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Time Management in the Optical Workplace

Salvador Dali Watch

I recently read an article about “time suckers” which was about time wasting activities. I was surprised at how I had managed to fall into some of these. I work out of a home office alone rather than a office building or practice with other people but everything below applies for most situations. Time in the optical workplace is constant and irreversible. Nothing can be substituted for time. Worse, once wasted, it can never be regained. Thus, time management in the optical workplace is very important.

The following are example of some the biggest time wasters in the optical workplace:

• Worrying about it and putting it off, which leads to indecision (guilty!)
• Creating inefficiency by implementing first instead of analyzing first
• Unanticipated interruptions that do not pay off (whole other article about this!)
• Procrastinating
• Making unrealistic time estimates
• Unnecessary errors (not enough time to do it right, but enough time to do it over)
• Crisis management
• Poor organization
• Ineffective meetings
• Micro-managing by failing to let others perform and grow
• Doing urgent rather than important tasks (guilty!)
• Poor planning and lack of contingency plans
• Failing to delegate
• Lacking priorities, standards, policies and procedures

The following are examples of time savers in the optical workplace:

• Managing the decision making process, not the decisions
• Concentrating on doing only one task at a time
• Establishing daily, short-term, mid-term, and long-term priorities
• Handling correspondence expeditiously with quick, short letters and memos
• Throwing unneeded things away
• Establishing personal deadlines and ones for the workplace
• Not wasting other people’s time
• Ensuring all meetings have a purpose, time limit, and include only essential people
• Getting rid of busywork
• Maintaining accurate calendars: abide by them
• Knowing when to stop a task, policy, or procedure
• Delegating everything possible and empowering team members
• Keeping things simple
• Ensuring time is set aside to accomplish high priority tasks
• Setting aside time for reflection
• Using checklists and To-do lists
• Adjusting priorities as a result of new tasks

I hope you find these hints helpful. Let us know if you have any good ones to add!

Source: Kathy Weiman – U.S. Vision

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