Time Management

Recently I read some books/articles about Time management. There were some wonderful ideas about using your time efficiently. These are some of the ideas with my views/analysis.
1. Calculate:
The first step is to calculate the total time that we waste. For next one week or so, keep a track of how your time was spent. At the end of every hour, note down how the previous hour was spent. For ex: you can categorize it as meeting,break, discusssion for work, unwanted interrruptions etc. At the end of one week, you would be surprised to know that you waste more than half of the total time, or even more.

2.Make a list:
Every evening, make a list of things that you would like to achieve on the next day . Try to achieve those next day (in priority order)
This one is pretty useful. It helps you remember what you have to achieve. This is especially very handy for those guys who have lot of different things to do everyday, but it holds good for everyone.
I have started using this. At office,I have a notebook where I list down the things that I have to do (official work). I maintain this list and try to close as many items as possible.

3. Learn context-switching: I have a collegue who is very efficient at work. There is another quality of his that is worth mentioning. He has this ability of context-switching which makes it so easy to adapt to different situations. One important thing to note is that you should be able to switch mentally as well. For example, you are solving some problem and then you have to go for lunch, so it shouldn't happen that you go for lunch, still thinking about your work.Also, it is equally important that once you come back to work, you should be able to regain your previous state of mind.
4.
Learn to delegate (if your job is such):
It is often seen that people who lead a group often end up doing the work that their subordinates should be doing. It is very important to delegate the responsibilities and to trust your subordintates. Of course, you should not delegate to such an extent that you become useless to the organisation. Also, it is important to understand that every persons time has a value.
The value of 20-mins of a supervisors's time is much more than that of a subordinate's (This is only in reference to official time. ). So if the supervisor does a 1 hour job which his subordinate should do, it means there has been a loss in value. Though the supervisor would do the job efficiently, he could have done more valuble things in that one hour. Of course, the supervisor should be there to help in case of difficulties, but providing pointers to solve the problem should be enough. Trying to solve the complete problem will make the subordinate dependent on the supervisor Also it will waste the supervisor's time.

The above point should be taken in a positive sense. In most cases the subordinates think that their supervisor is useless and does not do anything, but that may not be true in every case.

5. Learn to say 'No' :
It is very important to learn to say No. It often happens that we have unnecessary interruptions at work.´Sometimes these interruptions may be valid, but on most occassions these are a waste of time. At such times, you should be able to avoid these or postpone it to a later time. But do remember that you should be polite when you do so. There are many books available which tell you how to deal with such situations.

There were few more point which I am not able to recollect now. I will add those points later.
Do let me know if the above were useful to you.

-Ravikiran