Understanding Effective Time Management
The focus of effective time management is not necessarily on completing a greater number of assignments in a shorter period of time; however, effective time management focuses on being able to clearly define the “right” things that are worthy of your attention with a purpose in mind.
There are a number of very reputable chains such as the Harvard Business Review, McKinsey & Co., that have shown how a portion of your organization’s overall performance and productivity is directly related to how your employees spend their time in an organized manner.
Prioritization and Strategic Focus
Many professionals that specialize in providing guidance on being more productive and effective have indicated, including; Stephen Covey, that being able to clearly identify what is most important to you and or your organization before the day begins is critical for your success.
Structured Priority Approach
One approach that can help you prioritize your work is to determine which of your tasks are of the greatest urgency and which of your tasks will create the most value for you and/or your business. This will also help you develop a preventative approach to avoid becoming reactive and/or distracted from getting things done.
Using an organized list of priorities will also give of the most popular structured priority methods because it divides your tasks into four quadrants based on urgency, or level of importance. This method of structuring priorities makes it easy to determine if you should perform, plan, delegate or eliminate a task.
Advantages of a Structured Workday
- Preventing time lost to little impact activities
- Improving long term planning through greater consistency Creating a Structured Time-Blocked Work Day
Time Blocking Strategy
Time blocking is a work technique that assigns a specified number of hours to specific types of work. By proactively breaking up the workday as opposed to reacting to tasks on an ad hoc basis, people manage their day in advance by segmenting their time into time-blocks of focused activity.
Time blocking has been utilized for several years by professionals who work at companies such as Google and Microsoft to effectively manage their complex workloads.
Benefits of Time Blocking
When you time-block, you minimize distractions associated with multitasking (which tends to hinder productivity) and by minimizing distractions with time blocks, it is also much easier to track how much time you’re spending on different types of activities, thus making it easier to pinpoint potential areas of wasted time.
- Using the same blocks every day allows for consistency to be applied, creating an easy process for developing dependable routines that will allow you to save energy.
- Environment that promotes deep work and no interruptions
- Eliminate switching costs by minimizing the amount of multitasking activities Build structure and self-discipline into your daily schedule
- Allows you to see all of your activities making your overall workload easier to manage and reduce the amount of rework
Avoiding Multitasking and Enhancing Focus
A lot of busy individuals will try to do multiple tasks at the same time; however, this method will generally lead to incomplete or poor-quality work.
Should you choose to follow the single-task model, your brain will work more efficiently on that one task and will likely finish the task in less time. In addition, concentration levels will increase, causing your brain to experience less mental fatigue making it easier for you to sustain productivity throughout the duration of the day.
Focused Work Techniques
- Create a work zone by establishing parameters during work hours; use specific towels or materials when working.
- Using short bursts of concentrated effort will help you establish new energy levels and avoid burnout.
- Periodic breaks will allow you to remain alert; working on one task will allow you to concentrate on that task alone and will allow you to complete that task.
Managing Distractions Effectively
Common Distractions
- Mobile alerts and social networks that are frequently checked.
- Interruptions (unplanned) from receiving emails or messages.
- Messy or disorganized work surroundings.
- No specific goals for each task.
Improving Clarity and Direction
Providing clarity and direction within daily tasks. Enabling measurable results.
Reducing Notifications
How to Eliminate the Sheer Volume of Notifications, thus Minimizing Your Distractions.
Building Consistent Daily Routines
By having established an effective daily routine, we will not need to make continual decisions about what is to be done next; thus, we will have additional energy available to complete our work with the quality of the finished goods.
For busy individuals, routines to give them an unpredictable structure to an otherwise chaotic calendar of events. Daily performing a set number of tasks at specific times (a.m./p.m) will become habitual as we become accustomed to doing these every day; this means less energy will be expended in our brains when completing a task because they become habitual, thus increasing the productivity of each day.
When you have a consistent daily routine, you will be working to increase your productivity and efficiency using every minute of your time to improve the quality of the end product that you have produced.
Morning and Evening Routines
Creating morning and evening intervals in relation to your daily routine will provide you with added productivity in the beginning of your workday. It can be used as a time management tool that allows you to set priorities and plan your workday.
If you have been successful in the beginning of your workday, you will continue to be productive for the remainder of the workday.
Evening intervals of your daily routine are equally important because they provide you with closure of the previous workday’s tasks. It can also be used as a means of preparing yourself for your workday tomorrow because you will review all of the tasks that you accomplished today, thus allowing you to avoid transitioning from one day to another with any level of confusion.
Delegation and Workload Management
Assigning Duties and Controlling Workload Are Crucial Management Skills. Delegation is one of the key time management techniques for anyone with many different responsibilities.
When completed correctly, delegation will not only lessen your burden of workload, it will also improve your time management skills.
Identifying Delegatable Tasks
How to Identify Tasks that Can Be Delegated. There are many tasks that you do not necessarily have to perform yourself to accomplish your goals.
- Reduces stress and workload
- Increases productivity and speed of task completion
Leveraging Tools and Technology
Some people prefer a simple task management tool while others will prefer a more sophisticated project tracking tool. Ultimately by utilizing these types of habits regularly, better time tracking and organization can be achieved.
- The ability to be reminded of deadlines and meetings.
- Reduction of effort to plan manually.
- Improved coordination in a team.
When utilized in the correct manner, technology is an extremely effective support system that allows a person to manage their busy schedules with increased clarity and productivity.
Continuous Improvement and Review
The Review/Adjustment of Time Management Strategies Should Be Performed Regularly – Time management systems should not be seen as a “take it or leave it” process, but rather as an ongoing program that is reviewed and adjusted regularly.
As a person’s responsibilities change, their schedules and priorities will also change, and thus, they should be re-evaluating how they are spending their time.
The importance of continuous improvement in productivity methods has been emphasized by many organizations including Deloitte. In the case of many established systems the effectiveness of a system diminishes over time if it isn’t reviewed periodically.
Making Practical Adjustments
- By reviewing your weekly performance you can have a better idea how you are progressing on your long-term goals and continue to meet your goals moving forward by establishing consistency with your long-term goals.
- Revise your schedule according to your actual workload and energy level Replace ineffective habits with habits that have more structure
- Remove unnecessary tasks that do not provide value
- Develop more effective planning habits based on past performance
Conclusion
As work continues to change and progress into a new way of working, those individuals who develop structured ways of using their time will be better prepared to respond to the ever-increasing complexity and change of their schedules.