The Time of Our Lives

I am continually given more and more to do by my manager and as a result I have less and less time to do what he wants done. Could you give me some time management tips? Ms BT - Idaho

Every New Year's Eve I think of what I accomplished the previous year and what I hope to accomplish during the coming one. It's no secret that each year every one of us is given the exact same amount of time. What we do with that time, however, is not the same.

Consider Milt Jones whose ranch was next to mine when I lived in Texas. He told me that one day he was stopped by some tourists from up north, who were taking a back roads vacation through the west. Milt was moving a herd of cows into some woods near his ranch. The northerners stopped their camper and asked Milt, "Where are you taking all those cows?" Milt replied, "I'm turning 'em loose in those woods over yonder to feed on the acorns." Then the northerner told Milt, "We don't do that up north; we pen them up and feed them corn." "What-cha-do-that-fer?" asked Milt. "Why," answered the northerner, "that gets them fat so much faster. It saves time." Milt then replied, "Aw, what's time to a cow?"

Isn't that true, people value time differently? Some of us have yet to learn that time is our non-renewable resource. Once it's gone, there is no replacement.

While we're at work, we're paid to use our time utilizing our expertise to the best advantage of the company. Knowing this, what does the typical executive do? Some time ago, the American Management Association (AMA) published a paper on time management (Executive Time Management, Philip Marvin, AMACOM, New York, NY). In it, the results of a survey covering 1,369 executives and how they spent their time on the job were discussed. To the uninformed, the results were astonishing. The typical executive was shown to work on management jobs only 47% of the time. Fifty-three percent of their workday was spent doing as opposed to managing.

Peter Drucker, in The Effective Executive, wrote, "Nothing else distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time". So it's disheartening to show that the AMA study is conservative in its findings compared to information I've been able to gather through studies specifically conducted in our industry.

During my years as a consultant I've visited many companies. Some of these companies have gone on to retain my firm to take a survey that will dig deeper into what my preliminary visitation found. During each company survey, we visit the manufacturing facilities. While doing the plant survey, we conduct a study to see how the management, supervision, and engineers spend their time while at work.

Using statistical sampling methodology, a summary of over 70,000 observations in 112 companies (located throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada) showed with 90% accuracy, that 1,622 executives (of these surveyed factories) spend less than 25% of their time doing what they're paid to do!

"What!" you say, "I work hard all day. What does Levine mean, doing what I'm paid to do?"

Since there can be confusion as to what an executive's true role is, I'll take the liberty to delve into that subject now. Just what are you expected to do while at work? The answer to that question will provide you with the necessary insight on how you should spend your time . . .

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