Translation sample 2--What is Personal Time Management?

(Translated by freelance Chinese translator li – English to Chinese or Chinese to English translation services）

English-Chinese

Source:

What is Personal Time Management?

Personal Time Management is about controlling the use of your most valuable (and undervalued) resource. Consider these two questions: what would happen if you spent company money with as few safeguards as you spend company time, when was the last time you scheduled a review of your time allocation?

The absence of Personal Time Management is characterized by last minute rushes to meet dead-lines, meetings which are either double booked or achieve nothing, days which seem somehow to slip unproductively by, crises which loom unexpected from nowhere. This sort of environment leads to inordinate stress and degradation of performance: it must be stopped.

Poor time management is often a symptom of over confidence: techniques which used to work with small projects and workloads are simply reused with large ones. But inefficiencies which were insignificant in the small role are ludicrous in the large. You can not drive a motor bike like a bicycle, nor can you manage a supermarket-chain like a market stall. The demands, the problems and the payoffs for increased efficiency are all larger as your responsibility grows; you must learn to apply proper techniques or be bettered by those who do. Possibly, the reason Time Management is poorly practised is that it so seldom forms a measured part of appraisal and performance review; what many fail to foresee, however, is how intimately it is connected to aspects which do.

Personal Time Management has many facets. Most managers recognize a few, but few recognize them all. There is the simple concept of keeping a well ordered diary and the related idea of planned activity. But beyond these, it is a tool for the systematic ordering of your influence on events, it underpins many other managerial skills such as Effective Delegation and Project Planning.

Personal Time Management is a set of tools which allow you to:

· eliminate wastage

· be prepared for meetings

· refuse excessive workloads

· monitor project progress

· allocate resource (time) appropriate to a task's importance

· ensure that long term projects are not neglected

· plan each day efficiently

· plan each week effectively

and to do so simply with a little self-discipline.

Since Personal Time Management is a management process just like any other, it must be planned, monitored and regularly reviewed. In the following sections, we will examine the basic methods and functions of Personal Time Management. Since true understanding depends upons experience, you will be asked to take part by looking at aspects of your own work. If you do not have time to this right now - ask yourself: why not?

translation(by wordfast after clean-up):

什么是个人时间管理?

个人时间管理就是控制使用你最珍贵的(和被低估的)资源.考虑这两个问题:如果你花费公司的钱象花费公司的时间一样缺少安全措施，将会发生什么？你最后一次审查时间分配在什么时候？

当你最后一刻还在赶任务的时候，会议被重复预定或一事无成的时候，日子不知不觉中度过毫无成效的时候，危机不知从哪里不期而至的时候，都标志着个人时间管理的缺失。这种情景导致过度压力和表现下降：它必须停止。

差劲的时间管理往往是过分自信的表现：工作内容和昔日在小项目中使用的技术，在大项目中被简单的重复利用。但是在小角色身上显得微不足道的低效率，在大角色身上就十分愚蠢了。你不能像骑自行车一样骑摩托，也不能像管小摊一样管理连锁超市。 当你职责扩大的时候，对高效率的需要、高效率的相关问题以及高效率的回报也随之而增长；你必须学会运用恰当的技术或者借助于那些会运用恰当技术的人。时间管理没能够有效实施的原因，可能在于它很少成为业绩评价和考核中的一部分；很多人恰恰看不到它与诸多业绩评价项目之间的密切联系。

个人时间管理包含很多方面。大多数管理者能够认识到几个方面，但是很少有人能够认识的很全面。人们会有个简单的概念，按照顺序写日记，并记录下行动的相关想法。但是除了这些，日志还是一种系统安排你如何影响事件的工具，它支持许多其它的管理技巧如有效授权和项目计划。

个人时间管理是一组工具，它可以帮助你：

·杜绝浪费

· 为会议做好准备

·拒绝过高的工作量

· 监测项目进程

·根据任务重要性分配资源（时间）

·确保长期项目不被忽略

· 有效制定每天计划

·有效制定每周计划

需要一点自我约束来做这些事情。

因为个人时间管理像其它的管理一样，也是一个过程，所以必须要计划、监督和经常的评价。在接下来的章节，我们将研究个人时间管理的基本方法和功能。由于真正的理解有赖于经验，你需要参考自己工作的诸多方面。如果你没有时间马上做这件事-问问你自己：为什么不？