Time Management For Tech Professionals

Time management tips
for tech professionals
Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

2 TIME MANAGEMENT TIPS FOR TECH PROFESSIONALS
Time management tips

for tech professionals
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Contents
04 Tech leaders: Here are six ways to take charge of your time
06 Four ways to improve your time management
07 Five time management tips for busy data scientists
09 Time management tips for sys admins
11 Take control of your day with these eight time management skills
13 Avoid the interrupt-driven model of time management
15 Six secrets to getting tasks completed
17 Five tips for avoiding false efficiencies
19 About TechRepublic

Tech leaders: Here are six ways to

take charge of your time
By Mary Shacklett
Unproductive meetings and getting buried in administrative work used to be the major time wasters
that managers tried to avoid. But with the barrage of interruptions from new technologies and digital
communications, getting things done has become even more difficult.
One thing hasn’t changed, though: Time management is still the way to deal with this dilemma. Here are six
strategies that IT managers can put to work.
1: Eliminate digital noise

Social media constantly beckons, as do myriad text and email messages. All of these bring benefits to a
day’s work, like speeding communications and enabling online collaboration to quickly address problems,
but they can also become counterproductive. If you find yourself checking in on social media or messages
continuously—and there is no screaming crisis that you are trying to manage through—you’re doing it too
much. Take a step back. Decide what is important and eliminate or defer the rest until you have a block of time
you can afford to commit to it.
2: Meet for results

Meetings continue to be one of the major time wasters for managers. Before entering a meeting, take a
few minutes to identify the results you want to achieve from the meeting. If you are leading the meeting,
communicate to other participants what you expect the meeting to achieve and develop a tight agenda you
introduce to the group before the meeting commences so that everyone can stay on track. This positions you
for productive gains from the time commitment you’re about to make.
3: Block out time for yourself

It’s difficult for business managers to find much time for themselves at work, given the constant flow of
project and staff issues they must stay on top of. Nevertheless, in the course of a day, it should be possible to
designate at least one quality “alone” hour for yourself so you can think through strategies and focus on work
without an interruption. Identify when during the course of a day you are going to take that hour—and don’t
always make that hour a working lunch for yourself. You’ll benefit from the opportunity to collect your thoughts.
4: Focus on nonverbal listening

It’s easy and convenient to relegate conversations with staff and stakeholders to email and text exchanges.
Resist this. A lot of communication is done nonverbally. You can learn a lot about how receptive people are to

your ideas, how well staff members are focused on their work, etc., simply by observing the unspoken body
language you see during meetings and during the times that you are circulating around offices. The more
adept you become at reading body language, the sooner you can unearth issues and solve them before they
develop into problems.
5: Plan for interruptions

Business today is extremely disruptive—and your time as a manager will also be disrupted regularly. These
interruptions come in the form of a superior calling a sudden meeting or in some kind of crisis or opportunity
that suddenly emerges for the business. Plan for these by leaving an hour of your day open for the unforeseen.
6: Use dashboards
New analytics tools enable top-level dashboard reporting on the day-to-day operations you manage. If you’re
an IT manager, you can immediately see from a green, yellow, or red light how the network—or a given
system—is running. If you see a system go yellow or red, you can drill down into the details to determine
what’s wrong and/or call the person in charge to learn more about the problem. If you’re a logistics manager,
you can see which routes are on time and which are not, then drill down into the “whys” as needed. Periodic
checks into dashboards will help you keep your finger on the pulse of daily operations as you attend to other
tasks during the day.
Conclusion
Keeping your eye on the important details that yield results in strategies and projects is as important today for
managers as it has even been. What has changed is how managers go about this. One key is to capitalize
on the advantages that digital technology brings, while avoiding the time traps and pitfalls. At the same time,
managers shouldn’t lose sight of nonverbal and other nondigital cues that can make or break projects.

