BLEGSCOPE Business Blog

Over the course of your career and personal life, you could have taken a time management class, read about it in books, and tried to use an electronic or paper-based day planner to organize, prioritize and schedule your day. “While, with this knowledge and these gadgets,” you may ask, “do I still feel like I cannot get everything I need done?” It is at this point that you need to understand what time management means, but before you even think about time management, you need to understand what the word time means.

“Time” simply refers to the period when a particular thing happens. There are two types of time: clock time and real time.

Having known the two types of time, you may still ask yourself the kind of time in which you live. The good news for you is that real time is ideal. It is mental, you can create it bearing in mind that anything you create, you can manage.

Much like money, time is both valuable and limited: it must be protected, used wisely, and budgeted for. People who practice good time management techniques often find that they:

• Are more productive
• Have more energy for things they need to accomplish,
• Feel less stressed,
• Are able to do the things they want,
• Get more things done and
• Relate more positively to others

Finding time management success tips that work best for you depends on your personality, ability to self-motivate and level of self-discipline. By incorporating some, or all of the tips below, you can more effectively manage your time.

1. Set priorities

You could be that person that is very well organized and works hard, yet spend all your time on unimportant tasks. If you are this person, then you could be efficient but not effective. To be effective, you need to decide on what tasks are urgent and important and to focus on them. This is called prioritizing. Completing the most important tasks first is the golden rule of time management. Each morning, it is important that you consider at least two or three tasks that are most crucial and begin with those. One of the easiest ways to prioritize is to make a “to do” list. Whether you need a daily, weekly or monthly list depends on your lifestyle. Just be careful not to allow the list-making to get out of control and do not keep multiple lists at the same time. Rank the items on your “to do” list in order of priority (both important and urgent). Having a prioritized “to do” list allows you to say “no” to activities that may be interesting or provide a sense of achievement but do not fit your basic priorities.

2. Get organized

Most people find that disorganization results into poor time management. Professional organizers recommend that you first get rid of the clutter. This can be done in a commonly used method of separating all your activities into 3 categories that is: keep, give away and toss. It is important that you throw away all the items in the toss category. The items in the giveaway category are usually those that you would want to delegate, discontinue and offer or even sell to someone. It I also important that you find a way of eliminating these items one by one.

 3. Schedule time appropriately

Even the busiest people find time for what they want to do and feel is important. Scheduling is not just recording what you have to do (e.g., meetings and appointments), it is also making a time commitment to the things you want to do. Good scheduling requires that you know yourself. Using your time log, you should have determined those times during the day when you are most productive and alert. Plan your most challenging tasks for when you have the most energy. Block out time for your high priority activities first and protect that time from interruptions

4. Delegate

Delegation means assigning responsibility for a task to someone else, freeing up some of your time for tasks that require your expertise. This begins by identifying tasks that others can do and then selecting the appropriate person(s) to do them. You need to select someone with the appropriate skills, experience, interest, and authority needed to accomplish the task. Delegating helps you takes a load off and you can focus on the important tasks.

 5. Avoid multitasking

If you are multi-tasking so much that you are just not getting anything done, then is important that you focus on just one key task at one time. Close off all the applications you aren’t using. Recent studies show that multitasking does not save any time. In fact, the opposite is true. There is always a lot of time wastage in switching from one task to another thus less productivity. Daily multitasking leads to less concentration and loss of focus when needed

6. Stay healthy

It is very important for one to know that the care and attention you give to yourself is an important life investment. Scheduling time to relax can help you rejuvenate both physically and mentally, enabling you to accomplish tasks more quickly and easily.

You may feel you are working too much and maybe planning to head for a burnout and have lost your enthusiasm and creativity. It is time to remove any self-sabotage or self-limitation you have around “not having enough time,” or today not being “the right time” to start a business or manage your current business properly. Poor time management can result in fatigue, moodiness, and more frequent illness. To reduce stress, you should reward yourself for a time management success. Take time to recognize that you have accomplished a major task or challenge before moving on to the next activity.

