

Capture

Some of the items on this list came from visible physical objects at home, in the office, or on the desk. Others are ideas, activities, or common projects; and some are less common projects.

Clarify

Christmas Dinners:

Company Christmas Dinner

Not organized by me; doesn't involve strategic actions; it's an event organized by a team at the Company; the only action will be to schedule the event on the calendar with the date, time, and location, and attend.

Class Christmas Dinner

Organized by me; involves some actions, including inviting people, choosing a date and time, selecting a restaurant, making a reservation, etc.

Family Christmas Dinner

Not organized by me; but involves some strategic actions, such as Christmas shopping (gifts, decorations), decorating the house, inviting family members, planning the menu, etc. Some of these actions can be delegated or entirely done by other family members.

Jalapeño Project:

​The new project starts in six weeks; we need to define a team, allocate resources (human and technological), prepare the workspace for the team, train team members, introduce clients to the team (schedule meetings), etc. Many of these tasks will be done by the Company's management, but some require others that will be highlighted to team members (e.g., studying the project's domain).

Gym and Sports:

​Allocate some time to physical activities, including commuting;

Buy equipment;

Schedule recurring events.

The Justice League:

​The movie was released two weeks ago; schedule a date to go to the cinema;

Japan:

Plan the trip to Japan; need passport/visa; choose the travel date; book flights; choose departure and arrival airports; book hotel/hotels; plan the sightseeing itinerary; etc.

Photographic Review:

​Review all photos taken in 2017;

Create the album for trip X; print the photographs.

Moonlight Sonata:

​Learn to play Moonlight Sonata on the piano; need a piano; need an instructor; need sheet music; need to schedule lessons. Or do we learn self-taught?

Transportation:

Pay for the transportation pass;

Schedule trips.

​

Desk:

​Tidy up the desk;

Throw away papers;

Organize books.

Housekeeping:

Clean the kitchen, living room, bedroom, etc.;

Do the monthly shopping;

Fix the window.

​

​Finance and Subscriptions:

Do the monthly accounting;

Do calculations for taxes;

Pay for services and software.

Organize

​These tasks can be organized by context:

@home

@office

@gym

@computer

@personal

@social

Reflect

Eventually, the various subsequent iterations will help refine the method and context:

@home

@computer

@photography

@finance

@subscriptions

____________

@company

@Jalapeno

@events
____________

@sports

@gym

@football
___________

@personal

@cinema

@music

@travel
@Japan
@transportation
____________

@social

@dinner


Execute

In this final step, we've created various labels in our calendar, email, task manager, etc., and started allocating tasks by answering the 3 fundamental questions. The result will be a view (weekly) of your calendar, similar to the following table:

Some hours have been omitted from this weekly calendar. However, these hours can be used for other tasks not directly related to the example list. The goal is to focus solely on the task during the defined time in each cell. It's important to note that there's a space between cells not represented here but used to avoid overlapping events (buffer time).

Of course, some of the most important tasks may not be shown here; one way to organize this calendar by context would be to assign different contexts to different calendars and assign those tasks to non-recurring calendars, so they overlap with others.

It's also important to clarify that tasks taking less than 20 minutes are not shown here, so they could be done in empty cells, whether they belong to the @home or @company context.

Conclusion

Time management isn't just a tool; it's a set of best practices in organizing our space, our minds, and how we allocate our time to our most valuable activities (80/20 Rule). To achieve this, we follow the Fundamental Principles of Productivity to increase productivity, reduce stress, and accomplish more.

The strategies and processes used in time management are systematic steps that help us protect these levels of productivity. And our calendar is nothing more than a map of our time, aiming to guide us in completing our activities.

Once this map is defined, it's important to protect it and know how to say "no" to ourselves and to those who lead us astray from this path. This means that sometimes it's necessary to assertively say no to our friends and colleagues. This doesn't mean that we don't do favors or help our friends or colleagues; but it's important to do so on our terms, in our available or unprotected time, so that our productivity isn't sacrificed.

In conclusion, time management is a set of best practices and, as such, it needs to be practiced. Mind Clearing and Reflecting exercises should be done regularly. The steps of organizing tasks and activities should be reviewed (but not necessarily changed) frequently. And the results should be celebrated, perhaps at a Christmas dinner, in Japan, to the sound of the Moonlight Sonata played on the piano, in front of classmates or colleagues, while watching the video of the year's best moments; after all, these are the most valuable activities.

References
[1] https://www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-tutorials/Managing-Your-Time/143455-2.html
[2] https://www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-tutorials/Getting-Things-Done/170776-2.html
[3] https://www.lynda.com/Outlook-tutorials/Managing-Your-Calendar-Peak-Productivity/585231-2.html
[4] https://www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-tutorials/Time-Management-Fundamentals/397387-2.html
[5] https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princ%C3%ADpio_de_Pareto
 

Pedro André Oliveira was born in Matosinhos, in 1988. With a Master's degree in Computer Engineering and Computing from the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, he chose this area due to his passion for digital games. Since a very young age, he embarked on his adventure in the world of video games and planned his future in the industry; a polymath in the areas of Narration, Design, and Game Development, he seeks to keep up with the various communities and technologies in the field of digital games. Currently, he works as a programmer at FMQ, in the Game Core team, where he develops features for the game engine.