Four ways to improve your time

management
By Erin Carson
We’re always pressed for time. It’s one of those things no one ever seems to have enough of. Like batteries.
Or gum. Here are a few techniques for honing your time management skills.
1: The Pomodoro technique

The Pomodoro technique works like this. Basically, you break down tasks into 25 minute increments using a
timer and take short breaks in between. The breaks help you stay fresh, and the high focus during those 25
minutes helps you avoid wasting time.
2: The matrix
The next technique, based on Stephen Covey’s advice in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,
involves building a matrix and classifying your tasks as urgent or not urgent and important or not important.
The biggest time wasters fall in the urgent but not important category. Covey recommends focusing on tasks
that are important but not urgent.
3: The 18-minute plan

This plan, popularized several years ago by Harvard Business Review columnist Peter Bregman, outlines a
strategy for focusing on critical tasks and evaluating your success in addressing them. It suggests that in the
morning, you spend five minutes figuring out what you need to do. Then during the day, you take one minute
each hour to review whether you’ve been productive. In the evening, take five more minutes to determine
whether the day went well and whether there’s anything you could improve.
4: The to-do list

Make a to-do list everyday and break down larger tasks into smaller parts. That way, you know what you need
to do and you actually have the feeling of moving forward in accomplishing your goal because you have a
strategy.

Five time management tips for busy

data scientists
By John Wethington
Advanced technology is supposed to make our lives easier, yet for many people, including most data sci-
entists, the opposite is true. It seems like there’s a never-ending list of problems to solve and crazy ideas to
explore. And although problem solving is fun and challenging, when you throw in unrealistic deadlines and a
constantly flowing funnel of new tasks, it can become overwhelming.
I’ve been coaching analytics for decades on how to keep it all together. Here are my top five tips for managing
a busy schedule.
1: Be comfortable saying no
Most data scientists have a service mentality. When any request comes in, your first inclination is to service the
request. This is a good quality; however, everyone has limits.
When you’re in high demand (which most data scientists are), it’s extremely rare that you have free time to
accommodate a random request. When saying no is appropriate, you have to be okay with it. If you say yes
to every request, you’re educating people that you’re willing to take on more tasks; if you communicate no
sometimes, you’re educating people that you know your limits and boundaries. It may sting at first, but they’ll
eventually appreciate the feedback.
2: Know how you spend your time

You should always know what you’re working on and how your time is spent. There are three basic categories
of activity: processes, projects, and problems.
• Processes are operational in nature—anything you do on a routine basis, like regular meetings and
status reports.
• Projects are one-time efforts that have a start and an end, even small jobs that may take only a day
or two.
• Problems (in this context) are the unannounced annoyances that crop up during the day.
I suggest keeping a journal where you regularly record time-stamped entries. This will give you a sense of
how you’re spending your day. At the end of every day, review your journal and make a rough estimate on the
hours you spent on each project, process, and problem. Knowing exactly why your plate is full makes it much
easier to say no to something new.

3: Hold your manager responsible for your priorities

Your manager is responsible for setting your priorities. Don’t let them off the hook. In an informal culture,
sometimes managers aren’t held accountable for resolving conflicting priorities. It’s allowed to happen because
people don’t speak up when their plate is overloaded. Don’t let this happen to you.
If you have enough to do, and one more thing is hovering over you, ask your manager whether the new task
is more important than anything else on your plate. If it is, the new task should replace an existing task, not
overload an already full plate.
4: Get good at estimating your time

