Do You Have The Time? By Arthur Cooper (c) Copyright 2003 How often do we hear
complaint in workplace “I haven’t got time” ?
“I haven’t got time to explain it to you. You will have to work it out for yourself.”
“I haven’t got time to discuss that. You will just have to accept my word for it.”
“I didn’t have time to prepare for this meeting.”
“I can’t stop for lunch. I have too much to do.”
“ I never take all my vacation. I have too much work on.”
You must have heard every one of these statements at some time or another. You have probably made some of them yourself. And every one of them is a result of failure on someone’s part to organise their time or time of their staff correctly.
Time is a resource like any other and it must be managed. If it is wasted, it is gone forever. Once it has been used, it cannot be re-used. It is finite and limited. You cannot make more of it, but you can use it better.
But let’s start by being realistic. In any business there will be times of overload. Activity within businesses is determined by customer and customers are not all predictable. You cannot always plan ahead and anticipate every single fluctuation of workload. So times of stress and overwork will occur from time to time. This is normal. This is acceptable.
What is unacceptable is a general and sustained atmosphere of frenzy and crisis and lack of time to do things properly. So if you hear yourself or your colleagues or your staff repeatedly making sort of complaint illustrated at start of this article, you must, you absolutely must do something about it.
Let’s look again at these statements. You will see that they fall into three main types.
No time to co-operate. No time to prepare. No time for rest.
Considering each in turn:
No time to co-operate.
The first two statements more or less say “I haven’t got time to help you because I have too much to do myself”. This is an absolute killer of team spirit and co-operative working. A new member joining a team will naturally enough ask how certain things are done. He will ask once, twice, three times maybe. But after repeated brush-offs he will stop asking. The result will be at best a long protracted learning period of low work output, and at worst work that is of a poor standard or even faulty.
A team by its nature is not a group of isolated individuals. It is, or should be, an integrated group together producing more than sum of each individual working on his own. If you are managing team it is your vital responsibility to allocate tasks and rewards in such a way as to foster co-operation. And above all make sure that they have time to co-operate. You will get more out of your team in long run by not overloading them.
No time to prepare.
This is demonstrated by statement “I didn’t have time to prepare for meeting”. It is a feeble excuse and completely unacceptable. Unless summoned at last minute by someone whose authority cannot be defied, no-one has right to arrive at a meeting unprepared. It inevitably wastes time in meeting, which means time of everyone present. It shows a lack of respect and concern for others at meeting. It shows that you don’t care.
You must make time to arrive prepared for all meetings, whatever type or subject. Whether it is a large formal meeting called to discuss a major topic, or a one-to one meeting with your boss or a member of your staff. Time spent in preparation is repaid later in time saved, knowledge and authority demonstrated, and increased likelihood of getting your hoped-for result.
