Academic Leadership

Academic Leadership: Fundamental Building Blocks

176

9.3 Managing Your Time

(click the activity index number to take you back to the activities index)

Academic leaders are frequently faced with competing demands on their time and the

need to make choices about how they will spend their time. Time management is very

important to the role of Deliverer. It is essentially self-management. We all have too

much happening in our lives and as leaders we need to be careful that we prioritise tasks

and spend wisely that most precious of resources, time.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this activity is to assist you in managing

your time effectively so that you can be an effective

Academic Coordinator.

Figure 7, based on the work of Carlopio, Andrewartha, and Armstrong (1997) is a

useful tool for auditing how we spend our time. You can use it as a test of how

effectively you manage your time. As you read through these, think about how many of

the activities you tend to do on the list of 11 time management traps, shown in Figure 7.

WE:

• do what we like to do


• tend to procrastinate


• respond on basis of who wants things done


• respond on the basis of consequences


• tackle small jobs first


• follow the squeaky wheel principle


• do things that we can get done quickly


• do the things that are easiest


• to things that are scheduled and planned


• tend to respond to demands from others first


• tend to do urgent things before important things.

Figure 7: Time Management Traps (adapted from Carlopio et al., 1997)