Better Time Management in the Workplace
- Do you run your day, or does your day run you?
Improve your time management in the workplace and you will enjoy multiple benefits. Apply the tips below to see, hear and feel… - Less stress, more calm and in control
- Motivated and energized
- Pride in your work
- A sense of satisfaction
- Admiration from colleagues (or envy?!)
When you work, what are you trying to achieve? Is it job satisfaction? Promotion? Are you there to make a difference, or is it about the money? Three crucial yardsticks can be used to define successful time management in the workplace: - Productivity – how much you do
- Performance – how well you do what matters
- Perception – how you and others feel about what you do
Whatever your reasons for doing what you do, better time management at work means you continually strive to improve your effectiveness (what you do) and your efficiency (how you do it).
10 ways to do more of what matters at work:
- Know your roles. Are you crystal clear about what is expected of you? This is crucial because it defines what you decide to spend time on. Not quite sure what you’re supposed to be doing? Your choices are simple:
- Carry on guessing
- Clarify it
If you choose the first option, where will you end up? More to the point, how much time could you save if you decide to learn how to
delegate work
effectively? This is the cornerstone of better time management in the workplace. - Know your goals. Do you know what you’re aiming for, individually and collectively? Will you be able to even tell when you get there? As with roles, so with goals. Know what you want to be, do and have, because, as the saying goes, 'if you don’t plant the seeds, you’ll end up with weeds'.
List your major work goals, and you’ll know what to spend your time on when you’re there. Everything else is a waste of your time. - Start well. Your day actually starts from the moment you wake up. Plan a realistic ‘pre-work routine’ that ensures you get to work as early as possible. Your routine may (actually, should) start the night before.
Why? Well, that first 30 minutes sets the tone for the hours that follow it. So, get your clothes laid out, know where your keys, phone and other personal items are, and have everything ready to go. Your pre-work routine can be continually refined. You may even get to the point where, if you drive, you park your car to face the right way! - Get organized. If you’re not already, start to
get organized
today. Put it on your daily action planner. It doesn’t matter how long you do it for – just do it every day until you get to the point where you know what goes where.
Even if you become just slightly more organized, the pay-off in terms of time saved will be significant. Your working day will flow smoothly, and you’ll reduce unnecessary stress. - Work to limits. Busy people use to-do lists. The trouble is, most people add to their list as and when things crop up. This means the list constantly grows. The result? Many things never get done. Instead, set limits. Here’s how:
- Collect all work for one day (for example, Monday). As the day goes on, put everything that doesn’t have to be done today in a single ‘next day’ tray.
- At the end of Monday, write down every one-off task you have to do tomorrow (Tuesday). Use an action diary to do this.
- Transfer the paper, reports, memos etc. from your ‘next day’ tray to a ‘today’ tray.
- Write in your action diary, the actions stemming from voicemail or email requests.
- Add your regular actions that you want to do daily to your action diary.
That is the limit of your work for today. You know exactly what the limit of one day’s work is. Leave some ‘buffer time’, because ‘urgent’ tasks will crop up, and you'll be
managing interruptions
throughout the day. That’s okay though, because you've reduced the random – you planned for it. At some point, it’s almost certainly worth conducting a more detailed workload analysis to determine the amount of work you are expected to do. This will provide you with an accurate picture, and enable you to achieve better time management in the workplace. - Commit to the high pay off activities. People give themselves more work to do when they unnecessarily volunteer or agree to do something. They say ‘yes’, based on feelings such as enthusiasm for a project or a desire to impress.
It’s vital to ask yourself ‘Is the pay off worth the price?’ Are you prepared to commit your time, energy and reputation to whatever goal, project or task is on the table? Apply the
80-20 rule
wherever possible. - Think ‘little and often’. Often, a huge pile of paperwork or an inbox full of emails is the signal to cherry pick whatever attracts your interest. What happens to the rest? Unless you have a system, it doesn’t get done. Hello,
procrastination!
Instead, think ‘little and often’. If you have an ongoing role, goal or project, act on it every working day, however little. The teacher who checks at least one book won't procrastinate. The same is true for the salesperson who makes one call, or the nurse who spends one minute on her paperwork pile. The initial resistance is defeated, and more gets done. - Consider Covey’s Quadrants. One of the best known, but least applied tools to support good time management in the workplace is the
time management matrix
popularized by Stephen Covey. Use it to help you determine the urgency or importance of everything you do at work and away from it, too.
- End well. Unless there’s a genuine emergency, go home at a set time. Whatever it is, if it didn’t get done, add it to your ‘next day’ actions again until it gets completed. Make it one of your daily tasks to establish a personal end of work routine. Include ‘plan the next day’.
Leave work at work as far as possible. If you intend to work at home, it tends to linger in your mind until you finally do it - a clear case for the existence of
Parkinson’s Law.
The solution? Well, if it’s not at home, you can’t do it, can you? Work at work and live at home - the world will still keep turning. - Stay aware. You want to maintain better time management in the workplace? Keep your
time management tools
accessible. The easier they are to use, the more you will be inclined to actually use them.
Never rest on your laurels; keep looking for ways to maintain and improve your time management in the workplace. You’ll be amazed at the effect it has on your motivation, satisfaction, productivity, energy and happiness. Isn’t that the point of life?
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