Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Time Management

Paco spoke to us about time management. He goes from shorter to longer, from more predictable to less. For example, when he has a test he starts with the multiple choice questions, then does the short questions and leaves longer problems or essays for last (to which he devotes as much time as he has left).

I suggested that one should also pre-determine how much time one wants to spend on each thing. For example, on a three hour three part test, you might set aside half an hour for the first section, an hour for the second, and an hour and a half for the third. Otherwise, you risk spending too much time on a specific area.

Ale mentioned that some standardized test, such as the SAT, force you to spend specific amounts of time on each section. The negative though is that if you complete a specific section early you can't take advantage of the extra time to work on another section.

On the "real world", I often work with entrepreneurs who are so busy with their day-to-day challenges they have not time left to work on longer term strategic issues. My advice to them is to block time in their calendars for their "non urgent" strategic stuff, because the day-to-day often takes up all the time you have, no matter how many hours per day you work (so working harder is rarely the answer). Besides, a few extra hours to fight fires is unlikely to make a big difference long term - but a few hours spent on strategic issues are crucial.

Another approach that I like to take in tests is to take a quick pass at each section first, then take another pass to improve things a bit, and keep iterating for as long as I have time. That way you make sure you get all the "low hanging fruit" and spend appropriate time across all areas.




2 comments:

Unknown said...

Paco spoke to us about time management. He goes from shorter to longer, from more predictable to less. For example, when he has a test he starts with the multiple choice questions, SAP SCM Tutorial

Unknown said...

Tom Says,

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