Time estimation is crucial if you plan to succeed at managing your busy schedule. Data scientists are
notorious for underestimating how long something will take. They’ll say something should take no more than
a couple of days, when it actually takes a couple of weeks. Habitually overestimating isn’t cool either, because
no one will trust you.
Getting estimates right isn’t that hard. When you get a new task, estimate what the pure work will be (i.e., if
you have nothing else to do and no distractions, how long will this take?) and log this number in a notebook.
Then, keep track of how long the task actually took to complete.
When you divide the actual duration by the pure work, you get a load factor. Over a short period of time, your
load factor should normalize. When estimating a new task, just consider the pure work estimate and then ap-
ply your normalized load factor.
5: Go slow to go fast
The most efficient people I know set aside sacrosanct time each day to plan. I have a daily morning routine I
go through religiously every single workday. I use this time to figure out what will get done and when it will be
worked on. As you might suspect, my calendar doesn’t always go as planned, but I rarely miss my highest
priority accomplishment for the day. I suggest you do the same.
Pick a time in the morning when you’re not expected to be available and then make sure you’re not available.
This is your time to ensure that the rest of your day goes as smoothly as possible.
Summary
It’s nice to be needed, but if you let the requests get out of control, you’ll live a life of anxiety and disappoint-
ment. Teach people how to treat you by saying no when appropriate and speaking up when you have too
much to do. Get a good handle on how your time is being spent and whether it makes sense for you to take
on something new.
Workload anxiety is self-inflicted pain. I’m sure you have enough to endure without causing yourself undue
stress.

Time management tips for sys admins

By Toni Bowers
The time management experts out there would have you believe that all jobs are created equal and that time
management is just a matter of changing the way you deal with things. But let’s face it: Some jobs are so ruled
by external factors that our work time is not ours to plan or manage.
I recently came across Time Management for Systems Administrators, a book that recognizes that sys
admins often have competing goals: the concurrent responsibilities of working on large projects and taking
care of user needs.
The book’s author, Thomas Limoncelli, explains that the difficulty of time management for sys admins is that
basically, they’re always getting interrupted.
“Management judges an SA by whether projects get done. Customers, however, judge you by whether you
are available to them. These two priorities play against each other and you’re stuck in the middle. If you’re
infinitely available to customers, you will never have time to complete the projects that management wants to
see completed.”
But Limoncelli maintains that sys admins can tackle time management. He bases his techniques on these six
principles:
Use one “database” for time management information. Limoncelli advocates finding an organizing tool
(PDA or PAA) and using only that tool.
Conserve your brain power for what is important. Don’t clutter your brain. If you fill your brain with all the
tasks you have to do instead of putting some of that in a physical organizer, it will lessen your focus.
Develop routines and stick with them. Limoncelli explains the benefit of routine in terms of writing code.
If a bit of code works, a developer will reuse it as often as possible. He recommends managing your time the
same way—establishing a routine saves you time and reduces the thinking you have to do every week. This
could mean something as simple as scheduling a weekly meeting with your boss instead of playing phone tag
all week.
Develop habits and mantras. Limoncelli offers a great example of how developing a habit can cut down on
time and repercussions in the long term. He relates the story of how he used to have to periodically empty the
water-collection bucket on a portable air-conditioning unit in a small computer closet. Before he could install
a drain pipe, he made himself empty the bucket on a specified day and time. This helped his time manage-
ment because if he waited until the bucket was full, it would be harder and take longer to carry. And what if he
waited until just before he had to leave for a meeting? He’d be late to the meeting. By scheduling a set time for
this simple task, he avoided its becoming more of a time sink later on.

Maintain focus during “project time.” Interruptions are the natural enemy of focus, and time returning
from interruptions is wasted time. Limoncelli says we should act like an operating system. “When time-critical
operations need to be done, the kernel locks out all other tasks and works on exactly one task until that task is
complete. For example, when memory is being allocated to a task, the kernel locks out all other memory-table
access so that this one happens correctly, without multiple processes trying to modify the allocation tables at
the same time.” You want that kind of focus when you’re working.
Manage your social life with the same tools you use for your work life. Limoncelli doesn’t want your
social life to become regimented but says using time management in that area will be good practice.

