Time Management Skills for Managers

Whether you’re a first-time manager or simply need a bit of a refresher course, learning and applying proper time management skills will go a long way in your career success.

Before we jump into effective time management skills for managers, let’s discuss the “why” and “what” regarding time management. Time management is simply a method of organizing how to best use the 24 hours in a day to accomplish personal and professional tasks.

The Eisenhower Matrix, developed by US President Dwight Eisenhower broke time management into four groups:^[1]

Do First, Schedule, Delegate, and Don’t Do.

All time management skills fall somewhere within this matrix. Learning to break up your time and tasks effectively will allow you to accomplish goals and successfully lead your team — without losing your sanity.

1. Know How to Properly Plan out Goals

Benjamin Franklin once said,

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”

The founding father hit the nail on the head, and learning how to properly plan out your team’s goals is key. As for goals, you should set daily, weekly, monthly, and even yearly goals that can be broken down into manageable assignments.

For example, if you have a goal of increasing traffic to the company’s website by 10 percent over a year, you’ll need to set measurable milestones weekly, monthly, and at the six-month mark to keep the goal on track.

2. Good Communication Will Make a World of Difference

Good communication can make or break any relationship — personal or business – and when a manager is struggling with their time management, communication often suffers. However, if a manager takes the time to listen and communicate with their team and clients, it can make all the difference in a business’s success.

Be sure to communicate regularly with your team members to ensure that they’re working towards milestones that have been laid out. A manager that clearly and regularly communicates with customers is also more likely to grow their business. Be sure to make the most of your time with thoughtful communication.

3. Good Organization Is Key

Strong organization involving both delegated duties and your actual workspace is crucial to effective time management for managers. If your team is disorganized and people are unclear of what assignments are on their plate or who they should turn to for help, any set goals will suffer.

Good communication and good organization go hand-in-hand when it comes to making the most of one’s time.

As for the organization of your workspace, well, if you like to keep your bedroom messy at home, that’s your business, but messiness has no place in business. Every minute that you’re looking for a misplaced file is a minute wasted that could have been better spent.

4. Effective Delegation Is Everything

Effective delegation will help to set up your team members to work confidently and effectively. As a manager, it’s your responsibility to assess who on your staff is best suited for what task and to assign the responsibilities that go with it. Failure to take the lead and delegate duties will only waste both the time of you and your team members.

By carefully delegating different duties and ensuring your staff has everything they need to complete those duties, team members will be less needy of you when it comes to getting the job done.

5. Schedule the Proper Tasks at the Proper Time

If you were building a car, you wouldn’t start by trying to install the sound system before the frame was in place, would you?

The first block of the Eisenhower Matrix is Do First, meaning decide what the key duties that you need to knock out are before moving on to the next thing. These might be small things like replying to a query from your boss or they could be larger, such as finalizing the plans for a new social media strategy.

The point is, to make sure you learn to prioritize the most important tasks of each day, how long you’ll need to complete them and when they should be addressed.

6. Learn to Recognize Multitasking Traps

Everyone has multiple things they need to do, but when we try juggling all those things at once, some are bound to hit the floor. It’s far too easy to start working on one assignment and then jump into your email because you got a ping on your phone. This is terrible for breaking your concentration and just forces your brain to play catchup.

Instead, set aside specific time blocks in the day to check and reply to emails. By focusing on one task at a time, you’ll finish the job sooner and give it your brain’s full attention.

7. Learn to Prioritize Not Only Your Time, but Help Employees Prioritize Theirs

We might think that we devote a solid eight hours a day to the core duties of our jobs, but research shows that’s not usually the case.^[2] You can help your team make the most of their time (and yours) by occasionally doing a time audit. Set aside one day where you have your staff track what they do and how long they spend doing it.

Make sure you’re clear that this exercise is meant to help employees in the long run and is not a way of weeding out poor workers. Hopefully, with enough data, you and your team will be able to better determine what’s working and how to avoid any work lags or interruptions.

9. Keeping up Appearances Can Go a Long Way

Just as sailors look to their captains for guidance in a storm, your employees need to feel that you’re managing your time well. If every time your employees approach you, you’re frazzled and in a rush, they’re more likely to hold off on coming to you about important issues.

There may be the occasional day when you are struggling to hold it all together, but keeping up the appearance of a manager who is on top of their time management game can help in impacting others to manage their time effectively as well.

10. Know What to Do When Your Plate Is Getting Too Full

A little pressure and a deadline can be powerful motivators when it comes to hunkering down and getting things done. If you find that your list of “must-do” jobs is getting a little too long, it could be an indicator of two things:

One possibility is that you’re not managing your time as effectively as you could be. If that’s the case, go back to the top and review.

Even the best manager though has their limits and there are only so many minutes in a day. A good manager doesn’t try to do every task that comes their way themselves. They know how to best use their staff to help ensure that goals are met and they know when their workload is at capacity.

11. Understand the 80/20 Rule

According to the Pareto Principle or better known as the 80/20 rule, 80 percent of results come from just 20 percent of actions. The other 20 percent of results come from… you guessed it, 80 percent of actions.

As for how this all factors into the time management of an effective manager, well, the must-be-done, no excuses priorities might only be 20 percent of your job, but they’ll produce the biggest results. The remaining 80 percent of duties can probably be delegated out among the staff on your team.

12. Don’t Be Afraid to Take a Break When Needed

If you’re working like a freight train every second of the day without taking a few minutes to step back and breathe, you’re going to experience burnout. Burnout is that sneaky time management killer that creeps up when you’re trying to make sure not a single minute goes un-devoted to work. The result is that you’ll soon have less energy and concentration and eventually your work may take a toll on your mental health.

Scheduling downtime for yourself is important. So encourage your employees to take breaks and don’t forget to take them yourself. A few breaks throughout the work day can go a long way in putting you in the right mindset for making the most of your time.

Final Thoughts

It’s easy to get caught up in the “day to day” of the business and find yourself developing unhealthy habits as a manager. Focus on building out the recommendations in this article, and spend time empowering your team. Not only will overall productivity improve, but you’ll also find yourself fast becoming a stellar and respectable leader.