Time budget?

[Solyanov2011]

Do you make time budgets how much you can devote time to this or that responsibility? For example, I'm a company owner. I start office hours at 9 and finish at 5. This gives me 40 hours a week that split between the following responsibilities:

1. Processing: 8 hrs
2. Doing predefined: 8 hrs
3. Reading: 8 hrs
4. Managing direct reports: 8 hrs
5. Other: 8 hrs

Not too much time for other stuff...

 

[DenaDahilig]

Do you make time budgets how much you can devote time to this or that responsibility?

Many times, if a list is overwhelming me, I'll put a little pencil mark beside each next action indicating how long I think it should take to complete. I add those up and most of the time it's much more manageable than it looked.

I admire your ability to structure your time like that. I am working on creating more structure in my day, and it's challenging.

Dena

 

[TesTeq]

Unusual for a company owner.

For example, I'm a company owner. I start office hours at 9 and finish at 5. This gives me 40 hours a week that split between the following responsibilities:

1. Processing: 8 hrs
2. Doing predefined: 8 hrs
3. Reading: 8 hrs
4. Managing direct reports: 8 hrs
5. Other: 8 hrs

I find it very unusual for a company owner to be able to limit and structure a workweek in this way. For me it is a role that requires more involvement and more flexibility to beat the competition.

 

[Solyanov2011]

Dena, thanks!

Testeq, the owner is not the person assumed to work more then all her staff. The right organisation allows me to have more time for myself, leave the work earlier, earn more and as a result be the best of competition. When the owner works 24 hours and her staff goes home at 5 when the company is not number 1 - that is strange :roll:

 

[TesTeq]

From 9am to 5pm?

Testeq, the owner is not the person assumed to work more then all her staff. The right organisation allows me to have more time for myself, leave the work earlier, earn more and as a result be the best of competition. When the owner works 24 hours and her staff goes home at 5 when the company is not number 1 - that is strange :roll:

1. My world is not black and white. I can see something between 40 hours/week and 24 hours/day.

2. I do not believe that a leader can really motivate people to work harder if he works from 9am to 5pm.

 

[Solyanov2011]

Testeq, you have a long way to go.

 

[mcogilvie]

1. Processing: 8 hrs
2. Doing predefined: 8 hrs
3. Reading: 8 hrs
4. Managing direct reports: 8 hrs
5. Other: 8 hrs

This is the administration view of a professor's ideal daily time budget.

 

[TesTeq]

Yes, I hope so.

Testeq, you have a long way to go.

Yes, I hope so. I've never encountered any organization bigger than one person that worked perfectly without strong owner's involvement. And by strong I mean a little more than 40 hours/week.

I think your experiences in that matter are worth publishing to make entrepreneurship and business more effective and relaxed. To make the world better.

 

[Geekgirl]

5. Other: 8 hrs

Not too much time for other stuff...

What 'other stuff' do you have that can't be taken care of in 'Other: 8 hrs'?

I'm all for working only 40 hours a week, but working hard in that time. If you are efficient and it still takes more time than that, perhaps you need to employ more people and delegate some work to them.

PS McOgilvie - you made me laugh, and reminded me of this
http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1060

 

[Solyanov2011]

It's not a professor's daily budget It's a real huge business owner schedule. Some corrections with time though:

1. Processing: 5 hrs - processing takes 1 hour daily of my time, emails, meeting notes, dictation, phone calls, papers etc. Need to decide what to do daily and can't delegate the processing itself. Actually I would love that to be 2 hours daily but that would mean extending 40 hours work week.

2. Doing predefined (calls and computer): 5 hrs - I want to move on tasks I can't delegate. I want to have at least 1 hour daily for that. So there we are with 5 hours a week. Of course, I would love that to be 2-3 hours daily but they called that workaholic

3. Reading: 5 hrs - I want to read on the topics that allow to grow our business including magazines and newspapers. I would love that to be 8 hours daily though. Gives me a lot of inspiration!

4. Managing direct reports: 8 hrs. I have 8 direct reports I need to meet at least once a week to update on the progress, coach and motivate. That gives another 8 hours per week.

5. Other: 18 hrs: mostly planned meetings to move things forward: customer meetings, owners meetings, staff meetings, directors meetings etc. They are going back to back leaving space for above mentioned 1-4. Unless I book the time for 1-4, the "Other" tends to take all the time of 40 hours

 

[Barb]

Good job!

It's not a professor's daily budget It's a real huge business owner schedule. Some corrections with time though:

1. Processing: 5 hrs - processing takes 1 hour daily of my time, emails, meeting notes, dictation, phone calls, papers etc. Need to decide what to do daily and can't delegate the processing itself. Actually I would love that to be 2 hours daily but that would mean extending 40 hours work week.

2. Doing predefined (calls and computer): 5 hrs - I want to move on tasks I can't delegate. I want to have at least 1 hour daily for that. So there we are with 5 hours a week. Of course, I would love that to be 2-3 hours daily but they called that workaholic

3. Reading: 5 hrs - I want to read on the topics that allow to grow our business including magazines and newspapers. I would love that to be 8 hours daily though. Gives me a lot of inspiration!

4. Managing direct reports: 8 hrs. I have 8 direct reports I need to meet at least once a week to update on the progress, coach and motivate. That gives another 8 hours per week.

5. Other: 18 hrs: mostly planned meetings to move things forward: customer meetings, owners meetings, staff meetings, directors meetings etc. They are going back to back leaving space for above mentioned 1-4. Unless I book the time for 1-4, the "Other" tends to take all the time of 40 hours

Looks to me like you spend most of your time working ON your business instead of IN your business..exactly what a business owner should do if they want to grow.

 

[vbampton]

I've been playing with budgeting time, and failing miserably so far. If it can get myself to stick to it a bit better, I could see it working quite well for me though. I tend to get stuck into a big project and let other priorities sit on hold for a while, which isn't really my ideal case scenario.

My theory is that 3.5 hours a day will be spent on emails, customer support, social media, and forums (with splits within that). 4 hours a day, 4 days a week on project, and 4 hours on the 5th day doing all the 'odd' jobs. Maybe one day it'll happen.....

 

[Solyanov2011]

Thanks Barb! Hopefully one day I can suggest you a very interesting job

 

[Guest]

I really hate the usual 8 hours schedule but we can't do nothing about it. Somewhat I have adapted to the situation. What I hate now is the sudden overtime that takes away my personal time.

 

[Suelin23]

I don't do a time budget, but I do track how my time is spent on Projects, GTD Workflow and Calendar activities (usually meetings). Roughly seems to be about a third each, but I would prefer if projects were 50% of my time. Project time is for big tasks, that I track on a Gantt chart, but projects also get moved along during the GTD workflow time.

I only have to meet with my boss once a fortnight usually, only weekly if we are really busy and he's trying to push me harder.