Time Management in the Workplace

Time management in the workplace can mean the difference between success and failure.

Are you hard-working and motivated but feel overwhelmed and over-worked?

Do you want to improve your time management at work but don't know where to start?

If so, then you're not alone!

Information overload, hundreds of emails, mergers and acquisitions! This paints a picture of a constantly changing landscape.

In this changing landscape it is important to navigate your way. Good time management in the workplace focuses you on your top priorities, gets better results with less resources, and enables work life balance.

This makes time management in the workplace important for you and your company.

There are many strategies that you can use to gain control of your time management in the workplace!

Here I provide six strategies that my clients have found useful.

These include:

1. Know your job role and how your manager is measuring your performance.
2. Focus on your important and urgent activities
3. Reduce and manage interruptions in the workplace
4. Organize yourself and your workspace
5. Get specific about your next action
6. Too much to do and not enough time: Delegation could be the key?
7. Do it now: Overcoming procrastination

Know your job role and how your manager assesses your performance

Do you know what your job responsibilities are?

Do you have a job scope?

If you are contracting and have specialist expertise, do you know the expectations the company has of you?

One of the most important steps that you can take to improve your time management in the workplace is to clarify your role with your manager and know how your manager is measuring your progress.

When you know your role and key performance indicators it is important to determine the activities that will contribute to those key result areas.

This is important for two reasons:

1. you know what your high impact activities are
2. you have a clear idea of your objectives which allows you to validate incoming information and tasks against those objectives.

My clients tell me that when they know exactly what activities are important it gives them the power decide, and possibly say no to tasks that have little priority.

You can build your priority system on three things:

1. Know what your key result areas or goals are.
2. Use the Pareto principle to prioritize your tasks.
3. Write down a plan or schedule, to ensure that you get your top priorities done.

This alone can improve your time management in the workplace.

My clients have found that career goal setting around these key performance areas can greatly increase their value to the company they work for.

Focus on your important and urgent activities

Now that you know those activities your manager is measuring your performance with, staying focused on your priorities is critical to good time management in the workplace.

But with email, phone calls and social networking sites all competing for your attention, staying focused can be hard to do!

One method to focus on your priorities is download a to do list in which you prioritize those tasks that are important for achieving your targets.

Make sure that you schedule those high impact activities into your time management planner or personal organizer.

Your time management goal is to increase the amount of time that you spend on your top priorities.

If you can increase this by 5% then you will notice a big improvement in productivity and a reduction in stress.

Remember it is progress towards improvement, not perfection, that you are after.

Even though situations will arise with colleagues or clients that demand your immediate attention, having a plan of your work day is a good thing to come back to after being interrupted.

Reduce and manage interruptions

Your mobile and desk phone are ringing, several messages have come into your email, and a work colleague is asking you a question...how are you ever going to reach that important deadline?

Eliminating interruptions is unrealistic - and some interruptions are essential!

But you can probably reduce interruptions and improve your time management at work.

Low priority interruptions cost you time and productivity.

Did you know that according to a survey conducted in 2005 "The Cost of Not Paying Attention: How Interruptions Impact Knowledge Worker Productivity," that interruptions took up 28 percent of knowledge workers time?

These interruptions may or may not be in important, but they are possibly urgent to the person doing the interrupting.

An important question ask yourself is: "Are these interruptions more important to me (and the company) than the task that I am doing now?"

In a world of increasing technology, one way to deal with distractions is to remove yourself from the technology - not likely....is the resounding reply!

But you can use technology for you in a better way.

While interruptions are fact of working life, a better way to improve your time management in the workplace is to manage your work environment and the surrounding technology to reduce your distractions.

What can you do today?

1. Plan for interruptions.

   In your time management schedule ensure that there are breaks between your important activities.

   This buffer time allows you to manage interruptions appropriately.

   Knowing that you will be interrupted and planning for them can increase your feeling of control.

2. Manage email and social networking sites.

   Many workers spend 2 hours reading and responding to email. Email has the potential to dwarf all other forms of communication and one of the most pervasive interruptors in the workplace.

   In an analysis of over 500,000 PC-user hours, the average worker in a day accessed their email over 50 times and social networking sites over 70 times.

   These distractions can be a big time-waster!

   Good email etiquette tips reduce distractions, improve focus, and can boost your time management in the workplace.

3. Block your time for high impact activities.

   Lets face it, we live in world that is competing for our attention.

   This is why you need to be proactive in ensuring that you make time for you high impact activities.

   With the corporate executives and business professionals I make sure that they block out time in their schedule to minimize interruptions.

   When working with clients I have found that this time management tip alone allows them to focus on their top priority tasks.

   If you are still interrupted, either remove yourself from the work environment (work from home if the company allows), find a quite room, or let others know only to interrupt in the case of an emergency.

   Some of the managers and teams that I have worked with have found quite inventive ways to reduce interruptions.

4. Is the interruption worth it?

   When interrupted, ask questions to gauge the importance of the interruption. Get the person who interrupted to rate the importance of the task on a scale of 1 - 10.

   Ask them whether they have asked others, and probably most importantly, ask them what solutions or actions they have come up with?

   This question alone improves your time management in the workplace.

Organize yourself

Organizing tips will make your more efficient and effective.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the average worker spends up to 6 weeks looking for documents that they already have!

They spend 6 weeks per year looking for documents in their desk, in their email, or in their soft or hard-copy filing system.

This is the average worker!

So you can dramatically increase your efficiency by being organized.

I talk more about how to organize your desk and organize files so that you can reduce clutter and focus on your high impact activities.

Get specific about your next action

When I look at client's to do list or things that they have to do, they often have tasks that are very general.

For example the other day, I had a client whose to do list included "train the sales team" and "develop a business plan".

These are not specific!

There are many actions that are required for each of these items on my client's to do list.

Taking an idea from SMART goal setting and also David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity , it is important to get specific in your to do list.

What can you do today?

For each task in your to do list write down the actions that you need to do.

Ideally, your to do list should involve a specific next action item for the project - such as "book meeting room for sales team" or "prepare draft of presentation for sales team".

GTD software may be beneficial if you are looking to make specific actions from your items and to incorporate a good work-flow management system to boost productivity and reduce stress.

Too much to do and not enough time: Delegation could be the key?

Delegation is one of the most talked about yet underutilized skills in time management.

If delegation is done poorly it can result in increased stress, greater absenteeism, and poorer morale in the team.

If done well then delegation can:

1. free up more of your time so that you can focus on your high impact activities
2. be used as a training opportunity and increase the confidence and skills of the people around you.

There are many steps of delegation. Here I talk more about how to delegate effectively.

Do it now: Overcoming procrastination

Procrastination can cause you stress and is probably one of the biggest time-wasters in the workplace.

When I work with clients, often I 'peel back the layers' to identify their causes of procrastination.

Whatever the reasons for procrastination, overcoming procrastination will boost your productivity and improve your time management in the workplace.