Home » Training » Game Changing Time Management Activities You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
Understanding the importance of time is essential for a strong work-life balance.
Time is easily wasted, but impossible to get back. With that being said, it’s important employees don’t burn themselves out by maximizing every last ounce of their free time.
Time management is a concept centered on this philosophy. It’s about utilizing your time effectively, reducing time wasting activities in favor of productivity.
As a leader it’s your responsibility to ensure your workforce are engaged, but satisfied at the same time. Proving how much you care about your staff goes a long way, since they’ll be incentivized to meet objectives.
With a motivated workforce, you’ll nurture a positive organizational culture. Helping employees manage their time more effectively is part and parcel with the process.
If you sense your employees haven’t reached their full potential and could be performing better, there are various time management activities you can engage them with.
These can both distress and disengage them from the mundane nature of everyday work, while making their lives easier going forward.
Stress is a key contributor to poor organization, and this can leave staff feeling overwhelmed and disenfranchised.
You can’t simply instruct your team to improve their time management skills, but you can give them the tools they need to be more successful.
But what time management activities should be leveraged to energize and engage your workforce? Read on to find out and you won’t be disappointed.
Cover All Watches!
Employees fall victim to clock watching, and this can eat into productivity. Wishing the day away certainly isn’t conducive to high performance, but by hiding all watches you can avoid this pitfall.
Providing your staff don’t continually glance at their mobile phone to see what time it is! Constantly checking the time slowly eats away at minutes, and can contribute to a lackluster mindset.
In terms of time management activities, there is a great way to alter your worker’s perception of time. Ask them to close their eyes and judge how long a minute is. This will demonstrate the concept of time.
Some people will perceive a minute to be longer than it is, others the opposite. The practical application here is as follows:
A minute is a constant period of time, yet everyone experiences it differently. It is people’s perception of time that determines how productive they are. If you consider a minute a long time you’ll almost certainly get more done.
Creating an open dialogue about time is a great opportunity to discuss how long daily activities take. Employees will readdress their daily duties with a newfound recognition of time.
This is one of many time management activities which can be deployed simply, yet is highly effective. Employees will see how time flies by, and consider their relationship between passion, productivity, and time.
Scheduling
Employees will benefit from devising their own schedules. Though it’s difficult to accurately predict the work scope ahead of you, at least a rough outline offers effective guidance.
Scheduling is a vital aspect of good organization at work, and should be taught as part of an effective training process.
This is a great way to inspire staff, so they can bring some form of structure and clarity to their working lives. Scheduling alleviates stress which can surface otherwise.
When you approach a work week with no rhyme or reason, you’ll be more likely to procrastinate and see huge obstacles ahead of you. A schedule offers clarity and can enhance your work-life balance.
Logging Your Daily Routine
How often do employees take note of what they’ve achieved the previous day? The chances are not too often.
Getting your staff into good habits begins as early as onboarding. Here you can engage staff with exceptional onboarding, promoting a sense of structure and productivity with regards to bringing structure to daily duties.
By getting your employees to record a list of accomplishments from the previous day, they’ll gain an objective oversight of their successes and failures.
This information is valuable for progression and continuous development. Staff will identify areas of potential improvement, and reinforce positive behaviors which are worth repeating.
Ask your team to identify wasteful behaviors, which consist of distracting and unproductive tasks. If they don’t translate to value, they should almost certainly be removed.
An evaluation of this nature is a great way to eradicate habitual behaviors which hold employees back.
Clocking In
A simple timer can be used effectively to highlight how long things take. When an employee begins a task, they can initiate the timer as a physical representation of time consumption.
Timers can be set for both work and non work-related activities, as a real eye opener for staff who probably don’t realize the time they’re taking to complete tasks.
The goal of this activity is to practically demonstrate how long employees are taking on a given activity. You’ll need to tread carefully when introducing this, because you won’t want staff to perceive you’re monitoring them or encouraging them to work faster!
The level of pressure that would place on staff is counterintuitive. Instead, relaxed timings can indicate how productive your team has been, while motivating them to reach new heights.
