By Chally Kacelnik
In How to Effectively Prioritise Tasks, I shared a little about the prioritisation toolkit that is so popular with our program participants. The act of prioritising tasks, however, isn’t the be all and end all of time management, so here’s another perspective.
Time management can be difficult for lots of reasons, external or internal. Here are some common reasons:
- We underestimate how long work actually takes
- We accept work from people without those people knowing what else we need to do
- We accept a task without understanding the context, purpose, quality, quantity, resources and/or time – and assume the task needs to be done better and quicker than is actually required
- We are too nice to clarify actual expectations
- We are too nice to say no
In support of prioritisation, there are some useful habits and behaviours you can adopt to support better time management at work:
- Discuss and agree on the purpose and scope of your role with your manager
- Make sure others who give you work know your role’s scope and purpose
- Discuss and agree on the primary level of work of your role with your manager
- Make sure others who give you work know your role’s level of work
- Discuss and agree with your manager the authorities you have in your role
- Make sure others who give you work know your role’s authorities
- Discuss and agree SMART goals/KPIs with your manager
- Make sure – through effective social interactions – that tasks that you give to others, and tasks you get from others, are clear on context, purpose, requirements, and resources
A clear and assertive approach to time management will support you and others to get your work done with less stress, better relationships, and a renewed sense of purpose in your role.
At LKS Quaero, we help leaders get the right set up to achieve their goals. For more information, visit us at lksquaero.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
