Managing Time Wisely

How to Manage Time Effectively in the Workplace

Managing time wisely is of key importance to a small business owner. How to manage time? Understand the importance of time management in the workplace; use effective time management techniques.

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How to Manage Time?

Before you can manage your time better, you need to understand where you are spending time. Track your business activities (day and night) for at least a week; keep a daily journal. Make sure you include all the details (what, when, why, how). Use a calendar software program or a day-timer or even set up an excel worksheet.

The next step in developing your own time management techniques is to define your time management goals. Do you want more time to do more (of something else)? Or do you just need less time working, so you can find some work/life balance?

Understanding how opening a small business or growing your business and managing change impacts time management techniques and results is important. Ensure you focus efforts on decision making and problem solving techniques that save you time, and also improve your business operations.

Once you’ve completed the tracking of activities and developed your goals, you need to prioritize your activities. What’s most important to you and to your business? Can you delegate some of the tasks or activities? Or hire someone as a contractor to do some of the work; for example, a book keeper, sales agent, human resources, website coordinator, marketer, management consultant – there are lots of advantages of outsourcing.

Develop protocols and operating procedures for your business; these will help with time management in the workplace. If you develop procedures and schedules – and keep to them – you can improve efficiency. For example, if customers have complaints about your products or services, formalize a procedure for handling those complaints. Develop a quality handling system and you will save time, improve quality, and build stronger customer service.

Minimize the 'touches': I learned this time management technique years ago. Don't handle a piece of paper, an email, a problem - or what ever – over and over again. Focus on dealing with whatever you need to do once. When you receive mail, read it, deal with it and move on to the next item.

One of the areas that I have most difficulty with is turning away staff who want/need to talk to me. They 'drop by' my office to talk. I like to have an open door policy so I often let staff come in and talk. When I started to realize how much of my day was consumed with these talks, I decided to better manage the time. I've now told my staff that my door is 'open' for one hour a day from 1 to 2 p.m. for ad hoc discussions; other than that daily time if employees need to meet with me, they need to make an appointment. This works well for my time management efforts - managing time wisely allows me more time and I get more work done!

Create to-do lists and follow them. Allocate a certain amount of time for the various activities in your life. For example, first thing in the morning I spend minutes reading emails and mail. After 15 minutes, I move on – usually to voice mail messages, then to my daily Hot Sheet (which includes all the statistics I want to see on a daily basis – number of project quotes, sales to-date for the month, number of incomplete jobs, etc.).

Focus on minimizing interruptions in your day; eliminating daily crises; and taking scheduled breaks or downtime.

Managing time wisely is important to the effective operations and health of your business. It's also important to your personal health.

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