Management of time for safety professionals

Most OHS professionals are very busy people, effectively managing your time can increase your productivity markedly.

There is often little correlation between hard work and the level of achievement. Active people do not necessarily get the most done.

Activity=Productivity is a myth.

“Procrastination is the thief of time”

The following works for me, I do not know if it will work for you. Trim time wasting e-mails. Attempt to be succinct in all your written documents, you do not have time to write pages of waffle that others will be too busy to read. Use management summaries with major reports. Trim non-essential meetings and use video-conferencing instead of gathering people at a meeting where people have to travel to the meeting venue. An open door policy is fine in theory but can waste a lot of time. Instead let people know your not to be disturbed times and the times when you are available for consultation. Come in early, leave early and use the early morning when no one is about to your advantage. At the beginning of the day divide, your to do list into the MUST DOS, SHOULD DOS & COULD DOS, your aim is to complete at least all those on the MUST DO list before you go home.

Common time wasters

1 Trying to take on too many tasks

2 Poor planning

3 Accepting jobs that should & could be done by others

4 Putting jobs off

5 Lack of organisation

6 Taking on tasks not capable of doing

Management of your time

Refuse to do the unimportant.

Set deadlines for yourself and others.

Keep a reasonably tidy desk

Take the time you need to do a quality job, saves re-work.

Do it straight away.

If you are feeling really stuffed at the end of your working day this is doing you and your family no good, you should analyse your time usage and try to do a better job of managing it.