Take control of your day with these

eight time management skills
By Tom Mochal
Have you ever started the day with great ambitions and then realized at the end that you didn’t get anything
done? It happens to everyone, but it happens to some people more often than others.
Time management allows you to have a higher degree of control over what you do in a day, week, or month.
Time management skills can help you spend the hours you have on what is most important to you.
Organizational skills are easier for some people than others. For instance, all time management advice includes
some form of writing down what you want to accomplish. For many people, this is easy and natural. Other
people have difficulty creating lists and following through on them. It’s a left-brain/right-brain thing and has to
do with whether your brain favors logic and structure or creative and unstructured thinking. Time management
requires discipline. If you’re not prepared to be disciplined, you’re not going to be a very good manager of your
own time.
Here’s a list of time management techniques I’ve employed myself. Notice that I didn’t call them “best
practices.” However, they do work for me and may work for you as well.
1: Create a list of things to do each morning

If you don’t keep track of what you want to accomplish, you’re not going to have a chance at effective time
management. Create a to-do list at the beginning of each day or at the end of the prior day. The list can
include business and personal items and can be put on paper, your workstation, phone, etc. Refer to the list
several times during the day. For example, if you have 10 minutes before a meeting, glance at your list. There
might be an email you wanted to send that would take only 10 minutes. When you complete each item, check
it off. If you’re like me, you derive satisfaction from being able to check off an item as complete.
2: Write down all follow-up items on your list

To keep track of new things that come up during the day, place them on your daily list. If your list is full and
the activity can be completed tomorrow (or the next day), place it on your list for a day or two out. Have you
ever wondered why people tell you they’ll do something and then don’t follow through? It’s because they don’t
write it down. When I was a manager, I would often talk to people about work we needed to complete. I never
trusted their memory. If they didn’t bring a pencil and paper, I gave them some so they could write down what
needed to be done and the due date.

3: Carry forward unfinished work and follow up

Now you have a list of work for the day, and you’ve added new items for follow-up. What do you do with the
things you haven’t completed at the end of the day? You carry them forward and add them to your list for
tomorrow. But don’t be a procrastinator. You don’t want to carry an expanding list of activities from day to day
to day. If the activity is important, get it done. If it’s not important, follow up with the person who’s expecting
something from you and explain that the work hasn’t been completed.
4: Keep track of due dates

Use your list to stay on top of due dates. This includes commitments to work colleagues and friends. My
experience is that people miss due dates more often than they hit them. If you’re not clear, ask when an
activity needs to be completed, write it down, and then use time management skills to make sure the work is
done on time. If you can’t meet the commitment, communicate that in a timely manner.
5: Create a list of priorities for this month and next

I know many people make lists for today. How many make high-level lists of the things they need to do this
month and next? Unless you have a transactional job where your timeframes are always short term, you need
to stop at the beginning of each month and determine what you want to accomplish. These lists are obviously
at a high level, but again, they keep you focused on what you want to accomplish. As the month progresses,
start adding items to your list for the next month.
6: Keep track of longer-term reminders

You to-do list isn’t going to help you for follow-ups you’ll need to remember in the distant future. For instance,
you may tell a colleague you’ll follow up with them to check progress in two months. You need to have a way
to keep track of this follow-up and to remind yourself two months in the future. Online calendars work well
for setting reminders. In fact, I place multiple reminders over multiple days, so that if I miss one, I’ll catch the
reminder the next day.
7: Keep a clean desk

I never knew of a good time manager who worked in a pigsty. In fact, it usually follows that people who have
cluttered offices or cubicles aren’t very good time organizers. I don’t think you can be a good time manager
when you spend a lot of time looking for stuff in a cluttered work environment.
8: Keep all your current work in one area

Over time, you may work on many separate activities and initiatives. Keep your things organized. I always
keep my current work papers in one area where I can get at them easily. When I’m finished with a project or
initiative, I move the folder elsewhere (see tip 9).

