Managing Your Time & Keeping the Monkey off Your Back
There are five kinds of management time as outlined below [Source: HBR.com.] Learning how to balance them is critical to your success in the professional world
1. Boss-imposed time - Completing priorities set by your boss. Neglecting these activities almost always has a penalty
2. System-imposed time - Helping Peers, completing inter-department requests etc. Neglecting these activities usually has a penalty
3. Self-imposed time - Working on activities you initiate or agree to perform. No penalties for not performing these activities.
4. Subordinate-imposed time - Time required to help with your subordinate’s tasks. While there are no immediate penalties for not performing these activities, they often present bottlenecks down the road.
5. Discretionary time - Remaining portion of time that the manager can use for performing remaining tasks.
Managers should try to increase the discretionary component of their self-imposed time by minimizing or doing away with the subordinate component. They will then use the added increment to get better control over their boss-imposed and system-imposed activities.
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“At no time while I am helping you with this or any other problem will your problem become my problem. The instant your problem becomes mine, you no longer have a problem. I cannot help a person who hasn’t got a problem.
“When this meeting is over, the problem will leave this office exactly the way it came in—on your back. You may ask my help at any appointed time, and we will make a joint determination of what the next move will be and which of us will make it.
“In those rare instances where the next move turns out to be mine, you and I will determine it together. I will not make any move alone.”
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There are five degrees of initiative that the manager can exercise in relation to the boss and to the system:
1. wait until told (lowest initiative);
2. ask what to do;
3. recommend, then take resulting action;
4. act, but advise at once;
5. and act on own, then routinely report (highest initiative).
Source - https://hbr.org/1999/11/management-time-whos-got-the-monkey