This chapter discusses the importance of time management and organizational skills. It notes that time is a valuable resource and poor time management can lead to stress, inability to complete tasks, and lack of promotion. The chapter reviews several theories of time management from historical figures and authors. It provides strategies for improving time management like analyzing time usage, setting goals, and prioritizing tasks. The chapter also discusses applying time management principles to pharmacy practice and reducing stress through better organization.

1. CHAPTER 10
TIME MANAGEMENT
&
ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS

2. THE NEED FOR TIME MANAGEMENT
AND ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS
Time is one of the most valuable resources we have. Several
philosophies have been iterated about time:
 THE GIFT OF YOUR TIME IS THE MOST VALUABLE GIFT YOU
CAN GIVE.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT PEOPLE’S REAL VALUES ARE,
LOOK AT HOW THEY SPEND THEIR TIME AND MONEY.
TIME IS MONEY.
TIME MANAGEMENT IS NOT ABOUT MANAGING TIME; IT IS
ABOUT MANAGING YOURSELF.

3.  Time management and organizational skills are
important both personally and professionally. Poor
time management can lead to frustration, stress,
and a failure to complete daily tasks or achieve
personal and professional goals. Poor time
management can also cause others to lose respect
for and faith in us ---- we may be considered less
reliable and dependable, less likely to follow
through commitments , and less responsible. If
others feel this way about us, we are less likely to
be involved in committed relationship or receive
promotions at work.

4.  Patient safety certainly can be compromised
if pharmacists practice in a manner that is
hurried, disorganized, and haphazard.
Conversely, good time management skills
can lead to higher quality of life for most
people because they affect so many aspects
of life, both personal and professional.

5. THEORIES AND PRACTICES OF TIME
MANAGEMENT
 In 1675, R.T. wrote a letter to a Mr. R.A.
describing “the art of husbandry , or the
improvement of time: being a sure way of to
get and keep money.” He describes the loss
of a man’s time, which includes time spent in
taverns, coffee houses, or alehouses, as “the
sole causes of poverty in this city and
nation.”

6.  Fast forward to the 1950s, Peter Drucker, well-known
business management guru, wrote The Practice of
Management in 1954. Within this text he put forth the
philosophy and practice of “management by objectives”
and described time as “the scarcest resource and
unless it’s managed, nothing else can be managed.”
 Moving into the 1980s and 1990s, Stephen Covey
became a national hero with The Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People. Covey focuses on character
development through time management: (1) Begin with
the end in mind, and (2) Put first things first.

7. URGENT NOT URGENT
IMPORTANT QUADRANT I
Activities: Crises, pressing
problems, deadline-driven
projects
QUADRANT II
Activities: Prevention and
“principle-centered”
activities, relationship
building, recognizing new
opportunities, planning
and recreation
NOT IMPORTANT QUADRANT III
Activities: Interruptions,
some calls, some mail,
some reports, some
meetings, proximate and
pressing matters, popular
activities
QUADRANT IV
Activities: Trivia work,
some mail, some phone
calls, time wasters,
pleasant activities
TIME MANAGEMENT MATRIX by Covey

8.  Julie Morgenstern describes a different approach in
her book, Time Management from the Inside Out.
She draws a comparison between time and space
and describes each day as “a container, a storage
unit that has definite capacity you can reach.” Her
book through four phases:
1. Laying the foundation – thinking about creating a time
management system that works for you.
2. Analyzing – defining your personal style, preferences, needs,
goals.
3. Strategizing – mapping your ideal schedule and staying on
track.
4. Attacking – putting your plan in action.

9.  Marilyn Paul, author of It’s Hard to Make a
Difference When You Can’t Find Your Keys,
offers a “7-step path to becoming truly
organized.” She claims that unlike other self-
help organizational books , hers takes a
more holistic approach and incorporates
mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual
aspects of one’s life into the context of
getting organized and thus living a better life.

10. REAL TIME MANAGEMENT ----- HOW
TO DO IT?
 1. Recognize the need for improvement
 2. Conduct an honest self-reflection or
analysis of how you currently use your time.
 3. Establish your “mission” and set goals.
 4. Get organized (sort through tasks, create
a master list, prioritize and schedule tasks,
and use a system).

11. TIME MANAGEMENT IN PHARMACY
PRACTICE
 In most pharmacy environments, however,
we do not get to determine how we spend
our time --- the nature of the job involves
responding to the demand of medication
orders and questions from patients, heath
care providers, and others. Rarely that we
have the luxury of planning our daily work
activities.

12.  Time management in pharmacy practice is
based on two issue: how organized you are
personally at work and what the workflow of
is like in your environment. Most of us have
some control over the first issue but not
always on the second. If you do have some
say, however, in yous’ and others’ duties and
how the workflow progresses, there are
numerous recommendations about how to
improve efficiency and patient safety.

13. GENERAL STRATEGIES FOR
WORKING MORE EFFICIENTLY
 Determine the cost of your time
 Understand your responsibilities
 Log your activities
 Plan for productive time
 Avoid time – wasting behavior
 Develop reminders
 Prioritize your goals
 Assign times for your tasks
 Manage e-mail
 Manage clutter
 Manage retrieval of information
 Employ other savers, such as template for regular reports

14.  Mark Jacobs published his thoughts about
making more time for patients in the
pharmacy in the book 101 Ways to Improve
Your Pharmacy Worklife. He suggests six
specific tasks for handling the volume of
phone calls in practice that can help to
improve your professional satisfaction and
ability to care for patients:

15. 1. Make full use of pharmacy tecnicians.
2. Respond to queestions on the phone through your
pharmacy technicians whenever possible.
3. If a patient insists on speaking with a pharmacist, explain
that the pharmacist is busy with another patient.
4. Find out when and where would be the best time to call the
patient back.
5. Gracefully exit the conversation after 2 minutes.
6. Have the technician take down all the information for
prescription transfers.

16. STRESS AS A PRIMARY CONSEQUENCE OF
POOR TIME MANAGEMENT
 Research has shown that individual
characteristics related to job stress include
balance between work and personal life, a
person’s outlook on life, the stressfulness of
family life, and various aspects of personality.
Effective use of time management strategies
should help to reduce the probability that a
person will feel overly stressed.

17.  Research on consequences of pharmacists’
job stress should be informative for students.
It is logical to conclude that what is
considered “job stress” for pharmacists could
be “school stress” for students or a
combination of work and school.

18. CONSEQUENCES OF JOB STRESS
FOR PHARMACISTS
1. Job dissatisfaction
2. Lower commitment to one’s organization
3. Job turnover (leaving one’s job)
4. Lower commitment to pharmacy as a career
5. Substance abuse potential
6. Burnout

19. CONCLUSION
 The goal of this chapter was to raise
awareness about the importance of time
management in one’s personal and
professional lives. Readers should have
come away with concrete strategies about
how to improve their potential. Remember,
time management is not about managing
time, it’s about managing yourself ---- and all
of us can use some improvement so that we
can be more effective in all that we do.

20. SOURCE:
Pharmacy Management: Essentials for All
Practice Settings, 3e.
By:
Shane P. Desselle
David P. Zgarrick
Greg L. Alston