Essence of time management to organizations
By SA’ADATU ADAM (MRS.)
Introduction
TIME is a measure of duration, this explains the transient nature of time. Time is an opportunity, it slips away whether you make use of it or not. A Hausa saying: that washing the handkerchief must never be allowed to take the whole day. Therefore, make use of it while it lasts in doing the right things at their right moments. Avoid delay and indolecence, for they give rise to the legitimate child called ‘loss’.
Time is important because it is a medium of exchange. Time is the price that you pay in exchange for any benefit that you get or any pleasure that you derived in life. It is time that determines the procedure or order of succession between one event and another. Just as space enable us to determine what is big or small, near or far, black or white, high or low, etc. Time enables us to know who comes first and who comes last, who precede or succeeds who between, for example, great grand parent, grand parent, child etc. Without the time element, it will be impossible to tell the variation or gap.
Time in the real sense of it can not be controlled or managed even though we may find it glamourous to speak of time management. Time can only be utilized, because it is, the ignorance of this simple fact that has coursed some people to blame and abuse time over what time itself is not responsible for. Simply, time is a passive agent.
Therefore, time management is the art of arranging, organising, scheduling and budgeting one’s time for the purpose of generating more effective work and productivity. In the 24 hours, 7 days busy world in which we live, time is a very special resource in that you cannot store it or save it for later.
Statement of problem
The nature and culture of Nigerian organisations is the lack of time conscious which always result in unnecessary delays and indolence, leading to waste of both human and material resources.
There is also the belief that time is always on one’s side and so, this can be done at anytime material or immaterial to its execution, leading to inefficient workforce and lower production level when compared to other nations that utilize time for optimum production.
Scope of the study
The population here involved employee of health sector as well as general public who find time management relevant to their individual endeavours.
Objective of the paper
To show the importance and primacy of time management in our lives.
To provide a framework and a set of guidelines for individuals and organisations to plan and execute actions and programmes.
Therefore, the objective of the paper is finding time management as a means of selecting and prioritizing useful activities while taking the ride through time. Also time management become important as time is a scarce resource not sufficient as such makes judicious and efficient use of it. Another objective is to make organisation plan ahead as an aspect of time management.
Methodology
The paper makes use of both primary source and secondary sources of information to generate data for the research. Interviews were conducted with a select group of persons to assess their time management practices. While those respondents with busy work schedules apportion their time to activities with a view to achieving desired objectives other respondents do not appreciate the importance of timing.
Literature review
Orgainsation means putting all resources you have into play to achieve personal goals. Christopher robin in “Winne the Pools” defined organisation as “what you do before you do something so that when you do it. It is not all mixed up. Those who are organised are said to be in power and control.
Though many time management books and teachings differ in their suggestions, most agree that the first step in efficient time management is to organise the workspace. Even if one’s schedule is well ordered, but the office and filling system are in disaster, time will be wasted trying to work efficiently in a disorderly place. Another important issue is knowledge on part of the work force of what to do and when to do it, this removes drudgery in life and enables you to do more, more accurately and beneficially and in lesser time too. In management, it is referred to as the ‘learning curve’. This is where the repetitive nature of doing a job each day, results in employee experienced skill, which also results in more production within a limited time. This theory shows the effect of time on new production process and can be compared to new employee, the time consumed is more in the early period and less as experience set in.
The next step in time management is to look at all the activities one participates in during a week. Every last detail should be written down, including the limit it takes to shower, dress, attend meetings, make phone calls, clean the house, cook, pick up children from school and pick them after school, eat meals., etc. Also include time for entertainment, or exercise such as driving to gym, going for a walk, watching television etc. Sometimes you find out that after all these activities, little time is left for sleeping. The end result is that many activities must be pared down, eliminated, consolidated or delegated. Prioritizing activities on a scale of one to three - one being the most important and three being least - can help with this task.
Management skills at a glance
Goal setting: - Write down a list of your goals for the week, monthly or year as with organisations.
Planning:- Many people feel as if they lack time to do the important things in life simply because they do not take time to plan. Planning is done by figuring out just how much time you would need to accomplish each goal.
Prioritizing - This is done by going through the goals and ranking them in order of importance. You may find that just five minutes here or there can make all the difference in the world in achieving the items in the priority list.
Decision-making: - Taking important decisions is important. That is having options to chose from so that time is saved and managed. Considering some moments as opportunities to accomplish some small, yet important tasks. Take decision on allotting time to be alone in order to be effective as a worker, spouse and parent. Your time alone can be spent on a hobby, praying, re-evaluating your priorities and relaxing, otherwise you will be short charging yourself, and you will feel more stressed as a result without sparing yourself private time.
Delegating: Those tasks that you cannot complete within the allocated time can be delegated to others to do on your behalf. For instance, picking the children from school, queuing for petrol and some other time demanding jobs can be delegated to your wife, brother, driver etc.
Scheduling: This is done employing some innovative scheduling techniques, you can set aside the time for those things that are truly important to you. You will need to pick and choose your assignments both your professional assignments and personal ones. There are a number of duties which make demands on your time, those you love and those you don’t care for. But by simplifying your life, you might be surprised at how much time you will gain and much better you will feel.
Finally, managing a health information system that meets medical, administrative, ethical and legal requirements involves the medical record or health information staff known collectively as medical records personnel’s ability to manage time effectively. Their work is crucial to both patients and health care facilities. For patients, carefully maintained records guarantee continuity of care and as for the facility, precise coding of diagnoses and procedures can mean timely fee payments by patients and timely consultation.
