"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars." - Henry David Thoreau in "Walden"

This week, I met with one of my protégés in our mentoring program and we had a wonderful discussion of time management, strategic planning, communication, and customer satisfaction, and how they come together. We started with work that we were doing together on some specific aspects of these topics and our conversation grew into something much more global. I won’t provide details as one of the key tenets of mentoring is confidentiality, but I did want to acknowledge the wonderful opportunities for learning that mentoring provides. They tell us that the mentors learn as much as the protégés, and they are right!

I also find myself thinking about the essay I wrote last week on customer service and I’m convinced that the other topics I’m writing about this week are fundamental to our ability to meet the needs of our customers. That process will always be a balancing act between the time and resources available and the IT requirements that we are trying to satisfy. The more effectively we manage time, understand the strategic priorities of our organization, and the operational priorities competing for our attention, and communicate, the better we will be able to satisfy our customers.

Looking at time management, the key issue is to make sure we use our limited time as wisely as possible. This includes being able to recognize whether a given item of work is urgent, important, or both, and acting appropriately based on that knowledge. President Dwight Eisenhower used this approach with great effect and those who have looked at the decision matrix he used advise us to leave some time to deal with the urgent and important things that crop up, allow significant time for the important, but not urgent, work that is key to achieving our goals and objectives, delegate, or schedule specific and limited time for the urgent but unimportant tasks, and avoid spending time on things that are neither urgent nor important.

One of the better examples of urgent, but not important, work today is reading our email. We can allow this task to distract us from important work throughout the day, or we can allot a reasonable amount of time for it on a schedule that allows us to do our more important work. Email is interesting in that it, along with voice mail, workflow and work order systems, and meetings, is one of the queues of incoming work that we respond to. People in many organizations, including the one I work for, are struggling with these multiple sources of work and with how to become aware of urgent and important demands quickly and efficiently. While email can also be a useful form of communication when used appropriately, it is not a very effective way to alert someone to time sensitive issues.

As we deal with the incoming work from these various queues, there are a number of common tools that apply some similar concepts to making wise choices about how to use our time. The Four Ds approach advises us to look at each item of work and decide whether to Do, Defer, Delegate, Discard that item. Stephanie Winston’s TRAF system provide a similar set of choices and we are advised to Trash, Refer, Act on, or File the items we review. David Allen’s GTD (Get Things Done) framework provides a somewhat more nuanced approach to managing the work that occupies much of our time but all of these share some common wisdom.

There are some tasks that need to be done but require little time to complete. These are best done immediately as the time required to plan to do them later is generally time wasted. There are other tasks that require our attention but that will require significant time and these are best planned for by scheduling them at a specific appropriate time. Some work is not a good use of our time, but is best delegated or referred to others, and there are also items that aren’t worth spending time on at all.

Delegation can involve training and is best with clear direction as to how soon the work must be completed and what follow-up we expect. Setting clear expectations for how we want to receive confirmation of completion, or notice of any unanticipated delay, and how to request additional information or help is valuable to both parties. Good documentation can help support effective delegation by providing clear direction on how to complete delegated tasks and good context for independent action.

Understanding priorities clearly is key to recognizing what is important and to using any of the tools I mention above. We need to have a clear sense of our own priorities, and the priorities of those we serve. When we are deciding whether to act immediately, defer action to a more appropriate time, or delegate work to others, understanding priorities allows us to give each task the appropriate attention.

We also need to understand how readily priorities can be adjusted. Most projects have a fixed schedule and don’t allow us to defer work. One of our best tools in these situations is effective planning and communication so that we can insure needed work is completed on schedule without jeopardizing other priorities.  Some work may be deferred and rescheduled more than once in response to competing demand with higher priority.

The expectations and priorities of our customers, and our bosses, are a very significant factor as we work to manage our time. We need to understand whether these are negotiable or nonnegotiable and become skilled at negotiating schedules and communicating what other expectations might need to be adjusted to allow for competing demands.

Effective strategic planning can provide a common framework to help us as we work to make the right decisions on priorities, schedules, resource allocation and budgeting. By defining clear strategic priorities, and effective plans to achieve these, we are better able to negotiate operational priorities with these in mind. Engaging in strategic planning at many levels, organization, IT strategy, departmental, and personal, can help provide further clarity. A collaborative approach to completing these strategic plans can also help to foster clearer and more effective communication as they are shared with others and put into action. As we work to deliver effective IT services, clearly defined architectures can provide similar advantages.

Underlying effective time management, priority setting, and strategic planning is communication.

Spending time to understand the expectations of our customers, and to help them clearly understand the capabilities of the IT services we are delivering and developing, is fundamental to setting effective priorities and making wise use of our time. Regular service review, and project status/review meetings, allow us to refine our understanding as we move forward together and to maintain alignment with the strategies and architecture we’ve defined. As human beings, we are great at pattern recognition. Just as we can read a message in poor handwriting or understand spoken messages in a noisy environment, we will reach an apparently clear understanding of each other's’ intentions and expectations even when things are left unsaid. We fill in the blanks to complete the picture. It’s important to take time to verify with each other that we have filled these blanks with the same information!

The connections between time management, strategic planning, and communication are obvious as you look at these three important activities. All are informed by the priorities of those we serve, our own priorities, and those of the organization. Those priorities are informed by the strategies we define. Our choices as we strive to use time wisely are informed by our understanding of these strategies and priorities. The extent to which we communicate effectively is a key factor in the quality of all the rest.

I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to serve as a mentor ever since our program was founded several years ago. As my protégé and I talked about the value of the program this week, I was particularly encouraged that this year we have expanded what was a staff mentoring program to include faculty mentoring. We both see very real potential for the mix of staff and faculty this time to help us develop a new generation of leaders for our university that could collaborate across the existing faculty/staff divide more effectively. By learning together about how we plan for strategic priorities, allocated our time and resources wisely, and, especially, communicate about the competing demands we must balance to serve our students, I believe we will all be better able to serve those who come to us to learn.

As we manage our time and priorities, it is important to remember to give our loved ones one of the most precious gifts we have. Our time and attention. Always I will keep asking myself, "Am I spending my time on what really matters?" I hope I will have the courage to answer truthfully and act on that answer.