I bet you know someone who struggles with time at work every single day. Who could deal well with time, before a crowded inbox and interrupted by meetings all day long? After all, how can you handle a task list that never decreases and everything in it is priority? In fact, how will you have time to make a list, first of all? There are several misconceptions about time management. However, some of them just fell down in this post. Check out:
1. All you need is manage your time
Teresa Amabile, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard and coauthor of the book “The Progress Principle” explains that the question is in how we manage our overall workload, not our time. Many managers simply take on too much work or overwhelm their teams. “If you don’t keep an eye on the commitments you’ve made or are making, there is no time management technique that’s going to solve that,” Amabile says. And she concludes “It is possible to say no. It is possible to negotiate”. Raise questions to change the company’s culture, like: How can we be more productive here? Talk with senior managers, understand how decisions are made, understand if there are too many informal bosses or few employees.
2. You have to find the right approach
There’s a difference between what people say that works and what actually works. Being aware of that is a big step in the right direction. “Having a system can be useful, but it takes more than that,” says Amabile. “What works for someone, such as answering all emails earlier in the day, will not necessarily work for another.” The key is to try lots of different approaches — really try them. For you, it may be more efficient to work part time in the morning and part time in the afternoon, and that’s why you should not arrive late at the office. While you try, you can measure your productivity (and all staff’s) by using a task management software like Runrun.it.
3. Over time, you gain experience
Little adjustments make a big difference. But you don’t have to work hard for more five or ten years to be mature enough to do the right thing. Just book 20 or 30 minutes every day to reflect on your performance. What has worked well and what was missing – that’s a great remedy. Amabile mentions the case of a guy who decided to use his vacation week to fight against his stress. He noted how he was using his time, how many commitments he had and tried some techniques people suggested, until he found his own. Take a look on this infographic with some tips from CEOs.
4. It’s up to you – and only you – to get it right
This may be partly true. “There is no one responsible for your productivity, but you,” says Jordan Cohen, writer and expert. However, Cohen and Amabile agree that you should not tackle it all by yourself. “If you’re in an organization where there are pressures for immediate responses or turnarounds on all requests or there is no room for any kind of slack, it’s very tough to do time management on your own,” Amabile says. Organizations unknowingly put many barriers in front of you to get your work done and one of the main obstacles to productivity is precisely in the obsolete methodology of work.
Did you realize that you need as soon as possible to adopt a task, time and performance management software to improve the productivity of your team? Meet Runrun.it, the tool adopted by more than 100,000 companies in over 100 countries worldwide. Try it for free now: http://runrun.it
