Time Management for Managers: alleviate the strain

“I love deadlines; I love the whooshing sound they make as they fly by…”- Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

If you find “time” regularly runs through your fingers or out of the door, this invaluable session at the Management Conference is for you.

As you move into management, this is an opportune time to learn ways to become as efficient as you can be within the time you have available. This can be a daily challenge both at work and at home.

Alleviate the strain

• Whatever hours you have in your working day, are you setting yourself up to fail or succeed?
• Do you know the purpose of your role?
• Do you tend to procrastinate?
• Do you allow other people to constantly interrupt you?
• Are you an organised or disorganised person?
• Do you fail to plan and prioritise your workload?
• Are you constantly busy, but still can’t seem to get things done?

The aim of this session is to help you regain control by identifying the fundamentals of managing your workload. Together we will consider the most common causes for poor “time management” and some key strategies to make us more effective at doing it.

Understanding the difference between being “effective” and being “efficient” is a good place to start. Two adjectives that are constantly confused when determining the purpose of your role.

Are you focused on the activities that deliver results? Effective managers recognise those that do and importantly those that do not. When you feel your motivation waning, check whether the activity you are carrying out is adding value to your role.

Are you a yes person, always wanting to please others, to be seen as helpful to the point of not getting your own work completed? Learn to recognise time-stealers and what you can do to help them respect your time.

Do you hear yourself using words like, “tomorrow, later, another time, next week”? Get into the habit of taking action and getting on with it.

None of us set out to waste our time, energy and our organisation’s money, however poor habits, doing things because “that’s the way they’ve always been done” can get us into a rut.

Develop and maintain good habits to help you become more personally effective in your management role.