Become a master of time management

Time keeping; like all good skills; can be learned and refined. In your professional career, time management will be one of your most valuable assets so it’s important to make sure you are proficient in it.

Below, we’ve outlined some of our top tips to make sure you excel in time management.

MAKE A LIST

Start your day or end your day by making a list. Not only will a list help you to organise and plan your day, it allows you to clear your mind of all of the things outstanding that you need to deal with.

PRIORITISE

What are the most important things you need to do? Are these tasks repetitive? If there are things you need to do in order to be successful or help someone else – prioritise these things first. You can then work through the remaining tasks in order of urgency.

DELEGATE

Are there any tasks on your list that you don’t need to do? Delegation is a fine art and having the ability to delegate tasks that don’t require your skillset is a valuable commodity. It allows you to free up your time to complete those tasks you do need to do and ensures that all responsibilities can be completed in good time.

SET DEADLINES

Now you’ve got your list and worked through the priority workload, you can begin to look at the remaining tasks. Set deadlines for completion of them so you have a goal you can aim towards. It will also give you structure to your day and week.

STOP MULTI-TASKING

Multi-tasking does not help productivity. In fact, it destroys it. Not focusing on one task causes your brain to lose focus and causes tasks to take a lot longer than they should. Likewise, ‘dipping into’ your inbox whilst working through tasks also kills productivity. So close down anything you don’t need and focus on your list – one task at a time.

LEARN TO SAY NO

A key aspect of good time management is knowing when to say no. Sometimes, there are not enough hours in a day. It can be hard to say no; you may feel guilty or like you’ve let someone down. The issue is, not saying no actually hinders your efforts to do the work you’ve already committed to, meaning you are disappointing people anyway by being unable to focus your attention on those tasks. Saying no sometimes is inevitable and feeling comfortable in doing so is key to good time management.

UTILISE TECHNOLOGY

There is an app for everything and making sure you’re utilising the technology available is a great way to boost your ability to keep time effectively. If you’re a sales professional, there are many tools at your disposal – some of them are detailed here. Apps for task management and reminder scheduling are vital to ensuring tasks are prioritised correctly and actioned in an appropriate manner.

There are many more tricks and tips to make sure you are successful at time keeping – are there any key ones you use that you would like to add to our list? Email us at [email protected]