Bangalore: Getting more organised at work, or even in one's personal life, has to begin with organising one's time, at home and in the office.

"Even the most meticulous person may find his or her plans going off the rails because they have not properly managed the time available to them... say, 16 hours a day when you are awake," says consultant former HR head M.K. Rao.

Of these hours, anything from eight to 12 hours or more are likely to be spent at work, depending on your profession.

Start with the `small picture' — one working day — and build up to the larger picture of each quarter or even a half-year at a time, he suggests. And the ideal time to plan for the working day is not in the morning but the previous evening, before you head home.

There are reminder and day-plan slips available now at most stationer's and they are divided into hours. Suppose your working day starts at 9 a.m., write down what the first hour should be: to read letters or email messages, return or make phone calls and, perhaps, get down to working on an ongoing project, alone or as a team.

"Each hour can be made to count if you can minimise disruptions such as phone calls or reading junk mail on the Internet. Make it a policy that you take phone calls or meet visitors only in the early afternoon and reserve the first four hours of the working day to serious work," suggests Mr. Rao.

Here too, you can make a list of priorities; work that needs to be done immediately and work than can wait till after the lunch break.

"Scheduling group meetings for early afternoons helps, because most people would have attended to their immediate tasks by then and will not get impatient or start fidgeting," he says.

A 3 p.m. meeting becomes more productive in terms of ideas generated than an 11 a.m. meeting. Much later in the day and energy levels are low and attention spans shorter.

It may be a good idea to gather all the information you need for a project at its early stages or even before kick-off time.

With all facts and figures and client expectations on hand, you can plan the work better.

It will also save the time of having to keep asking others for information.

"The Internet does have its advantages. While junk mail and unwanted advertisements keep popping up, you have filtering facilities unlike when you had to physically open envelopes and then dump them," says Mr. Rao. Once you have got used to organising your working day, you can start organising the rest of your life too.

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