Time Management and Sorry

This is going to be short one. I am really behind on many things, which makes me think about my poor time management skills. Or, rather, about what the heck is time management.

The truth is, people like me do not really have a lot of control over what needs to be done and when it needs to be done. Things just come our way out of the left field, at whatever rate they please. What time management means, is, really, a strategy of prioritizing. Then it is a matter of putting some things off, while doing other things really quickly, so we can concentrate on things that have to be done no matter what. One cannot do all things equally well and in a timely manner. However, people on the other end of all these tasks may not share my sense of priorities, so they rightfully perceive some of my actions they really are concerned about as shoddy work, or lack of time management skills. And they are right, of course. I just made another big scheduling error, and keep putting off things like grading my student papers, filing PES taxes, developing out new database, etc., etc. Of course, there are things I was able to do more or less on time, and more or less competently. Yet no one sees everything I do, but everyone around me sees a little thing, and it just possible that the only thing they see is the one I had to postpone or do a quick and dirty job on.

I am not at all complaining about lack of time. That is the silliest complaint; there is no such a thing as little time or being too busy. It’s all about deciding what to do and what not to do. The problem that I have not resolved is how to communicate to people in a respectful and meaningful way these priority decisions. How do you tell someone: sorry, your question will have to wait? Or how do I explain people that I did a poor job on something because it was not really a crucial task for me at the moment?

Again, this is not whining, just a reflection on a systemic problem of an organization that has a lot of centralized decisions and processes. Management books, of course, recommend delegating responsibilities, but it does not always work, simply because of the human resources limits. No matter ho much I want my work to be transparent, how do I really explain the interplay of pressures and priorities to everyone? There is a chance, everyone won’t be that interested anyway. And then, how much time do I want to invest in communications? Perhaps I should put a webcam looking into my monitor, so people can watch what I do all day? Perhaps they can help me better if they really do know?

Anyway, it’s been a tough week, and I was hitting some walls and spinning some wheels. If I screwed up your particular part of the puzzle, I am sorry.