Course Content
Section 1: The purpose and the process of scheduling work activities
After completing this section, you will be able to: • Explain the importance of scheduling in business • Explain a schedule development process in accordance with established business practices • Explain predecessor/successor relationships within business activities • Discuss mandatory or discretionary activities • Explain the advantages and implications of task completion within the shortest possible time and at a specified due date • Explain the importance and function of task scheduling with examples
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Introduction
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The importance of scheduling
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A schedule development process
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The importance of task completion in the shortest possible time
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The importance and function of task scheduling
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Section 2: Organise and prepare business activities
After completing this section, you will be able to: • Define and identify business activities in terms of their importance for the business and the time each takes to complete • Prioritise business activities within the objectives and scope of own work • Develop and document basic procedures and networks • Develop office systems, diaries, screening and schedules for own work • Sources time duration estimates from responsible individuals and indicate these on the task schedules. • Set realistic deadlines or time frames for each procedure/process
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Introduction
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Define and identify business activities
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Techniques to prioritise and organise business activities
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Develop and document basic procedures and networks
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Develop own office systems and time management tools
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Estimate time required for tasks
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Setting realistic deadlines
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Section 3: Deal with interruptions
After completing this section, you will be able to: • Relay procedures and times required to complete procedures/tasks to individuals to ensure all know what is expected • Identify possible interruptions to procedures/processes/tasks and develop strategies to deal with each to minimise their effect • Deal with interruptions assertively yet appropriately according to identified strategy and/or business procedure
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Introduction
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Relay tasks and timelines to team members
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Develop strategies to deal with interruptions
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Deal with interruptions assertively yet appropriately
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Conclusion
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References and Further Reading
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Short Course Revision Video
11:44
Assessment
Private: Time Management
About Lesson

The importance of scheduling

Some reasons of the importance of planning and scheduling are listed below:

  • Planning and scheduling your work functions and tasks allows you to understand the scope of your work ahead of time and this lets you manage and assign your resources /staff accordingly. For example, if you know that for the upcoming month, there is a backlog of work to be attended to, then you will know to assign and schedule additional staff or to arrange for an overtime work schedule.
  • A solid plan and schedule help to keep costs down and allows you to operate according to a budget. For example, if your plan details the tasks and activities required and also lists the resources needed, then you can create a budget to accommodate the cost of these resources. By monitoring your plan, you can see if unnecessary resources were listed and make adjustments to the budget accordingly.
  • Planning and scheduling are also important because it allows a company to create specific types of schedules and plans to meet business needs. For instance, a manufacturer must create an operations plan and schedule for the production process to ensure efficient processes. Companies that have to order supplies and raw materials on a regular basis need an ordering schedule. If the company utilises shift workers, there must also be a schedule detailing the availabilities of employees and needs of the business. Daily and weekly work schedules will keep staff on track and ensure that targets are met. For example, call centre staff will need a schedule for the number of calls to be made per day or per hour etc.
Principles, methods and techniques of time planning and management

  In order to plan work methods and develop schedules a supervisor need to understand the core principles, methods and techniques of time planning, prioritising and scheduling:

Time management principles:

  Five core time management principles are described below:

Time management techniques and methods:

