From the course: Time Management Tips

Time management for managers and leaders

From the course: Time Management Tips

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Time management for managers and leaders

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- Most people struggle when it comes to time management. This means that if you're in a managerial or leadership role, you not only need to help yourself but also others. I recommend getting some form of in-depth time management training, perhaps the time management fundamentals course here on the library. Here, though, are a few tips for managers and leaders specifically. First is establish a one-to-one meeting schedule. Now, it's very common for people to interrupt each other throughout the day in the workspace, however, I've found that leaders are most guilty of interrupting their co-workers, why it that? Well, often there's a little bit of a mindset that your time is more valuable. Instead, let's establish a consistent schedule where you bring your questions and they bring their questions and then you deal with them in a focused manner. Second, establish a positive example. This means that if an assignment is due, you want to complete it early. If there's a meeting, arrive five minutes before the meeting. Doing all of these things not only will help you not feel as rushed, but it swill also emphasize in the minds of the people who you lead that time management is important. Third, use a visual tool for task management. Now, if you're leading a team, you're likely delegating many tasks to lots of different people. It can be a real chore to keep track of what everyone is doing. If you use a task management tool that helps you see that visually, it'll put it all in place. Some of these tools will even create something called a Gantt chart that shows how all of the tasks stack on top of each other and create a timeline. A few resources that work for this are Todoist, Wrike, or 5pm. And fourth, avoid being the bottleneck. Now, what's a bottleneck? That's where all the work flows into one spot and it can't proceed until that person completes it. If you're the bottleneck, that means everyone else is waiting on you. Instead, try to delegate to other people as much as possible, and if you have a task where other people are waiting on you, make that your top priority. In short, if you focus on improving your own time management, your example will help your team grow.

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