Mastering Time for Ultimate Efficiency

This week, I'd like to discuss an ongoing area of focus and improvement in my professional journey. When taking my first role the sudden influx of responsibilities such as emails, deadlines, and daily objectives initially caught me off guard. The sheer volume overwhelmed me. However, I recognised the need to enhance my time management skills to effectively meet the demands of my workload and fulfill all necessary tasks.

Those who know of personality insights will be aware I am a true Yellow (Yellows are the life and soul of the party, they are sociable, expressive, very imaginative, and enthusiastic with it.) I learned that my Blue (respect value, logic, order, procedure, and process.) was nonexistent... which caused an issue for me wanting to manage a business!

I quickly devised ways to prioritise tasks and remove them from my mind, as I couldn’t sleep with the worry that I had missed something. Here are a few ways I organised my day's tasks.

• I wrote every task down in my notepad; removing them from my mind significantly reduced my stress and worry about what I needed to do that day, week, or month. When I put it on paper, I quickly realised that it wasn’t as bad as I thought, and I could get a lot of these done within the next few hours.
• I would add a number between 1-4 next to each one (1 being the highest priority and 4 being the lowest).

I swiftly progressed in my career and in turn my job lists got larger, my teams got bigger and my responsibilities increased dramatically. ?So I adapted my task management to a whole new level.

• Digital Task Management in TEAMS: I input tasks digitally into my TEAMS task management system. This enables me to manage tasks conveniently from both my work desk and mobile app, ensuring flexibility and accessibility.
• Task Assignment and Communication: I assign tasks to team members through TEAMS, setting clear deadline dates and tagging them. This action triggers email notifications, facilitating effective communication and accountability within my team.
• Integration with Calendar: I integrate my tasks with my weekly and monthly calendar. Some tasks are on a repeating schedule, while others are allocated specific time slots in my week. This integration helps me visualise my workload and ensures tasks are allocated an appropriate amount of time for completion.

The most valuable advice I can offer for task organisation is to set aside 30 minutes each morning to plan your day. Additionally, make it a routine to plan the entire upcoming week every Friday before wrapping up. This proactive approach will significantly enhance your efficiency and productivity.

I prioritise focused work by checking emails and communications only twice daily. This keeps me from constant distractions and allows me to concentrate on tasks. When I'm away from my laptop, I stay productive without ad hoc communication checks.

I really hope these simple and easy task management strategies prove helpful in managing your workload. If you ever want to dive deeper into the topic or have more questions, don't hesitate to reach out. I'm here to help!"