Time Management Tips for Managers in 2021

14 June 2021

Time Management Tips for Managers

These five time management tips are from LinkedIn Top Voice, Vartika Kashyap. 

“Time is a created thing. To say, ‘I don’t have time is to say, ‘I don’t want to.” – Lao Tzu

While there’s a certain degree of truth to Lao Tzu’s thought on time, I am sure that life was not as arduous, hectic, and fast-paced many centuries ago when he penned these words. Today, the life of a working pro is not easy. When it comes to managers, you can say that we have so much to do in a limited amount of time. Managing employees, supervising tasks, ensuring that deadlines are met, attending meetings, travel, and everything else that falls under the umbrella of managerial responsibilities.

There are times when we wish we could have more than 24 hours in a day to perform our responsibilities efficiently. Do you also find yourself in the same position as a busy manager? If the answer is yes, then this piece is composed solely and purely for a large number of managers who often find themselves running behind time rather than ahead of it.

On the other hand, some managers always seem to have enough time on their hands and we wonder how. Surely, they don’t have a magic wand that can stop (or slow) time in its tracks. However, what these smart managers do have is the ability to manage time in a way that they can get most things done on time, besides maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

Wait, wait, wait. Don’t curse yourself for not being able to manage time smartly as some managers do. You see, they are not from another planet, are they? If you can also follow some tried and tested, proven time management strategies then there’s no reason why you can’t master time management as well.

I have compiled a list of five amazingly effective time-management tips that will help you a great deal. By following these time management tips, you’ll be able to wrap up high-priority tasks within a set time besides making sure that the work doesn’t pile up.

Smart Time Management Tips For Managers In 2021

1. Planning is a Prerequisite to Good Time Management

Whoever said that time spent planning is time wasted at the expense of doing work must have got it all wrong. Honestly, how can you expect to do things on time when you don’t plan how you should go about doing your job before you get to work every day in the morning?

You should create an outline of what things you need to work on and how you plan to achieve them. Sit with your team and define individual or collective job responsibilities and train your staff where required. Initially, these might appear to be time-consuming activities but will help you to be a top-performer at work.

2. Set Time Estimates for Each Task

As a manager, how would you know if tasks you and your team are working on are getting done on time or behind it? Again, if you’re manually tracking time for each task then you’re doing yourself (and your organization) no good. It’s time to use something reliable, accurate, and automated.

Using a time tracking tool inbuilt in project management software can help you a lot in this regard. You can set time estimates to define how much time it should take to get the work done. You can track time manually or use timers to record the time it takes to get work done. Using such a useful tool gives managers a clear indication of whether the time taken exceeds the estimated time or not.

3. Eat The Frog First

No, you don’t have to eat the frog. That would be way too cruel on this creature. The frog denotes the most important and the most impactful tasks you have on your to-do list. You can also label such tasks as high-priority tasks. You should work on these tasks first thing in the morning (eat the frog) to make sure that the important work is completed within a set time frame.

Once you are done with high-priority tasks, you would experience a sense of achievement that the most challenging part is over. You can now afford to relax a bit, take a break, and then focus on doing work that is relatively straightforward and does not require much time and effort from you or your team.

4. Delegate As and When Required

You may be a project manager, but you are not super-human that’s for sure. Why do you take it upon yourself to do all things or the most important ones? Why do you hesitate to share some of your workload with your subordinates? I understand that delegation can get a bit tricky because some managers find it hard to let someone else do the work they used to.

However, there are times when you should learn to let go of some of your job responsibilities only for your benefit. By doing so, you’ll be able to reduce work-related stress besides making your team members feel confident that you have entrusted them with the responsibility of performing some important work otherwise done by you.

5. Eliminate Time Wasters

We might not even realize how indulging in small, non-work-related activities can add up to take a big chunk out of a limited available time with us. Take a note of how often you lapse into time wasters, such as over-checking your social media accounts, emails, or texts each day? If you’re doing it often, you should not be surprised why some (or most) of your work is never completed on time.

Similarly, water-cooler conversations, frequent coffee breaks, or surfing the internet also hampers our productivity. It happens because we fail to draw a fine line between work and relaxation during work. While taking breaks and occasional chit-chat with colleagues happens in every office, you should know that work is your foremost priority that deserves most of your time and attention.

Wrapping Things Up

Without doubt, time is of great importance in every sphere of life. For working pros, completing high-priority things on time is a way to success and consistent delays are bound to result in repercussions.

The key to efficient time management lies in how smartly you allocate time to working on different types of tasks, and how you’re able to cut down on time wastage. I hope that these five time management tips for managers will help you more than you expected. Good luck!

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