Personal Time Management 3 - What should be used?

Many of the resources used for personal time management may be transferred into the you place of employment or business.

The list which follows is not exhaustive and some or many items may not suit your circumstances. When used they should help create an ambience for better time management:

Habits or regular practices:

1. Set your watch, wall clocks and alarm clock about five minutes early;


2. List you aims for the forthcoming period (day/ week/ .../five years and then set priorities;


3. Immediately before the next week plan your wardrobe for every day


4. Every night layout your clothes, etc for the next day;


5. Have a "folder for lists" and then make lists for it (see later post);


6. Once in a while, about every two weeks, review the last 164 hours and break down your time into principal activities (see later post);


7. For projects list the main activities and events (an activity starts with an event and ends with an event).

Personal Time Management 2 - What Wastes Time?

Do poor personal time management attitudes and practices spill over and affect an employer's expectation of an employee's poor time management?

Time wasting is a cluster or cloud of unthinking. For a particular individual in may include one or more of the following:

• a lack of clear personal aims and objectives;



• a lack of personal priorities in a given period of time;



• a personal tendency to "butterfly" , ie flit from one thing to another before completing anything;



• a lack of detailed planning;



• a failure to develop an attitude to improve everyday practices;



• a failure to develop habits, routines or protocols in daily life;



• a lack of appropriate resources and so achieve task on time; and,



• a tendency to procrastinate or let go of self-discipline.

The earlier (original) film "Cheaper by the Dozen" and the book upon which the film is based will give a vivid and amusing insight into the above - they are about the Gilbreth Family of Frank Gilbreth and Lillian Moller Gilbeth.

Personal Time Management 1 - Why manage time?

Do the why's and how's of personal time management spill over into an employer's expectation of an employee's attidudes and skills of time management?

In personal life time management might be undertaken for a number of reasons. The following are suggested as some of the possible personal benefits:

• being more effective in getting things done;


• remembering to do things appropriately;


• reducing personal stress;


• reducing dissonance in family and other personal relationships;


• generally having more time and so being able to do more or spend more time on relaxing or enjoying leisure;


• getting household or leisure tasks done on time; and,


• getting to appointments on time.

How to choose a Career or Job - Ideas No1 Life Analysis (Update 28 July 2011)

Choosing the right career or job (or change of career etc) is a basis for happiness so it would make sense to think about your mind-set with the view to fixing the right future for yourself. It is probably quite easy to review your past in terms of experience-based knowledge, skills, insights, contacts, etc. The quality and nature of your mindset may not be so readily apparent to you - this will be considered in Ideas No 2.

Firstly, I suggest that you explore your past with the view to learning about yourself - your own life analysis. A step-by-step approach might be adopted as follows:

1. Collect events or dates about your life and record them in a loose leaf folder - indicating their importance, if any, to your personal development;
2. Collect personal papers, eg old passports, educational certificates, sports awards, testimonials, school reports, etc;
3. Recollect facts and insights from travel - business, work or leisure, eg about languages, countries, customs, etc;
4. Collect or make notes of important happenings, role models, etc from in your past - some may be historic, sporting, etc figures who examples gave you insights and so on;
5. Talk to colleagues, friends and relatives (as and when) about the past and what they can rember about your early days - make notes of snippets and insights gained;
6. Make a list of former work or business contacts, making a note of any memories of important work-related or business-related insights given;
7. Make a list of authors or books which have helped to shape or sharpen insights into identified knowledge, skills; and,
8. List your accomplishments or "track record" from early times, eg school-days, work, business, military, volunteer opportunities, sport or leisure etc.

If you have a particular potential career or job in mind you might like to use the contents of your folder for a personal SWOT analysis, ie relating the analysis to the career and / or job .

"Wheels to Work" - Moped Scheme in New Forest

Looking for work usually involves considerable expensive travel by bus or train, for example:

• travel to interviews at employers' premises;


• regular visits to the office of Jobcentre Plus;


• visits to the nearby town's public library to job-search by on-line or in local newspapers; and,


• travel to Learn Direct or some other training establishment.

Walking up and down on the South Downs Way from Winchester in four days of blissful weather, I came upon the New Forest's "Wheels to Work" Mobed Scheme - details were given on a village notice board.

Wheels to Work enables selected young persons to have a conditional loan of a mobed and a variety of "appendages". The package might include for instance:

• the moped with lock and MOT;


• helmet and clothing;


• insurance;


• training in riding a moped; and,


• etc, etc.

For the young cash-strapped seeker of employment or training for work the scheme is a boon.

Referrals to the scheme may be made by a referring agent, such as - Jobcentre Plus, Youth Service, employer,.. self-referral is allowed. Detailed notes on the Scheme were later found (you know where). Numerous schemes are littering the countryside - see: http://www.cfnf.org.uk/ and search 'Moped'.

Mandatory Work for Jobseekers and Job Clubs

Regulations 2011 SI 2011 No 688 has been scrutinised by the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee of theHouse of Lords(?) and the reponse from the Department of Works and Pensions was useful in getting a handle, ie for me, on mandatory work for jobseekers. Initially a minimum of 10,000 persons will come within the scheme and it is expected to grow. For Job Clubs there is scope to help those who might otherwise or will come within the mandatory work scheme. Initially consideration for needs advice and practice might be based upon:

• the importance of the practice of personal time management - setting and identifying targets and outcomes;


• how to source and procure support in personal job searching;


• learning and taking on board innovative and speculative approaches to job searching;


• action-research in obtaining and rationalising work experience into meanful outcomes;


• recording and explaining "work experience" from life experiences in situations involving work (of course) but also leisure, volunteering, church activities; home life and so on;


• networking at courses, exhibitions. business shows etc so as to understand how employers "think2 and "react" to one's personal behaviour;


• the rationale of complaining and the current procedures for progressing a complaint.

Members' experience in and with their job club will enable them to successfully avoid the negative aspects of indicating behaviours (to use the DWP jargon) and so get regular work by their own efforts - this not wishful thinking!

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldselect/ldmerit/126/12606.htm

Intellectual Property Rights No 2 - Protection of IPRs

Since the last post on niche members the government's Department for BIS has issued a press release on the need for companies to protect their intellectual property, ie innovations requiring protection with patent, registered design, copyright, ...etc. The press release (link below) shows the range of services available from the Intllectual Property Office. http//nds.coi.gov.uk/content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=418943&NewsAreaID=2&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bis-news+%28BIS+News%29 The British Library runs a free on-line short course which introduces the subject of IP protection - a good first step!