Its time for another post based on what I have learned from work. This is my first role where I have managed a team as well as had my own sales target and I am also in charge of developing the online platforms for the company. I am really enjoying my new job but I am struggling with time management.
STEP 1 Prioritize your time
The first thing you need to do is to prioritize your time. On monday morning I sit down and decide what I need to get sorted that week. I will then write these down as a list in my word processor and then put them in an order of priority. I will then speak to those people who I need to arrange meetings with and put them in the diary.
STEP 2 Set times for each task and do not go over them
The next thing to do is to set aside time to do those tasks you have on your list, set a time to do them in and try to stick to that. This is sometimes impossible but hopefully you will be able to save time in some tasks to make for those inevitable meeting overruns.
I find having an ipad is great for workflow as if you are waiting around you can get something else sorted.
STEP 3 Do the rest of your work
Now its time to do your normal job. In my case this is selling, I need to hit a target and ensure the rest of my team are doing the same. I try to do this in between the hours of 10.30 and 4.30 and occasionally after 6.00 as I this is when people are more available in my experience.
Some great tools to help your time management
I have found a couple of great tools to help me manage my time better these are Trello and join.me
Trello
Trello is a great tool, in essence it holds all of the tasks for all members of the team, you can also have personal boards. This enables you to keep one eye on any projects your team are doing and at a glance you know where your team is.
It is very easy to use and understand and will let you assign people tasks as they come along. I find this an invaluable tool for managing workflow, the beauty is that it is cloud based, I work from home and this tool lets me keep in touch with what is getting sorted.
Join.me
This is very much like Go to meeting but to me its much slicker and it is also free on a basic level. It is a great tool for showing people what is on your computer screen, all you need to do is open the app and share the link. The person on the other end adds the url into their browser and away you go. This is the slickest and fastest system of this type I have come across and I have used a few.
Please let me know of any time management tools you use as I know I need to be more efficient with my time.