  There are several time management techniques and methods that you can use to ensure you stick to the time management principles. Some of these generic techniques and methods include keeping a daily, weekly and monthly diary, creating study timetables and using prioritising tools. Here we will look at the Stephen Covey Time Management Matrix tool which is a generic method for prioritising your time. This will be useful a bit later when we need to draw up project plans and schedules for your workers and we learn about specific project management tools such as project plans and work breakdown structures and project schedules. The Stephen Covey Time Management Matrix is an excellent tool designed to maximise your productivity and eliminate unnecessary or irrelevant activities through a 4-quadrant system. Establishing priorities as a manager involves prioritising business activities within the objectives and scope of your own area of responsibility. Covey stresses the need to prioritise the tasks to achieve maximum positive results. The biggest challenge a person faces is prioritising, distinguishing the things on the basis of what needs to be accomplished when i.e., knowing what is important and what is urgent. Once you have created a list of your daily or weekly activities you can use the matrix to prioritise the order of your tasks. The matrix is shown below:  The first quadrant – Urgent and important: This is the quadrant of necessity. The tasks in this quadrant are the crisis situations where you have to quickly act, get into the right mode and perform the activities. It involves urgent professional and personal matters, emergency, lifetime opportunities and some disaster situations. The second quadrant -Not urgent but important: This is the quadrant of quality and personal leadership. This should be your major focus area because it involves your day-to-day activities. Here you can plan ahead and prepare for the things to come. You can practice to achieve quality and work to prevent any problems. Your focus should be on relationship building and you should also not neglect recreation. The third quadrant -Urgent but not important: This is the quadrant of deception. The interruptions in your daily work, like unimportant calls, need to be avoided. Certain distracting mails, meetings and popular activities usually give a feeling of urgency but are actually just time killers. They divert attention and take you away from your prime focus area. You can choose to delegate the tasks falling in this quadrant to other people. The fourth quadrant -Not urgent and not important: The fourth quadrant is the one that actually imbalances the entire multi-tasking scenario. Junk mails, irrelevant calls, messages, mindless TV viewing are complete time wasters and should be avoided as much as possible. The activities should not be confused with recreation as recreation helps in rejuvenation and fills you with positive energy. To fully evaluate your own situation, it’s important to make a master list of as many of your daily activities that you can think of and place them in the corresponding quadrant. Remember to consider tasks that achieve your work objectives as important. In which quadrant do you spend most of your time each day? In order to make positive change in your daily schedule, you need to aim for spending the most time in Quadrant 2. By devoting a good deal of time to that area, you will naturally eliminate many of the crises that tend to happen in Quadrant 1, as well as providing you with more solid direction, which in turn will help eliminate spending excess time in either Quadrant 3 or 4.  

Scheduling principles

Scheduling time to get things done indicates commitment. Here are a few suggestions to consider when scheduling appointments and activities in your planner. Start off your month or week by scheduling your goal-related activities, as well as appointments, directly into a planner. (This must have space for daily timeslots). “To do” lists will prevent you from forgetting all the things you have to do, but they will do nothing to further their completion. To be effective, you must schedule time to actually get the work done. The reason that New Year’s resolutions usually go right in one ear and out the other, is that people commit them to memory, but not to paper. What gets scheduled usually gets done. What gets postponed usually gets abandoned.

  1. Place deadlines on all appointments and meetings. If you call an open-ended meeting, how can the attendees schedule the balance of their day? And what do they bring with them, a box lunch, a toothbrush or a tent?
  2. Make appointments back to back. If you have an appointment to see someone from 9:15 to 9:45 a.m., and someone else asks to see you at 10 a.m., see if they can make it earlier at 9:45 a.m. This will add strength to the first appointment’s deadline. It’s easier to stick to a deadline when another person is waiting to see you – and it adds credibility to the comment that you’ll have to stop on time since you have another commitment. A fifteen-minute period between two meetings is rarely productive even if it does materialise.
  3. If the appointment is with yourself, to work on a task, schedule a definite time period, say 9:15 to 10:15 a.m., but in this case, don’t back it up with another appointment. If someone asks for 10:30, see if they can make it 10:45 or 11:00. This will allow you to continue with your task if you’re on a roll. It also allows space to schedule last minute priorities.
  4. Always schedule tasks to be completed ahead of the deadline date. If a project is due Friday, if possible, schedule it to be completed by Wednesday. This allows for any unseen problems, emergencies or the possibility of missing the deadline through illness.
  5. When scheduling time for a task, always allow more time than you think that portion of the job will take. If you think it will take you one hour to complete it, schedule an hour and a half. If you plan to work on an on-going project for an hour and a half, schedule two hours. This will provide time to accommodate those interruptions that invariably occur when engrossed in a task.
  6. If you have many tasks to be scheduled in a week, always schedule the priorities nearer to the beginning of the week. Time is less available as the week passes. Also schedule the important tasks during your prime time – when your mental energy is at its peak. For most people, this is in the mornings.
  7. Don’t over schedule. Try not to block off any more than 50 percent of your week in advance. Leave plenty of free spaces to accommodate priorities that emerge during the week.
  8. There is no limit as to how far in advance you can schedule; but blocking off time for priorities only a week or two in advance is usually sufficient. People rarely ask for appointments beyond a week or two in advance. Major activities can be blocked off years in advance. But don’t schedule anything for 5 years ahead if you’re already ninety-five.
  9. If you’re serious about getting things done, schedule the time in ink rather than in pencil. Pencil cries out that it’s only tentative, and you’re more likely to change it if it’s more convenient for others. Have as much respect for your time as you have for everybody else’s time. It may be messier to make changes to ink, but it’s better to be a messy doer than a neat procrastinator.
  10. Don’t limit your scheduling to business-related activities. Evenings and weekends are fair game. Make commitments in your personal life by scheduling time for family, friends, and yourself.
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