Time Management Tips: Effective Strategies for Managers
As a manager, getting through your daily duties can sometimes feel like spinning plates. Just as you’ve got everything balanced, there are always a few more tasks looking to take up space on your to-do list.
It’s tricky to manage your time with your own workload and your team’s workload, not to mention the flow of meetings that disrupt any sense of rhythm you might have. But rest assured that the tips included in this blog can help you manage your time more effectively, giving you the space to progress and develop, as well as complete your current responsibilities.
Remember, even with these tips, you won’t achieve perfection – but that’s not the goal. The goal is to better manage your time through actionable tips.
Quick links:
– The importance of time management skills for managers
– Time management tips for managers
What is time management?
Time management is the ability to plan and control how you spend your time to achieve goals more efficiently. For example, defining that a meeting will last 15 minutes instead of 30 minutes, so that you’re not wasting time chatting at the start of a short meeting.
Humans struggle to determine how long a task will take, sometimes leading to over- or underestimates. Becoming more attuned with these estimates will enable you to manage your time better.
As a manager, this will involve not only balancing your own time, but it will involve managing other people’s time, too.
The importance of time management skills for managers
Managers must have a great sense of time management, not just for their own sake, but for the sake of their team, too. Proper time management within a team leads to more time to take on tasks like coaching, better decision-making, and team development.
As we’ve already covered, the goal isn’t to be perfect, but even small changes to your time management strategy can make a world of difference. Time management doesn’t just improve performance, though. It also helps to prevent stress and burnout that can otherwise lead to poor staff retention.
Time management tips for managers
Now, let’s take a deeper look at some of the tips that you can use to become better at managing your time and the time of your colleagues. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, so don’t be afraid to test out a few options and decide what works best for your team.
Organise and prioritise your tasks
Organisation and prioritisation are the most important tent-poles of any good time management plan. They allow you to clearly lay out your plan for the day, with estimates of how long tasks will take, while ensuring that the most important tasks are completed first.
Speak to stakeholders to determine how tasks should be handled. Prioritise tasks with a short deadline, and break up larger tasks with small, easy-win tasks to prevent burnout. The natural dopamine hit from ticking off tasks from your to-do list will extend into your work on larger tasks.
Figure out when you work best
One of the key ways you can maximise your time is by assessing when you work best. People naturally have something called a circadian rhythm, which includes natural peaks and troughs in energy and, therefore, productivity.
Difficult tasks that require the most brain power should be completed during your most productive hours of the day, reserving the low-hanging fruit for the times when your energy levels drop. There’s no right or wrong way to do this; some people are more productive in the morning, but others are more productive in the afternoon.
However, it’s worth noting that you might sometimes have to go against your circadian rhythm to complete a task with a tight deadline.
Avoid multitasking and learn to delegate
When you’re busy (and maybe even a bit of a perfectionist), it can be easy to bite off more than you can chew. But this could be killing your productivity.
Flitting between tasks without being immersed in any of them leads to a poor standard of work being handed over. So, how do you avoid this?
Firstly, prioritise your work so that you are completing a task before moving on to the next one. Secondly, learn to delegate properly. Is there an urgent task that’s been thrust upon you while you’re neck-deep in work already? Don’t worry! Check with your team if they have the resource to take on an extra task – and don’t be afraid to reject a task if you’re swamped.
Use a timer
A timer might sound like a simplistic method to manage your time, but the old tricks are sometimes the best. A timer can help you to plan by assessing how long tasks take, allowing you to plan better in the future.
But it can also be used to give yourself breaks. The Pomodoro Technique involves working for 25 minutes, followed by a 5-minute break. Although it sounds counterintuitive, this break gives your brain a small respite and may allow you to produce higher-quality work in a shorter space of time. Play around the timings to see what ratio allows you to work most effectively.
A timer can also act as a target, inspiring you to complete the task in a certain time frame.
Respond realistically to requests
When ad-hoc requests come in, there’s a tendency to respond to client and colleague requests of “when can you get this done by?” by blurting out the soonest possible time, without considering our other commitments. Carefully consider how long a task will realistically take you to complete before giving a deadline.
It might also help to ask how urgent the request is. If it’s not urgent – but you don’t know that – you might be inclined to give a very short deadline, piling unnecessary pressure on yourself.
If a deadline is thrust upon you, be prepared to respond constructively.
A reply such as: “I appreciate the urgency of this task, but X hours/days isn’t a realistic deadline when considering my workload.”
Learn the power of saying “no”
As we mentioned earlier, the ability to say “no” when you’re swamped will benefit everyone in the long run. Rejecting additional tasks will help your colleagues to manage stakeholder expectations better, allow you to complete the tasks you’re working on to a high standard, and prevent burnout.
Proper prioritisation of your tasks will help you to assess when it’s appropriate to say no to even more work. If you’ve prioritised right, you should have some leeway to add small tasks if they’re required of you.
Be kind to yourself
As we’ve continued to reiterate, the goal isn’t perfection because that just isn’t possible. Remember to take regular breaks and give yourself some breathing room to avoid burnout, which can be catastrophic if not prevented.
Time management is ultimately about stress management, so don’t use time management as a way to add more stress to your life.
With all those tips in mind, you should be on your way to managing your time at work more efficiently. By planning, prioritising, and allowing yourself the chance to say no to unrealistic expectations, you can use time to your advantage.
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