Time Management for Librarians

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Time Management for Librarians

• Taming the Beast .

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Overview

• Why time management is necessary
• Formal theory of time management
• Ways to manage time in the real world

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Helen Salmon

• University of Guelph Library
• Associate Chief Librarian, User Services
• Responsible for
• Information Resources
• Information Services
• Academic Liaison
• Evaluation and Analysis
• Archival and Special Collections

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Other duties as assigned

• Our roles outside of work life

Gardening
Hiking
Wife, Mother, Daughter
And all the other stuff!!
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The time crunch

• With the advent of technology, the distinction
  between workplace and home and between weekdays
  and weekends has blurred
• We structure our leisure more formally, so it
  feels less restful
• Cycles of economic downturn and downsizing means
  fewer hands to do the same work
• Multi-tasking means multi-pressures!

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How can we juggle it all?
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Time is the scarcest resource of the manager If
it is not managed, nothing else can be
managed. Peter F. Drucker
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What is it anyway?

• Work time management refers to the development
  of processes and tools that increase efficiency
  and productivity.

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What is it anyway?

• Life managing our time to waste less time on
  doing the things we have to do so we have more
  time to do the things we want to do.

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Formal theories of time management

• Paretos principle
• A small number of causes (20) is
  responsible for a large part of the effect (80)
• the vital few and the trivial many

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Implications

• The relationship between input and output is not
  balanced
• 20 of a person's effort generates 80 of the
  person's results 80 of your success comes from
  20 of your efforts
• It is vital to focus 80 of your time on the 20
  of your work that REALLY counts

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Other Examples of Pareto in the workplace

• 80 of a manager's interruptions come from the
  same 20 of the people
• 80 of customer complains are about the same 20
  of your projects, products, services
• 80 of your staff headaches come from 20 of our
  employees
• 80 of a problem can be solved by identifying the
  correct 20 of the issues
• 80 of the decisions made in meetings come from
  20 of the meeting time

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Focusing on the right 20
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What they didnt (couldnt) teach us in library
school

• Time Management 101

Planning
Collaborating
Scheduling
Decisions
Organizing
Saying no
Meetings
Interruptions
Delegating
Procrastinating
And other things
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Planning and Prioritizing

• Take time to think and to consult
• Align your work with what matters most to your
  institution
• Mission statement and goals
• Supporting important work that others are doing
• Determine priority before urgency

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Scheduling

• Negotiate and manage realistic deadlines
• Use available scheduling tools to best effect
• Structure in adequate time for all stages of the
  work, then review and revise often
• Check in with colleagues and clients
• You are in charge (not the schedule)

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Organize yourself

• Keep an updated to do list, in priority order
• Deal with paperwork/email once or treat it as a
  scheduled event
• Staged filing
• Practice the deep filing" method

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Organize yourself

• Use technology wisely
• Manage professional reading
• Organize your workspace (match your own mental
  models)
• Use project management techniques
• Time shift

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Managing Meetings

• Question the need and frequency of meetings
• Shared agenda building
• (only) the right participants
• Facilitate well
• Keep minutes brief (a record of the agenda
  decisions designated followup)
• Maximize email collaboration, document sharing,
  and work between meetings

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Delegating

• Dont delegate if you can eliminate
• Delegate appropriately, gradually and
  strategically
• Give support and credit
• Time invested now has a future payoff
• DO NOT micromanage!

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Collaboration

• Assigning/sharing workload
• Maximizing the strengths and productivity of a
  team
• Making good use of the ideas of others
• Asking for help when you need it
• Borrowing models and templates from other sources

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Decision making

• Make informed decisions
• DO make decisions
• Communicate effectively and clearly
• Use common sense

It doesn't matter which side of the fence you get
off on sometimes. What matters most is getting
off. You cannot make progress without making
decisions.
-- Jim Rohn
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Learn to say NO

• Recognize your limits
• Take time to think about it
• Be honest and vocal about why
• Offer to defer or take a turn next time
• Discuss workload with supervisor - suggest an
  alternate approach

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Managing interruptions

• For crucial deadlines, make yourself inaccessible
  
• Schedule formal check-in meetings
• Schedule social time
• Be polite but direct
• Offer an alternate time
• Manage self-interruptions

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Procrastination

• A little pressure helps too much leads to poor
  work
• Fear of failure
• Habit of doing the easy or trivial stuff first
• Lack of clear deadlines

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Avoiding procrastination

• Divide project into small, schedulable stages
• Do collaborative work
• Dont be a perfectionist
• Take a break at the end

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Maximizing the fun parts

• Choose work that you like
• Importance of humour
• Make the work as pleasant as possible
• Rewarding yourself for reaching small and large
  goals

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Microsoft redesign of Windows
Software aesthetics is not a matter of
superficial sex appeal. Beautiful design has an
effect on our mental states we think
differently under the sway of beauty. The brain
has been wired through evolution to be attracted
by good thingswhen we see things that are
pleasurable, when were enjoying ourselves, it
makes us more willing to explore, more
imaginative. The keyboard jockeys of the
information age precisely the people using
Microsoft Windows do their best work when
theyre rewarded, rather than discouraged, for
creativity and mental agility. - Discover,
May 2004 issue

• 
  
  

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Your Mom was right

• Take care of yourself
• Avoid burnout
• Take breaks and time off and dont compromise
• them
• Rewards for good work done
• Forgive mistakes.and learn from them
• Play nice
• Use your common sense
• Take your umbrella

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Thanks for listening!