4 Productivity Hacks for Successful Managers to Boost Time Management
Time management is a skill worth learning for all employees, managers, and c-level executives. Answer honestly: have you ever looked up from your screen and realized you worked longer than you planned?
While it can be aspirational to aim for work-life balance, actually achieving it can feel a bit more elusive. With full plates and full lives, it can be difficult to know how to prioritize and effectively chip away at your workload.
Luckily, there are countless productivity hacks that successful leaders are already using to soften the stress of their to-do lists:
Productivity Hack One: The Time/Eisenhower Matrix
When we feel paralyzed by the amount of tasks ahead of us, we can spend so much worrying about the workload instead of taking action. In our experience, we’ve found that designating the importance and urgency of particular tasks can enable us to better utilize our time. With the help of the Time Matrix or Eisenhower Matrix, you can breaking up your to-do list into:
Items that are important + urgent: priorities that must be done today or there will be consequences
Items that are important but not urgent: tasks that can be proactively planned and time-blocked for a later date
Items that are urgent but not important: teammates’ priorities that may require action from you; terms of the task may be negotiated or the task as a whole may be delegated to someone else
Items that are not urgent nor important: tasks that take time away from priorities; may be eliminated completely or done in small amounts to help you relax throughout the week
Productivity Hack Two: The Pomodoro Method
As mentioned, part of the struggle of navigating an incredibly busy week can be figuring out where to even begin. The Pomodoro Method offers a way in with its approachable workflow: a 5-minute break for every 25 minutes of focus. Not only does this method help leaders get a solid start on important projects, but it enables them to maintain meaningful momentum throughout the week.
Productivity Hack Three: “Just One Thing”
Sometimes, the most overwhelming weeks can make the most realistic to-do lists feel like too much. In times like these, we recommend getting honest with yourself: what is the single most important thing to accomplish that will have a positive impact on you, your work, team, and clients? Once you’re able to identify this, hunker down for some serious focus time.
Productivity Hack Four: Take a Break
All too often in busy periods, we forget to rest. The idea of taking a break may seem counterintuitive when every minute in the workday feels precious, but completely removing yourself for even an hour can help refresh your perspective and focus in a major way. It can be as simple as a walk with music or a podcast to reenergize us with new ideas that keep important tasks and projects moving forward.
Successful leaders take accountability for their team’s time management as well as their own
As a manager, you’re ultimately responsible for ensuring that tasks are completed and deadlines are met. When you set yourself up for success while navigating a heavy workload, you, in turn, model healthy and sustainable practices that the rest of your team can eventually pick up on. With ready access to valuable resources like Leadology’s Activate program, so many managers have already found ways to develop more productive work patterns to knock out their to-do lists and handle anything that comes their way.
Ready to balance your responsibilities in a new way?
Contact us today to assess where you and your team are at, and how we can help! With products ranging from the 21-Day Strengths Challenge all the way up to Activate (which is open to the general public only a few times each year, and available privately for any size team or company), there’s something for everyone.
