One of the crucial components of business success, no matter the industry or specific market demands, is proper time management. People who manage their time better than others are usually the ones who stand out and are able to thrive in the business environment. This is especially true in the modern work setting, where the internet and highly-developed networks among professionals require constant engagement.
As a result, some crucial and valuable tasks can suffer and get pushed aside, as often there’s just not enough time during the day. This can particularly be an issue for positions such as product managers who usually handle large and very complex projects and oversee numerous people involved in product development processes; or the business analyst working on business analysis activities. With all this, it’s often difficult to stay focused on what matters.
Therefore, some sort of time management system is necessary to be able to prioritise the constant flow of tasks quickly piling up on the to-do list. Without it, keeping the project moving forward and having everyone aligned and working toward the common goal would be extremely difficult.
There are several techniques and methods developed for these purposes, and each is tailored for a certain kind of work environment and personal work responsibilities. It’s important to find the one that will suit specific activities, needs, schedules and work life balance
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One of the most widely used methods is the 4 Ds of time management. It’s a fairly simple and easy-to-implement system for organising your time and to-do lists. As it’s easy to learn, it’s perfect for beginners and those just getting the grip on time management. However, it’s also frequently used for handling more complex time management requirements, as its simplicity helps make sense of cluttered work schedules.
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What are the 4 Ds of Time Management?
With most projects being done with a tight deadline, time management is always of the utmost essence. Quick decisions on how to prioritise and handle tasks ahead are necessary, especially when the amount of work becomes overwhelming.
The 4 Ds of time management offers a technique to help decide what tasks are the most important and map out when and what to do with each of them to cross them off the to-do list. It’s a set of four different, yet complimentary, actions that can go a long way in making your work day more efficient and helping finish a project faster and within set deadlines.
The 4 Ds are Delete (or Drop), Delegate, Delay (or Defer), and Do. Applying them to your work schedule enables swift and proper prioritisation where you can choose whether to act on certain tasks immediately, do them at a later time, delegate them to someone else or scratch them off entirely. Below, I’ll break down each of the 4 Ds of time management and explain how to use them to handle your work more efficiently.
Delete (Drop)
Cleaning unnecessary stuff from your to-do list helps you clear the cluttered work and focus on what really matters. During a certain project, people working on it will often encounter staff that in no way contribute to accomplishing set goals. Checking spam mail, attending unproductive meetings, and similar duties only waste time and reduce the overall productivity.
The Delete part of the 4 Ds method often requires some ruthlessness when saying “No” to certain tasks, but it certainly is effective. Still, deciding to drop something from the schedule is sometimes easier said than done. After all, if an item is unnecessary, the question is how it made the to-do list in the first place. The trick when using the “Delete” technique is to spot inefficiencies in the work schedule, even if they may be well hidden.
For every scheduled action or activity, you should consider whether it helps you move closer to the required result or set objective. Long meetings can often be done in a much shorter time. Some meetings even won’t contribute anything useful to your part of the job. The 15 or 20 minutes used to go through promotional could certainly be used better, so unsubscribing from those lists can add a bit extra time to every work day.
A careful and honest assessment of daily routine will surely reveal even more tasks that are, basically, just a waste of time. Dropping them will not free up the schedule, but save energy and make you feel more ready and inspired for the work that really matters. Of course, when eliminating a certain action from your daily schedule, you should always try to communicate it to the other people involved in the task you’re getting rid of.
Delegate
Even if some tasks are essential for the desired outcome, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to do them yourself. Some stuff on the to-do list may not require your particular set of skills and it’s quite possible that someone else on the team is more qualified to do them. No one is an expert on everything. You should look to delegate every task that needs to be done but may be considered a waste of your own skill or time. It will free up the schedule and allow you to focus on more pressing issues.
Still, it’s essential to be smart about delegating. While it is a very efficient time-saver, you’ll need to make sure that the person taking on delegated tasks is capable of taking them on and completing them on time. However, delegating a task doesn’t imply relinquishing the responsibility for its successful completion. So, even if the task is being done by someone else, it’s still a good idea to review it once it’s done to ensure it’s properly and accurately performed.
Some managers apply the “70% rule” when it comes to delegating. This means that if someone can perform a particular task at 70% of the level you can do it, that task can be safely delegated. Sometimes the person who ends up with the delegated job may do it even better than you would have done it. Needless to say, delegating requires a certain level of confidence in the other members of your team.
Plus, for the sake of work relationships, members of the team should also have confidence in their leaders and trust that they’re not just delegating to have someone else do their work. When done right, delegating will make the person who’s been assigned the job feel like a valued part of the team.
Delay
Some tasks are important and need to be done to achieve desired goals, but are not particularly time-sensitive. Commonly, the tasks you delay or defer, are tasks that can be performed at a later time. This often happens when you’re in the middle of working on one task and someone interrupts it with a request for another task.
In most cases, it’s a good idea to put off the new task until later and preserve your workflow and focus. Unless, of course, the new task is an emergency. Plus, some tasks are better done at a later time when there’s more available relevant information and resources.
Certain tasks can be safely passed once the work on that has already started. However, in those cases, it’s essential to precisely schedule when you will finish them and not let the delay turn into procrastination and failure to complete the task on time. The delayed tasks should be dealt with at the first available opportunity.
Another way to approach efficiently delay non-urgent tasks is to sort them in the do-do list by their due dates instead of listing them by the time they appear. This is very handy when you work on multiple tasks with different deadlines as it helps you put the most urgent ones forward. Also, it will prevent you from first working on projects that seem more interesting and fun instead of those that are more urgent.
Do
While a fair share of good management is successful planning, at some point, it’s time to act and do. Some tasks are top priorities and need to be started immediately. Sorting all tasks by priority will allow you to do them one at a time, with the next most urgent always the next in line to take on.
Another deciding factor should also be what tasks take the least of your time. If a certain important task takes only a few minutes, it’s best to be dealt with immediately. This will allow you to take care of several smaller jobs quickly and free up time for more complex tasks. This is the reason why many managers start their work day by answering important emails or answering calls.
For many, this is the easiest part of the 4 Ds of time management. In essence, you just have to do things and move forward. Still, sometimes it’s hard to prioritise and decide whether a certain task is worth moving to the top of the list and going immediately.
You should consider that commonly, all tasks on a project are interconnected. So, delaying an urgent and important job may negatively affect the successful completion of other tasks. To decide, you should carefully consider whether that task is urgent, are the required resources and information currently viable, and whether it will interrupt another ongoing task.
Who Created the 4 Ds of Time Management ?
The 4Ds of time management process were first outlined in Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Les Hewitt’s book, The Power of Focus, (which was later updated to include cover material from their subsequent books). They advocate using this technique to separate fake-urgent activities from really essential ones and reclaim time control.