Avoid the interrupt-driven model of

time management
By Chip Camden
Several years ago, I realized that my approach to time management closely resembled an interrupt-driven
multitasking operating system. I’d spend most of the day responding to ad hoc requests, questions, and
emergencies. Whenever I’d finally get some idle time, I’d lean back in my chair, wipe my brow, and think, “Now
what was it I was supposed to be doing?” It never made sense to start the day with a to-do list, because I’d
rarely be able to cross even one thing off by the evening.
I must admit, it was nice to be the go-to guy for my clients and colleagues. They always knew that whenever
they’d call or email, they’d get a helpful response in short order. It was a bit of an ego trip for me, and all
those micro-engagements billed at half-hour or even 15-minute minimum increments added up to some real
revenue. But filling that role almost full time was turning me into a glorified tech support rep. Playing nursemaid
to all the existing solutions was keeping me from exercising my full potential to create new solutions and to
stay on top of the latest technologies. During the short intervals when I wasn’t being driven by interruptions, I
would often find it hard to get started on my big projects, knowing that I would soon be interrupted again. That
was the easiest excuse in the world to procrastinate—and we procrastinators know that it doesn’t take much.
I didn’t want to become just “the guy who can answer all of your questions about X”... while X slowly but surely
becomes obsolete. Nor did I want to be known as a really smart guy who takes forever to complete a big
project. So I decided to make some changes and come up with better strategies for managing my time, which
include the following four steps:
1: Make interruptions the exception rather than the

rule
How often does that “emergency” actually threaten a life or a business if it isn’t addressed within an hour or
two? How many of those questions are asked simply because it’s convenient—when the questioner could
have found the same answer by spending two minutes with Google? What request for services can’t wait until
tomorrow for an answer? Sure, there are exceptions. But as a rule, you should deflect interruptions as much
as possible when working on a project. Don’t answer the phone .The client can leave a message. Turn off
email notification and IM. You can read it later. Allocate a specific time when you’ll respond to all these com-
munications en masse. If your client has physical access to you, make sure they know that they should reserve
interruptions for true emergencies.
2: Allocate large chunks of time to individual projects

Instead of trying to work a little bit on each of your pending projects, ignore all but one or two projects
each day. That allows you to concentrate deeply on each task and make real progress, and it avoids the

problems associated with context switching. For instance, this morning I spent the first hour catching up on
communications: email, feeds, and online discussions. The next two hours were allocated to writing this article
(so far, I’m making good time!). Then the entire afternoon will be devoted to a project for one of my clients. At
the end of the day, I’ll empty my email Inbox again. But in the meantime, I’ll just scan it for real emergencies
every few hours. I have other projects in progress that I’m intentionally ignoring today.
3: Don’t take on too many projects

If you’re not going to give attention to every project on your plate each day, you definitely don’t want to have
too many projects in progress at once. Your clients are not likely to be happy with not hearing from you for
several days at a time when they’re expecting you to produce something for them. If you have too much work
piled up, you can also start to feel overwhelmed and find it difficult to choose what to work on next. So pick
your projects well, and make sure your customers have the right expectations about how much time you’ll
spend on them.
4: Reserve time for self improvement

As I mentioned above, you need to stay on top of new developments in the industry if you hope to continue
to provide value to your clients well into the future. So you can’t afford to be the hamster in a wheel, working
like mad and not getting anywhere. You might find a paying gig on the bleeding edge, but those are rare—and
dangerous. Rather than learning what not to do while working on your clients’ projects, make some time to
be your own consultant and teach yourself new things. I typically reserve Monday afternoons for “me time.” It
makes me look forward to Mondays!
Using these steps, I’ve moved from an interrupt-driven model to a more prioritized batch-processing queue.
That may sound like a step backward technologically, but it sure helps reduce thrashing for the old wet
computer inside my skull. Until someone invents an AI that can do consulting, that’s all I’ve got to work with.
Hmm ... sounds like an idea for a Monday project.