Lastly, good time management involves keeping a schedule of the tasks and activities that have been deemed important. Keeping a calender or daily planner is helpful to stay on task, but self-discipline is also required. The most efficient-to-do list in the world will not help someone who does not look at or follow his own daily planner. Time, according to Peter Director, cannot be rented, hired, bought or expanded. The time element is constant and can neither be stopped nor expanded or enlarged. Time management is a continuous ongoing process of analyzing, planning, re-analyzing and re-planning.
Result and discussion
The concept of time management was not known to many organisations especially in our environment. However, the tremendous significance of time management cannot be overlooked.
Helps you prioritize: Time management is important because it helps you your work. Once you have a list of things you need to tackle, you need to see what you should do first. What are those that are important and time sensitive. That way, you set out to do those first.
Get more done in less time: The other reason why time management is important is that, you will get more done in less time. When you plan your time, you will see the amount of work that needs to be tackled. That puts into context how much time you need. Inevitably, you will need not to laze your time away.
Quantitative work: When you plan your time you are making wise investment of a very limited resource - time. Knowing what to work on, when and how much time to finish the work makes you more focused. That focus on the work ensures that you get more quality work done.
Keep things in context: Sometimes you may hear people complaining that there is no balance in their lives. Have you ever wondered, may be the reason is that they do not know how to manage their time. A possibility, maybe. One reason, why is time management important is that it can put things into context for you. If you see the list of work you have and the things you need to do, then you will be forced to make tough decision. Especially on what to spend your time on and how to spend your time.
Forces you to do things you do not like. This is one of my personal favourites. Why is time management important? Simple. When you write down things you need to do, it is there staring at you. You are forced to tackle it. To me it is a target I have given myself and so I must live up to the challenge regardless of how much I hate doing it.
Keeps you on track: Whether it is a daily work or a long-term career plan - time management keeps you on track. With your goals stated and time allocated, the likelihood of you staying within the boundaries you have given yourself is higher.
Making sure you deliver what is promised: How would you deliver what you promised on time if you do not manage your time? Have you always disappointed your colleagues on the delivery of your part of the project? Perhaps you aren’t doing well with time management. Making sure you deliver what is promised should be reason enough why time management is important.
Time is limited: There is a Chinese proverb that loosely translates time, saying, “no among of gold can buy you time’. Time ticks away regardless you whether you like it or not. Why is time management important? Because time is limited. Once lost, you cannot gain it back.
Helps discipline oneself: Time management is a huge part of managing yourself. If you cannot manage time and won’t manage your limited resources, how do you plan to achieve your goals? Learning to manage time helps to discipline yourself.
Conclusion and recommendations
Health information is recorded and stored mostly in paper formats, printed laboratory reports, copies of clinical notes and health histories provide by individuals. These are all accessible through retrieval within a limited time. More delays in retrieval of these records for further action may result in delay in consulting patients, which may give rise to increase sufferings of a patients needing immediate medical care and it will invariably increase the waiting period of patients in the waiting room, meaning additional chairs to be provided at additional costs.
It is therefore of utmost important for record officers to keep to time to avoid unnecessary loss of lives, increased costs and boredom to both patient and doctor.
Computer saves time
There are tremendous advantages of electronic medical records over paper records as the later is a time-consuming procedure. It also requires significant amount of storage to store them and more cost of maintenance especially when records are stored in different locations, collecting and transporting them to a single location for review is time-consuming, when we are trying to manage time as much as possible.
For instance, in 2004, an estimate was made that one in seven hospitalizations occurred when medical record were not available meaning taking more time to provide information on patient. Additionally, one in five lab tests were repeated because results were not available at the point of care at the right shortest time. However, electronic medical records are estimated to improve efficiency by 60 per cent per year and the monthly cost of maintaining a computer is offset by the cost of only a few unnecessary tests or admissions and time is effectively managed times, hand written paper medical records associated with poor legibility can contribute not only to loss of time trying to figure out what was written but can lead to medical errors. Therefore, the use of computer is found to reduce errors associated with handwritten documents and were recommended for widespread adoption. However, whether you use technological time management tools or plain old pen and paper, the most important feature in effective time management is analysing how you currently spend your time and deciding how you want to change how you spend your time. The fact of the matter is many people today are operating under time constraints. We simply don’t have enough hours in the day to accomplish all that we want to. This creates an enormous amount of stress for us and our loved ones. We may feel as if we are constantly operating under a deadline.
We may feel fatigued and frustrated and we may wonder if we miss out on much of life because we spend so much time - doing and not enough time relaxing. We are stressed at work, stressed home and stressed in life. The irony is, the more we do, the more behind we seem to get. We are constantly on the run, yet we may feel as if we are accomplishing very little, as a result, frustration grows, we may become short-tempered, especially with those we love. We may feel as if we are constantly running tired, angry, confused, panicky and anxious.
The good news is, there is hope, even in the midst of what might seem a hopeless situation. We can get control of our lives and control of our time. It may take a little bit of effort and time, but it will be well worth it in the long run. Therefore, time management is often thought of or presented as a set of time management skills, as stated earlier, the theory is that once we master time management skills, we will be more organised, efficient and happier.

HAJIYA SA’ADATU is of Kano Polytechnic, she presented this paper at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, School of Information Records, Kano recently.