Strategic Time Mastery: Elevating Leadership through Efficient Work Practices
“Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose.” – Thomas Edison
There are many skills a quality leader should have — good communication skills being one of the most important — but perhaps the second most important skill that can help elevate the workplace is time management.
Why Time Management is Such an Important Skill for Leaders in Business
Time management is about learning how to use time wisely and manage your employees effectively. When you push too fast too hard to get things done, it leads to burnout, which is the antithesis of productivity. Once you or anyone on your team starts experiencing burnout, it can be challenging to turn things back in a more positive direction.
Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for people in the workplace to end up pushing themselves harder when they start experiencing burnout for fear that they aren’t doing a good enough job. This, however, can make things worse and lead to long-term burnout, which can result in severe mental and physical fatigue, a loss of motivation, a weakened immune system, and frequent mood swings.
This is why time management is so crucial a skill to have as a leader — because it helps protect mental bandwidth, which is another word for your executive functioning and cognitive capacity or the ability to exert mental effort. When you’re burnt out because your time is not well managed, it can have a significant impact on your mental bandwidth.
When a leader has mastered time management, however, they lead their team to make smarter decisions, which fosters efficiency and productivity. When your cognitive functioning is working at full capacity, it enables you to better plan out your day so that the right tasks get done at the right time. This is effective time management — not working faster, but working smarter by making smarter decisions.
Tips on How to Master the Art of Time Management
There’s no single right way to develop solid time management skills. It’s a combination of efforts and mindful behaviors that can teach you how to better manage your time and your team.
Set Personal and Professional Goals
Your personal and professional goals can impact your time management ability. For example, if you aren’t enjoying personal time, not getting enough sleep, or not making time for activities or hobbies you love, this can impact how you feel at work.
Part of learning to better manage your time and mental bandwidth is setting both personal and professional goals for growth, such as learning a new software or tool, getting better sleep, and learning to set better boundaries so you have more time for personal activities.
Automate Processes When Possible
One great way to find more time in your day is to go through all the repetitive and redundant tasks you or your team perform every day and see if those tasks can be automated. It might seem like a minor adjustment, but over time, when you don’t have to worry about doing small things, you reserve more of your mental capacity for bigger things that matter.
Delegate Wisely
Learning to delegate tasks to the right people is a key time management skill. If you don’t have enough people to delegate to, it’s potentially a sign that you need to grow your team and hire more people. Additionally, if any staff members are interested in growing into a management position, start delegating certain leadership tasks to them a little at a time to mentor them and help them grow.
Make a To-Do List of Top Priorities Every Morning
Even if you think you remember everything that needs to get done, get in the habit of sitting down each morning and writing everything down. Doing so can be a huge mental relief and help you create a better plan for your day or week. Highlight the top priorities so you know which things need to get done first to avoid wasting time on less important tasks.
Avoid Over-Commitment
Deadlines are important, but be mindful that you are setting and agreeing to realistic deadlines. Pleasing your customers is essential, but not if it means over-committing and burning out yourself and your team. The quality of the work you and your team do will be much better if you allow for the appropriate amount of time to get things done.
Allow for Flexibility
Your list of top priorities should act more as a guide for your day rather than a hard rule set in stone. You will undoubtedly have days where timelines shift and new things pop up that take precedence, and your ability to be flexible can make your day much easier when this happens. It is not the end of the world if something changes and throws a wrench in your plans. Simply go back to your list and move things around.
Allowing for flexibility also means allowing for breaks and space to decompress. This is critical for you and your employees if you want to manage stress in a high-volume work environment. Your days and weeks must allow time for self-care, both at work and at home. If you can tell your team is being pushed too hard, make them take a break. Go outside for a little walk, do some stretching, refuel with a snack — something to just allow the mind to get a little reprieve to avoid mental bandwidth being over-expanded.
Effective Time Management
To remind yourself and your team every day how to be most efficient with time, consider making a list of the “golden” rules of time management and keeping it posted where you can be reminded each day. This might seem silly at first, but writing things down and keeping them where you can easily see them is one of the best ways to remember something often enough that it becomes a habit. At the end of the day, healthier and smarter work habits and behaviors are key to effective time management.
*This article is written by Ainsley Lawrence. View more of Ainsley’s articles here.
