I mentioned in my initial post about It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work that the broad message of the book centered on the maintenance work necessary to run a calm company. One of the most important skills they discussed was time management, particularly in the context of the growth-related issues I mentioned last time. The authors suggest that learning how to "say no" is the core skill for good time management because it allows you to constantly refine the best use of the forty hours in each week. They also mention some useful tactics - one example is discouraging Friday deadlines, which may lead to rushed work while potentially forcing teams to work over the weekend if any errors are noticed after releasing the final product. The best deadline, I think, finds the balance of coaxing high-quality work while leaving enough time to work out any last-minute issues.
Experienced workers may note that in some organizations the above considerations are often outside the staff's control. This observation highlights the important role an organization's leadership plays in terms of setting the culture. One consideration is how work ethic is defined within a company - if it's associated with time spent on the job, then the top employees will focus their efforts on accumulating hours. I've learned from my experience that poor design within an organization will often override the clear thinking of most employees - the "whatever it takes" mentality, for example, may have a time and place, but it will never help the team improve their time management skills. Speaking broadly, if the culture of an organization discourages employees from determining the best use of their time, then the employees won't make the best use of their time, making the eventual result somewhat inevitable - the organization will find itself unable to make the best use of its time.
