| Word Count: 1,434 Estimated Read Time: 6 Min. |
People have been formulating ever-better systems and strategies to manage time and tasks for a long time. In fact, the well-known Franklin Planner – created and sold by Richard I. Winwood in 1984 – was a planning system named after U.S. founding father Benjamin Franklin, who kept a small private book to track his tasks, notes, ideas, appointments, and finances. A core technique of Ben Franklin’s was to start each day with 15 minutes of “solitude and planning.” He did this planning in a little book. Similar to Ben Franklin’s book, the modern-day Franklin Planner was a paper-based time management binder. Pages are drilled, loose-leaf style pages in different sizes, covers and formats, but all planners contain areas for appointment scheduling, prioritizing daily tasks, and taking notes on ideas. A section in the back of the planner contains addresses, ledger sheets for tracking finances or vehicle mileage, exercise logs, and other individualized reference materials.
But while people have always searched for better and more efficient ways of doing things — whether it was a more effective way to trap animals for food or a more efficient way to start a fire with friction — it was actually not until the later 1800s and early 1900s that anyone actually took a purposeful, scientific approach to getting things done faster with less effort.
The History of Managing Time and Tasks
It helps to understand how, when and why people got fixated on improving this use of time and management of tasks. It started when Frederick Winslow Taylor — considered to be the father of scientific management – wrote “The Principles of Scientific Management” in 1911. Taylor started by looking for ways to increase manufacturing productivity in factories. He focused on the efficiency of individual workers, which became a precursor to the development of the field of Ergonomics — the study of people’s efficiency in their working environment. More about that later. Taylor’s work on manufacturing efficiency quickly spread to the office, and eventually encompassed the home as well.
Taylor looked for the single best way to do any task, standardizing work methods and tools to increase productivity. Taylorism, as it was called, began to change the way organizations functioned. Before this, businesses were usually set up in homes where workspaces were open. There were no barriers to communication and ideas could flow freely among employees. But in factories, manufacturing areas and offices were separated. Work became specialized. Procedures became fixed. Efficiency increased but communication decreased. Though not Taylor’s intention, human relations took a back seat to productivity. But Taylor was actually trying to not only increase productivity but also make work easier for employees as well. While he didn’t coin the phrase “work smarter, not harder,” this was his focus.
Along with Taylor, there were others who pioneered the study of time management. In the 1900s, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth focused on the study of “time and motion” at work. They were interested in efficiency, so they set up experiments to examine the movements that individual workers made while doing their daily work. That’s because, before he became a workplace researcher, Frank had been a bricklayer. He’d noticed that every worker had his own way of laying bricks. By carefully watching those techniques, Frank determined the most efficient way to complete the task. His observations eventually led to a new way of laying bricks that more than doubled daily output and added uniformity. He understood that employers and employees would both benefit from working efficiently. Increased productivity would create a better bottom line for employers. And by doing tasks in the most efficient and effective way, employees would have less stress, fatigue and injuries.
Frank and Lillian Gilbreth also conducted studies on other fields besides construction. One study of how doctors performed surgery led to the creation of the role of the Surgical Assistant in modern operating rooms. Instead of a surgeon finding each instrument during the surgery – which would mean switching his focus from the patient to the tray and back again — a nurse would stand by and hand the surgeon the appropriate tool. The nurse would focus exclusively on the tools and whatever the doctor needed, while the doctor could keep his focus entirely on the patient. This also saved time, allowing a doctor to perform more surgeries in a day… the highest and best use of his time on the most important tasks.
The Gilbreths began conducting ‘Time and Motion Studies’ on other industries to find techniques that reduced the number of motions required to perform a task successfully. They altered factors, such as grasp, position, rest, and impact for improvements. Among others, these elements are still used today to evaluate strain analysis. And, of course, they introduced time and motion study to the manufacturing process. Their work gave rise to industrial engineering, time studies, and incentive standards, and a continuous pursuit of efficiency, not only in factories but in offices as well.
Interestingly, they even demonstrated that the same principles they applied to business could be adapted to the home. Given that they had 12 children, they needed to be good managers of time and tasks. Their techniques and strategies made it possible to manage a multitude of tasks from cooking and cleaning to laundry and shopping.
Ergo… Ergonomics
These studies gave rise to the field of Ergonomics – the study of people’s efficiency in their working environment. Today, ergonomic principles are used to design work and workplace equipment. From something as simple as placing the photocopier in a central location to custom designing workstations that minimize repetitive strain injuries, the principles of time and task management is everywhere.
There are now thousands of books on time and task management. Most were published in the 20th century and consist almost entirely of how to do common everyday things faster in order to shave hours off a person’s work week, and thereby add years to that person’s life. But time and task management extends far beyond manual labor. It also involves what tools we use to do even cognitive tasks faster or have computers do the tasks for us or find ways to delegate the task to either someone or something else. Think, for example, of robots like the floor cleaning Roomba.
Finite Time and Infinite Tasks
Time and task management is essential. Tasks are infinite while time is finite. That makes time and task management hard to do on a consistent basis. It requires use of almost all of our Executive Functions including working memory, focus, task initiation, planning/prioritization, organization, time management, defining and achieving goals, flexibility, and observation. And it is important to do it exceedingly well because time is the only non-renewable, finite resource that cannot be bought, saved, stolen or sold. As American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker Jim Rohn said, Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.”
Moreover, each person has a different amount of time in their life than someone else. Some live a century, some live four score (80 years), some live a decade, and some only get days or minutes. And no one knows in advance how much time they have. So time is the most precious commodity and, in every life, tasks are abundant. Figuring out which tasks to do or delegate or ignore and deciding the most efficient way to get them done are perhaps the most important skills to master. Failure to manage time and tasks effectively usually leads to failure in life.
So what tools and strategies are you using to manage time and tasks? Are you winging it or do you have methods and tools to manage time and tasks? For tasks, do you keep a To Do list? Schedule? Checklist? Do you have an approach for prioritizing tasks? Are you consistent? What about time? Do you have techniques for maximizing productivity by using time wisely? Do you track your use of time?
Next week, we’ll look at the top methods for managing and prioritizing tasks taken from highly successful people like President Eisenhower and Warren Buffet including: David Allen’s Get Things Done (GTD) methodology; the Do the Worst Thing First strategy; the Most Important Task Methodology (MIT) a/k/a the Eat That Frog approach; the Eisenhower Decision Matrix (Urgent-Important Matrix); the Ivy Lee Method; the 1-3-5 Rule; Brian Tracy’s ABCDE Method; and Warren Buffet’s 2-List Strategy (25-5 Rule). And we’ll look at the things that stand in the way of those tasks including Completion Bias, the Sunk Cost Fallacy, and time wasters. Don’t miss it. It promises to help you boost your productivity tenfold.
Quote of the Week
“The way we spend our time defines who we are.” Jonathan Estrin
© 2023, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.
The post Improving Management of Time and Tasks,
Part 1 first appeared on Monday Mornings with Madison.