Time Management

Time management consists of organizing, prioritizing, scheduling, and planning to make the most of the workday. Without time management, the work and well-being of individuals can be compromised, leading to:

• Poor work quality.
• Missed deadlines or milestones.
• Increased stress levels.
• A disrupted work-life balance.

Why Is Time Management Important?

Time management is an important factor in the workspace as it helps professionals manage their workday without having to compromise their work-life equilibrium. With that said, there are a couple of key points as to why time management is beneficial.

Increased Quality of Work and Productivity

When individuals aren’t distracted by racing and pacing in the office to meet deadlines, they can focus on their responsibilities fully. Time management helps with task prioritization and allows professionals to complete their tasks and assignments timely and efficiently, as rushed work can result in more errors and lower quality.

Individuals who implement a proper time management system and give themselves enough time for each task can take a breather and properly focus on individual tasks. This can result in employees not only completing more tasks but delivering better quality work.

Less Stress

When individuals manage their time, they can adequately distribute their time for each task and assignment. This ensures that employees can work at a comfortable pace and keeps uncompleted tasks from accumulating.

Moreover, good time management ensures employees don’t rush to complete their duties, which can be a great stress trigger and result in tiredness and disengagement. Proper time management makes employees less likely to overwork themselves or miss their due dates.

Manage Multiple Deadlines

Meeting deadlines or milestones is a pivotal part of work culture and often speaks of how responsible an individual is. Time management allows individuals to prioritize their tasks by importance or urgency and handle multiple deadlines without much chance of failure.

Steps for Effective Time Management

There are many ways to achieve proper time management culture, but here’s an overview of the basic steps.

Set Goals

Individuals set goals that are realistic and achievable. The SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely) method is very helpful for time management. It allows individuals to realistically set their goals according to the five words that sprawl from the acronym. 

Prioritize Effectively

Professionals with good time management skills prioritize their tasks by urgency and importance. They achieve this by viewing their daily tasks and determining which ones are:

• Important and urgent tasks: To be completed immediately.
• Important but not urgent: To be completed during the workday.
• Urgent but not important: To be delegated if possible.
• Not urgent nor important: To be deleted from the task list and set aside.

Create Plans

In order to get better at time management, employees plan their workday in advance by creating a to-do list or a daily task plan with all of the important activities the employee has to complete that day and the allocated time entries for each task.