Leadership and Time Management - Time management techniques for young managers

SKILL: Effective Time Management

EQF LEVEL (INTERNAL REFERENCE): 4

Keywords 

1 Myth of multitasking

2 Overloading

3 Ability to say no

4 Delegate

5 Delay

Introduction: 

This module addresses the issue of time management for young leaders, taking into consideration the most frequent difficulties they may encounter.

By the end of this learning unit, you will know how to implement measures, both in managing your own activities and in dealing with employees, that will allow you to optimise your time.

Content:

Have you recently obtained a leadership role and don't know how to get all the tasks done?

Do you struggle in the daily search for an order that seems impossible to find and fear you can't handle all that stress?

Time management is indeed one of the most crucial aspects for those in a management role, and often challenges even experienced managers.

It is therefore necessary for  budding managers to use some techniques that help and support them, allowing them to devote some of their time to broader activities such as strategic choices, training and developing creativity.

The first step is to dispel the myth of multitasking: taking care of multiple tasks at once doesn't actually save time. On the contrary, on the one hand you'll run the risk of missing some elements due to constant distractions, making your work less precise and accurate whilst n the other , moving from one task to another will force you to mentally reset at each switch to do a mental reconnaissance of the relevant aspects and parameters of the new task. You'll then lose many minutes in the short steps, effectively lengthening the lead time.

It is much more effective to have a task schedule in which you decide to dedicate yourself to a specific task for a specific, well-defined amount of time.  During this time window, avoid distracting yourself with other input (e.g., emails, phone calls, conversations with colleagues) unless it is a top priority. If this is the case, attend to the emergency for as long as necessary and then return to your task by expanding the time window for the minutes or hours you missed.

If you have been in a senior role for a short time, you will probably find yourself having to answer a lot of questions, both from employees, who want to know what to do and how to do it, and from superiors, who will want to monitor your activity to evaluate you.

The desire to present a positive and helpful image of yourself, as well as being seen as  efficient and hardworking, can lead you to make the mistake of accepting all requests and thus taking on a large amount of tasks and activities.

You've undoubtedly heard or directly used responses such as "give me time to think about it and I'll get back to you" or "email me and I'll get back to you as soon as possible." All phrases that indicate a deferral of the problem. However, deferring means, firstly,  taking time to create reminders and orders of priority. Secondly, it means having to mentally address the same problem multiple times, by virtue of the mental reset we mentioned earlier.

The solution to this problem is not a one-size-fits-all type of solution: depending on the urgency.he importance of the request and the person making it, the response you will need to give will change.

If the request is inappropriate or irrelevant, the answer may be a simple, flat "no." Some people, especially those with little experience, struggle with clear-cut denials. If you are one of these people, don't forget that one of the key skills of a manager is the ability to say no. Try to reflect on the fact that while at first you may risk arousing the antipathy of your interlocutor, in the long run your leadership skills will certainly be admired, both by employees and superiors, which is expressed precisely by the ability to deny.

If the request is relevant but not urgent and not of strategic importance, try asking yourself if you can delegate it to a colleague: this way, in addition to having a lesser workload, you will also have the advantage of empowering a colleague and showing him your trust.

If your staffing levels do not allow for frequent evaluation of delegations, either because of a lack of numbers or because of the amount of workload already assigned, you can compensate for this lack by imposing a simple rule: every time an employee comes to you with a problem or a request, he or she must at the same time present you with one or more solutions.

In this way, you will save a lot of time since you will probably already have the solution for some problems, provided by the person concerned, and you will also stimulate the autonomy and creativity of employees and collaborators, promoting a company climate based on responsibility and mutual trust.

Test 1 

It is advisable to Choose an item use multi-tasking i.e taking care of several tasks at the same time.  . If you do this, you promote   Choose an item.

Correct answers: never - optimization of time and quality of work

Test 2

The practice of deferring until the next day Choose an item. If you have a problem, you may need to consider how to address it through a . Choose an element.

Correct answers: should be limited as much as possible - solution hypothesis

Test 3

In the interest of time optimization, when an employee or collaborator comes up with a request or problem you must always evaluate   Choose an item and Choose an element accordingly.

Correct answers: and assess its importance and priority - decide whether to manage it, delegate it, or drop it

Language Point

Creating Complex Sentences

Skilled writers use many complex sentences such as the one below:

The desire to present a positive and helpful image of yourself, as well as being seen as  efficient and hardworking, can lead you to make the mistake of accepting all requests and thus taking on a large amount of tasks and activities.

Writers do this because:

1. It makes it easier to add layers of information and detail when writing.
2. It gives our writing a higher level

To become good at writing such sentences you need to do a number of things:

• Get into the habit of looking for such sentences when reading
• Write them down
• Break them into smaller sentences
• Try to rebuild them
• Check your work against the original sentence

For example, when broken down, the sentence you read above should have a number of sentences:

1. There is a desire to present a positive and helpful image of yourself
2. There is also the desire to be seen as  efficient and hardworking 
3. This can lead you to make the mistake of accepting all requests 
4. The result is that you take on a large amount of tasks and activities.

It is these sentences that you need to rebuild.