Six secrets to getting tasks completed

By Chip Camden
Sometimes, we need to go beyond self expectations in the effort to organize our workloads. These six sug-
gestion may help you in your quest to effectively manage your time.
1: Make a daily list

Don’t just refer to your overall to-do list. If yours is like mine, it’s a mile long and contains some items you’ve
been meaning to get around to for months (okay, years). Each morning, write down the few things that you
intend to accomplish today. The idea is to make your goals seem less overwhelming, so be reasonable with
yourself about what you can actually get done in a day.
2: Segregate time for each task

Don’t try to do everything at once or flip back and forth between projects. I’ve found it useful to have some
visual indicator of what project is “on” at any given time. Lots of apps are available to help you track the time
spent on each project.
3: Focus
One reason why IT pros don’t always do so well in social situations is that they have the power to concentrate
intently on one problem to the exclusion of everything else. (No, honey, I wasn’t ignoring you— actually didn’t
hear you, even though you were standing right beside me and speaking clearly.) We geeks need to maximize
this ability to be effective in our work. We can’t allow ourselves to be interrupted for “just a minute” to answer
a question. The instant we break concentration, the entire problem we were modeling in our head drops on
the floor and shatters into a million pieces. This is why you shouldn’t answer the phone, check email, or chat
during these periods.
4: Take breaks
This one seems to contradict #3. My wife never understands how I can take an hour for a long walk, but I get
upset when she interrupts me for five minutes. The difference is that you take a break when it doesn’t interrupt
your flow. When you can’t figure out a problem, it’s time to put it on your mind’s back burner for a bit. Or right
after you solve a problem, have a 10-minute celebration before moving on to the next thing.
5: Take care of your equipment

I don’t just mean your gadgets. Most of what you’re paid for is produced by your brain, so treat it like your
most important piece of equipment. Caffeine may put some spark in it, but overdoing caffeine may make you
think less clearly. Years ago, I used to regularly have a beer with lunch until I discovered that neurotoxins like

alcohol might be a contributing factor to all those bug reports. Get enough sleep at night and don’t forget to
exercise. Your brain’s function depends on your entire health. If someone were to even scratch the case of
your notebook PC, you’d be pretty upset, so don’t abuse the case of your primary processor.
6: Follow through
If you have a choice between working on two projects, choose the one that is nearly finished even if the other
one is more fun. When you complete a project, it creates momentum and reduces that long to-do list that
haunts your psyche. Every time I complete a project, I feel an immense sense of relief; it makes me happier
and more productive.
Conclusion
I’m not pretending that I always execute all of these tips without throwing an exception. Sometimes I get
carried away with an emergency, only to be interrupted by another emergency or three—and then my kids
scream that I’m needed immediately to help with a serious household repair. The next thing I know, it’s quitting
time, and I haven’t taken a break or eaten, and I’ve had way too much coffee, so I sit down with a bottle of
wine and put my brain out of its misery. Guess how much I get done on those days?

Five tips for avoiding false efficiencies

By Justin James
People develop all sorts of tricks to help them manage their time and be more productive in their workday.
Sadly, there are a few common tricks that people use to get more things done that actually make it harder for
things to get done. Here are five measures you may have adopted that are working against you—and ideas for
a better way to be efficient in the same circumstances.
1: Beware of email rules

One of the things busy workers do to streamline their workflow is to establsh some email rules. The problem
is that the wrong rules can give the illusion of organization while actually making things worse. The most
common mistake you see here is the sorting of email by sender. This is a completely irrelevant basis for sorting
mail, other than filtering mail from mailing lists and automated senders, where the mail will always be of low
priority, or perhaps flagging mail from your boss so you always handle it first. But for the majority of human
senders, who the sender is gives zero insight into the importance of the email, and sorting it by sender is a
great way to ensure that critical emails are lost in the shuffle.
Instead of applying heavy-handed rules like sorting by sender, pick more granular rules. For example,
keep putting the automated emails in their place with rules, but use your email client’s ability to manage
conversations or threads to selectively ignore things you’ve been incorrectly copied on. Also, take a look at
why you are receiving so much email. It is often a sign that you have become a roadblock in the decision-
making process or that people do not feel empowered to do things without your say-so.
2: Focus on one thing at a time

