Effective time management: Work smart, not fast

Its 2019 and even with the huge assistance that technology can offer, most workers are still struggling with the amount of workload that is put upon them.

Many people under pressure burn out as they attempt to get all their work done before deadlines.

When people burn out their productivity levels drop dramatically and in worse cases, they can be signed off work due to stress or mental health issues.

We have put together a few tips to promote to your team in order to help them work smarter, and not faster or harder, which should hopefully result in a better environment for them to work.

Time themselves

One of the better skills your team can develop is the ability to time themselves with their tasks.

This should not be seen as a negative skill and you are not keeping track of their time, but when employees realise how long particular tasks take to complete, they can then accurately allocate their time accordingly and not overload their schedule with a large amount of work, which would not even be possible from them to complete in their allocated time.

Stop multitasking

Most of the workforce multitask without even knowing, especially with the notifications of incoming emails popping up in front of their current tasks, employees stop working on their current task to read their new email.

They then decide if they should action the email there and then, or even reply to the email to let the sender they have received.

We recommend that you implement a strategy that employees do not need to look at their emails straight away, they can action when they get to it.

A brilliant example of an email strategy is to place emails into daily named folders, the employees then have their allocated emails they need to action for that day.

Once the folder is empty, they can then concentrate harder on their tasks for the day.

Don’t start from scratch

‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’ is a brilliant quote your employees should work by, when assigned tasks it is best not to start from scratch but to use templates that have already been created or previous work that has been submitted.

This style of working is very smart for employees to utilise, the format of everyone’s work will be consistent and allows them to put their own personal twist on things.

This route can increase your employee’s productivity, especially as they wouldn’t be ‘reinventing the wheel’ but utilising tools available to them to produce better work which in turn can increase their happiness at work – especially if they are praised for said work.

Prepare the night before

Not everyone has the get up and go in the morning, some must wait for their morning coffee to kick in before they even think about what tasks they must complete for the day.

It would be very beneficial for employees to plan their days the evening before, or for the employer to allocate a specific amount of time at the end of each day for workers to plan.

This can help employees to plan their day when they are more alert and aware of what tasks are more important than others, when employees plan their workload they get a sense of achievement when they finally tick everything off their list and receive praise for completing their work on time.

Time management can also have an impact on employee’s mental wellbeing, being more flexible around their time both in work and at home, read more about how you can improve wellbeing at work here.