Developing the Skill of Time Management

In a recent survey of managers (conducted at the Irish Management Institute, Dublin, early 1983) more than 80 per cent considered time as a problem for them. Although time is the one resource available equally to all managers, paradoxically, it is a resource that causes considerable stress and concern for individual managers. This resource will prove even more difficult for managers in future, for two reasons. Firstly, managers will be working in more complex and uncertain conditions. As a result they will have more complicated choices to make between alternative uses of their time. It is this pressure of choice that makes the skill of self‐management such a difficult one to master. Secondly, the increasing size and sophistication of organisations raises critical issues for managing time. While trying to satisfy the needs of their own jobs, managers are increasingly open to demands from others. While some organisations are being redesigned to cope with these new dependencies, e.g., matrix management, the burden of managing his own boundaries and time still rests on the individual manager.