Time and productivity: Are you as productive as you want to be?

Time is a ‘premium commodity’ in any business. It is essential that business owners and managers learn how to properly manage time to improve productivity for both themselves and the people around them.

Getting more done with the limited time that we have does not mean that we spend more time at work. While worker more hours for a specific project DOES work in the short term, we need to find a process that helps us sustain the desired productivity level in the long run.

Essential Tips for Effective Time Management

Effective time management is about working intelligently. Business owners and managers should be able to determine which tasks are the most critical, and establish a logical sequence of the things that must be done. Additionally, we must be able to know the best way to tackle a particular task or activity.

Criteria to consider in order to maintain the desired level of productivity and achieve our goals and objectives include:

• Formulate a plan for the things that must be done for the day, week, month, quarter or year.
• Establish your priorities and eliminate non-essential tasks and time-wasters from your to-do list.
• Find the tasks that you can outsource or delegate to someone else. In this way, you can focus your time and energy on the activities that are within your range of competency and capability.
• Multi-tasking can lead to wasted time and resources. Our productivity tends to suffer when we are preoccupied with a lot of tasks. It is better to give our undivided attention on the most important task at hand before moving on and starting on something else. (This is really hard for me because I love starting new projects.)
• Avoid procrastination by observing the “Ten-Minute” rule. Develop the habit of working on the most difficult jobs for ten minutes on a daily basis.
• Get rid of distractions before you start a task. Block out the time allotted for critical tasks or activities and make sure that your work is not interrupted by unnecessary emails or phone calls.

Monitor your progress by establishing the mile-posts. Determine how you are moving towards your goal or desired end-results.