Effective time management for the workplace

Ben Brearley reveals his top time management skills which will make your workplace as efficient as possible 

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on Thoughtful Leader

There are a number of reasons why people find it difficult to apply time management tools. Here are some top time management skills to help you improve your effectiveness (and make it stick).

Prioritisation

Prioritisation gives you a target to aim for, and a direction in which to head. It’s true that this can change during the day, as life happens, but without a direction, you’re working aimlessly at the whim of the workplace.

Schedule time in your calendar for your key priorities

Book meetings with yourself in your calendar where you can focus on your key priorities for the day or week; this way, you increase your chances of having time available to complete them. Without this step, you run the risk of setting priorities, with no realistic time allocated to complete them. This also prevents others from filling up your calendar for you, which is a common workplace occurrence.

Keep your big to-do list handy

There is nothing wrong with keeping a longer to-do list handy. This will contain longer-term projects and larger items that may not be your top priority on a particular day. Keep this list close, because sometimes you’ll complete your top priorities for the day and have some spare time. You might also have small blocks of time during the day where you can tick off a quick task, because there isn’t quite enough time for one of your top items.

Pushing back

When your boss or a colleague might ask you to take on something that you hadn’t planned for, if you can, push back with skill, diplomacy and respect and you’ll be well-placed to manage your time effectively. Of course, it’s not easy, but it doesn’t need to be. Here are a few strategies that can make it feel like more of a conversation than a flat out ‘no’. 

• Negotiate priorities – here’s where your priorities list comes in handy – this will help people to understand your workload and decide what might be most important.

• Offer a different solution – sometimes people will ask you to do something a certain way but, if you can come up with an alternative method which is quicker or easier, you might be able to suggest it in place of the original proposal.

• Ask for help – if you’re aware of someone else who might be able to help (when you can’t), you can suggest them as a potential option – it doesn’t always need to be you.

Delay the task – see if you can propose that the extra task be completed at a later time, maybe the next day or next week. If it can’t wait, see if one of your other priorities can be delayed instead.

As you can see, these options are professional, courteous and respectful. You might not always succeed in pushing back when you’re faced with a demanding stakeholder; however, you’d be surprised at how often people are willing to co-operate when you push back.

Delegation

Delegation makes it into my top time management skills, because it’s much more than a time management skill – It helps with team development too.

Delegation is all about giving someone else responsibility and authority for completing a task or managing a function of the team. This can be helpful because it takes work off you, but it also provides a potential development opportunity for somebody else. If you can delegate challenging work, your team members may learn new skills in the process.

If, instead, you simply delegate all of your least favourite tasks, you’ll only receive the first benefit, which is to reduce your own workload. You will also potentially damage motivation in your team, because people will be lumbered with annoying work that they know you don’t want to do.

Keep in mind the different levels of delegation

There can be different levels of delegation; the level you choose will depend on the level of skill and motivation of your team member. You can put in place any ‘guard rails’ you need to maintain oversight of the work – for example, you might set up daily or weekly meetings to check in with your team member specifically on how the delegated work is progressing.

Apply these time management skills to improve your effectiveness

Your behaviour, and ability to set boundaries, is the most important aspect of managing your own time. These time management skills will take practice and repetition before you become more comfortable with them.