I’ve seen this all too often: A harried worker brings a laptop or smartphone to a meeting to manage other tasks
and can’t properly participate in the meeting. People usually overestimate their ability to do two things at once.
To show yourself just how bad you are at it, play a song you have never heard before while reading something
you have never read before and see if you can properly recall both of them. Chances are that you can’t. So if
you are going to be in a meeting, leave the email at your desk. At the same time, be more selective about what
meetings you attend. It’s better to not be at a meeting at all and have everyone know you need to be filled in
than to have the other participants think you are on the same page with them when you aren’t.
3: Be careful about long hours

The more hours you work, the less you get done with them. As you get tired, it becomes harder to focus on
your job. In addition, it often builds resentment toward your work that is not helpful at all. Working long hours
often is counterproductive, since you start making more and more mistakes. Often, the best way to get things
done is to step away from the work and recharge your batteries. This might mean not pulling an all-nighter or

perhaps doing nothing work-related over a weekend. It may mean a vacation, even if all you can afford to do is
spend a few days sitting at home watching TV. Yes, it can sometimes be hard to say “no” to long hours. But at
the same time, you need to get a sense of when you’re just spinning your wheels and wasting your time.
4: Don’t answer every call

The wonderful engineers at the phone company invented caller ID and voicemail for a reason: so you don’t
have to answer every single incoming call. Many people feel the need to answer all calls, regardless of what
they’re doing at that moment. Why break your focus to answer a call that may not be very important? And if
you’re working with other people, why make them waste their time sitting around watching you have another
conversation? Unless you’re expecting an important call (or the person keeps calling back, indicating an
emergency), let it go to voicemail if you’re busy and check your messages during a break in your work.
5: Learn to trust others

Many times, the size of our workloads is artificially increased by our refusal to trust other people. For example,
you might have a junior member of the staff eager to learn how to patch the servers or write the data access
code, but you insist on doing it yourself because “it’s too important to be done wrong.” We think this is a
timesaver because it will take less time to do it ourselves than to show someone else how to do it. That is true
for one-time tasks, but not for things that need to be done on a regular basis. Chances are, you made some
mistakes on your way to where you are, and someone else is going to have to make some mistakes too. Don’t
dump your work onto someone else, but carefully train others to take over some of your responsibilities and
make yourself available in case they need a hand. The right people will be grateful for the chance to step up to
the next level, knowing that it helps them with their long-term career growth.

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Time Management For Tech Professionals

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Time Management For Tech Professionals

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Time management tips

for tech professionals

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

Time management tips

form without prior written permission is forbidden. Managing Editor

Published by TechRepublic Editor, Australia

Senior Features Editors

selection of these materials to achieve its intended Staff Writers

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

Tech leaders: Here are six ways to

1: Eliminate digital noise

2: Meet for results

3: Block out time for yourself

4: Focus on nonverbal listening

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

5: Plan for interruptions

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

Four ways to improve your time

1: The Pomodoro technique

3: The 18-minute plan

4: The to-do list

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

Five time management tips for busy

2: Know how you spend your time

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

3: Hold your manager responsible for your priorities

4: Get good at estimating your time

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

Time management tips for sys admins

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

Take control of your day with these

1: Create a list of things to do each morning

2: Write down all follow-up items on your list

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

3: Carry forward unfinished work and follow up

4: Keep track of due dates

5: Create a list of priorities for this month and next

6: Keep track of longer-term reminders

7: Keep a clean desk

8: Keep all your current work in one area

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

Avoid the interrupt-driven model of

1: Make interruptions the exception rather than the

2: Allocate large chunks of time to individual projects

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

3: Don’t take on too many projects

4: Reserve time for self improvement

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

Six secrets to getting tasks completed

1: Make a daily list

2: Segregate time for each task

5: Take care of your equipment

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

Five tips for avoiding false efficiencies

1: Beware of email rules

2: Focus on one thing at a time

3: Be careful about long hours

Copyright ©2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

4: Don’t answer every call

5: Learn to trust others