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82 - Time management

from Section 3 - Activities and tools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2018

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Summary

Time management

MIND TOOLS (2016A) define time management as ‘the way that you organize and plan how long you spend on specific activities’. Bartlett (2012) suggests that it is not that we don't have enough time, we just need to make the most of it and her article reviews a number of key books and journals available to help LKS staff adopt good techniques. Improving the way that you and your teams manage your workloads will increase productivity, enable you to deliver a more effective service and will remove stressors from within the team.

Feeling overworked is one of the key reasons that people feel stressed in the workplace and helping your team members to adopt good practice when it comes to managing their workload within the time available can help to alleviate this. You may identify that a member of your team is struggling via regular one-to-ones or during appraisal when they have dedicated time to speak to you about their workload and the difficulties that they face. Alternatively, other members of the team may tell you if a colleague is regularly missing deadlines or appears to be struggling to keep on top of their work. Monitoring feedback from customers can also highlight if there are issues with meeting deadlines within the team.

Improving an individual's time management skills

So what can you do to help an individual to improve their approach to time management? As with any issue, the first step is to talk to the team member in order to find out what the problem is and listen to their response. Use your coaching skills to help them to pinpoint the problem and to explore options with a view to finding a solution. It is important that you do not make assumptions about what is happening and also avoid taking on their workload yourself, as this will transfer the problem to you; it will not empower the individual or help them to be accountable for their own work.

Your role as a manager or supervisor is to listen to the individual and support them. You may find out that they feel overwhelmed by the amount of work they have to complete, or that they are setting unrealistic deadlines. Or there may be issues outside work which are impacting on their ability to focus and manage their workload.

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Publisher: Facet
Print publication year: 2016

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