Time-oriented management in a business environment

Business acumen relates closely to effective time management. Developing the ability for smart utilizing of working hours in everyday life makes us more professional in many ways. The importance of time management cannot be ignored because its value is often higher than the value of money. Understanding the value of time brings us closer to a better understanding of how business works and how to operate in a better way on daily routine tasks. 

Why is time management important?

We can validate the value of time in several ways. To see the value of time we can identify time dedicated to the activities that bring us closer to our goals. In a business environment, what is important will be what brings us closer to our goals. Looking more closely at the importance of well-managed time, we can see several benefits:

●      Impact on our financial capacity - proper focus on key areas allows us to avoid wasting time and therefore prevent wasting money;

●      More room for complex activities – well-managed time allow to plan many activities and long-term actions, which required a lot of attention and more time than most routine tasks;

●      Professional status in customer’s eyes – a well-organized work environment is visible from the outside and will always be appreciated by customers, as everyone wants to rely on quality services;

●      More spare time – effective time management allows us to dedicate more time to things that are out of our business but are also very important for balanced life and vitality

Key elements in time organization

●      Goal setting - organizing the ground for our activities and transforming ideas into meaningful subjects. That is the opportunity to analyze the potential consequences and risks for our project or day-to-day activities.Business brainstorming sessions organized internally by different departments are an ideal example of creating a pool of ideas that allows us to set goals.

●      Scheduling activities - agenda plays a key role and helps us to estimate what resources we need and time to achieve our goals. Scheduling reflects our professionalism in the business but also defines our methodology and orientation. Within this step, we can implement different diagrams, and schemas to show the next steps of our projects or simply plan the daily tasks.

●      Performing tasks - at this point the agenda needs to meet our goal requirements. Completing scheduled tasks and sticking to deadlines is crucial to the success of our projects and overall productivity. To go through this process smoothly, we should develop the ability to maintain focus in a friendly working environment.

●      Alternatives & Flexibility – when we encounter obstacles, we may not be able to complete our tasks in the required time. We need to evaluate quick options on how to get from point A to point C without point B. Troubleshooting skills help to prioritize the tasks that are most important or use existing alternatives.

Effective time management

Meeting deadlines is a key aspect of time management. We can agree that effective time management defines the results of our work. To get the right results, we should consistently follow our plan and targets within a certain timeframe. Here are examples to help us avoid wasting time:

●      Remove excuses - we can postpone some tasks in our schedule to complete others at the bottom of the agenda, but we should not leave tasks unfinished for no significant reason. Leaving a job for later may not help us to complete the agenda on time and will put our entire performance at risk.

●      Monitoring - when executing agenda tasks, we need to pay attention to progress through the time available to complete specific tasks. We need to maintain progress monitoring for specific tasks to avoid delays that may affect other areas of the business.

●      Quality & Consistency - it doesn’t matter if you are working for a small organization or a big enterprise, we need to understand that other people depend on our work. We should provide adequate quality of our work in the scheduled time frame. Awareness of the shared values of our work helps us maintain consistency and influences our motivation.

●      Staying focused - removing external factors that take away our attention helps us to maintain maximum focus. These factors could be all objects that may interfere with our attention as noise or the constantly popping up of mobile notifications. Access to social media is very distracting and addictive. Removing digital access to social media during working hours is also useful.

Time management is essential for a well-organized working environment. We can achieve more by doing things on time. We are often obliged to complete tasks on time because our superiors want to rely on our work. We should not downplay the value of time management in any terms, as it is something that drives us to be more productive. Our productivity will certainly contribute to our income.