Time management program
SMART: Strategy

The SMART time management program begins with strategy.

If you don't work out what you're doing within the context of an overall strategy generally things don't go smoothly. So the first thing I recommend is to create a strategy.

The strategy can be for you personally or for a department where you work. Both are fine and pretty easy to achieve. SMART enables you to scale easily.

This SMART time management program isn't restricted to your work life. Use it at home as well. Really maximise your results. Imagine being able to come home on time almost every night or spend more time socializing with friends. You can if you use SMART.

Brainstorming

Strategy starts with brainstorming. I use brainstorming a lot but not the theoretical anything goes model. I just don't find it helpful to put up random things on a white board and hope. Instead I try right from the outset to throw out the ideas that don't work.

If you're doing this for a department or a company then you should involve some key people who will be able to help you focus in on things.

Initially with this time management program you're trying to work out for the next year what your plans are. Now before you get too scared, don't worry I don't mean tons of detail. Instead focus on what you think the big ticket items will be in the next year. Pick a few for each month and write them down. Think through questions like:

What will drive the development/production this year?
What will motivate the staff this year?
What will increase existing sales this year?
What will drive new sales this year?

and so on. Build up a picture of what you'd hope to achieve assuming everything goes really well throughout the year. Fill them in on a year planner. If you don't have one I include a free set of planning forms in time management strategies. You'll find extra information on strategy creation as well as the free planning forms.

If you'd like to look ahead at the thinking techniques then you can jump to this part of the time management program.

Standard Tasks

If you've followed the time management program through, with the free planning forms, you'll now have picture of your ideal year. Next you need to add the standard stuff to that plan. If it's a personal plan then add vacation, national holidays, personal anniversaries etc. If it's a department plan add things that are likely to affect the department. For example when do the majority of people go on vacation?

As you add in the standard tasks try to put in as much solid planning as possible. So if your company has a firm date for the annual picnic then make sure it goes in.

Building in the standard stuff helps you see the balance of what's likely to happen over the year. Often plans are made to do certain activities during the year that then fail because of lots of staff being on vacation.

Now you could take the view that you'll just not allow vacation at that time of year, however if you do that you need to be really careful. People take time off for during their kid's summer vacation from school or at other school holidays. If you stop that then these people will be de motivated and unhappy.

When people are upset because they missed out on personal or family time then your plans aren't going to do well anyway. So use the advantage brought by doing Strategy in SMART up front. SMART is allowing you to avoid conflict and it's ensuring that things run more smoothly and often more quickly.

Size the Tasks

Congratulations! Now you've achieved the first part of the SMART time management program, a great starting point. But before you get carried away you need to undertake a bit of housekeeping on the strategy.

Now you need to make the tasks a similar size. By similar size I mean that you need to have tasks of the same magnitude in each of the months. Mixing a small sales task and major company reorganization won't help your focus. You need to think in terms of big tasks with big tasks and small tasks with small tasks.

It's okay to have some small and some big tasks in each month but you need to aim for balance across the year. Remember that this is a macro plan and its function is to give you a broad picture of the year into which you can fit detail as the year progresses.

Detail the Tasks

For each of the tasks you now need to add some detail. Initially this stage wasn't included in my thinking but I've found over the years that it is really important.

You'll find as the year progresses you'll forget exactly what you meant with the task title. To ensure you remain focused you simply need to work through each of the tasks and write down what you mean by it.

Make sure in your task detail you include the title you used, a description, any responsibilities with named people and if you can any measurement points.

Validating the Tasks

You're nearly finished the initial part of SMART, the Strategy part of this time management program.

To ensure you have as good a plan as possible you now need to spend some time validating it. The first thing to do is put it aside for a while. Ideally let it sit for a week before you go back to it. If you can't resist at least wait 1 day.

When you go back to the strategy you've drawn up you'll normally find that your thinking has improved and that you can make some strong improvements to the plan you've drawn up.

Go ahead make those improvements and redraw up the plan and the detailed sheets. When you think you have a polished plan take it to some people you trust and ask for their opinion. Don't ask only one person but many. Build their feedback into your Strategy and complete the plan.

Reviews

Well done!

You should now have a year long Strategy.

But don't just put it in the cupboard. To be effective you need to keep the strategy under review. You don't need to review it every week or even every month but you do need to review it.

When I designed the free set of planning forms I deliberately designed them to help with this "no cupboard" objective. I'm guessing that you might have felt there wasn't much space on the forms. Well it's deliberate.

You should only have four sheets. These sheets show you the high level plan for you personally or your department or company. Since there are only 4 it's simple to put them up on the wall so you can tell where you are going all the time.

Don't forget though that you still need to review them formally even though you'll be seeing them every day.

Normally I find that in big companies (over 5000 employees) a review every 6 months is sufficient for this type of time management program. In a smaller company I suggest every 3 months. Remember though these are just starting points. You need to think thorough what is right for your company in your circumstance. I'm sure though if you follow the guidance then the SMART time management program will work for you.