By Mackline Ampurira

Mackline  joined BLEGSCOPE Team as an Intern and is now a Management Consultant Trainee. She previously worked with the Ugandan Ministry of Health in conjunction with (USAID) Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Team as a Research Assistant. She has interest in Marketing, Management and Human Resources. You can follow her on Twitter >>@mackampurira

The dynamics of the workplace today are rapidly changing. Companies today are adopting more collaborative approaches to handling their day to day operations and these new approaches are breaking down barriers both between generations and between the traditional hierarchal approaches dictated previously by the tall organisational structures. Today, more than ever before, the rate of startups is growing and businessmen are forming partnerships especially at the start up level. More organisations are adopting flatter organisational structures, more organisations are taking on a project-based approach to handling assignments and more organisations are building dynamic teams from time to time to handle different assignments. These dynamics are all too common in startups and family owned businesses and the bigger and more complex organisations are equally adopting these new work approaches.

In such a matrix environment, it is more likely that individuals will have more than one reporting line which presents its own challenges. In such an environment, how can employees cope with reporting to more than one boss? Today, I will share the challenges and a few key strategies that you can use to manage your (multiple) bosses;

1.Disagreements: A direct report can easily get caught in the middle of supervisor disagreements. Your bosses may send you conflicting messages or fail to agree on the approach to take on a particular project or assignment. This may leave you more confused and unsure of how to handle a project.

Strategy 1

As us.hudson.com articulated in their article How to handle multiple bosses; “your bosses should be aware of each other’s projects and what they are passing off to you. Creating a project list is a great way to ensure that everyone involved is aware of each task that has been assigned, which will allow them to more equally distribute work to you. If you’re being given conflicting information or instruction, don’t get in the middle. Avoid speaking on behalf of one boss to the other. You don’t need to play mediator. Rather, try to get them to talk to each other. Define the problem or conflict and enlist them in the problem-solving. Let the managers sort it out themselves. Their job as managers is to align around a decision and communicate it to you.”

2.Managing assignments

With two or more bosses it is not easy to estimate your work load or anticipate when and from who an assignment will come through. This puts you under pressure and may even cause you to perform poorly on assignments. For some employees, it may mean you have to leave the office later and later, which may not be convenient or sustainable in the long run.

Strategy 2

Understand that you have time constraints; you only have 24 hours in a day and about 8 to 10 hours are all you have for work. Understand the urgency of each assignment and prioritize your tasks accordingly. It is important for each of your bosses to understand that you have multiple reporting responsibilities. Ask your bosses to be clear about project requirements and deadlines. Communicate your workload to your bosses because unless they know, you will have more work piling up on your desk. Finally, to be able to complete your tasks successfully, limit interruptions from colleagues who may have a lot of free time on them.

3.Managing expectations

As with any relationship, expectations exist on either side. Your bosses have expectations of you and you equally have expectations of them. Your expectations of them is a topic for another day. My focus in this case is how to manage expectations from multiple bosses.

Strategy 3

It is impossible to manage your bosses’ expectations if you do not know what they expect. What deliverables do they expect? What quality of work is required of you? What project deadlines are you working within? Do they want you to speak up more at meetings? Ask more questions? Do they expect you to take on more leadership roles? Are you expected to communicate more frequently, or perhaps take on more initiative?

There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to managing these expectations. So, once you know them, strive to meet and even exceed these expectations appropriately.

4.Politicking and power plays

In organisations, culture, power, structure and others determine the behaviour of individuals in their organisation. The multiple relationships involved together with performance expectations must be well managed and it brings to birth politics. By the virtue of their positions, your boss possesses some form of power. However, power plays and politics are not uncommon in the work place today. As a direct report, you can easily get caught in the middle of power plays and political tactics your bosses may be playing.

Strategy 4

Recognize the power plays for what they actually are. However, it is equally key to understand the motives behind these power plays. It is also important to know exactly who, of the bosses, has more power over you. As Harvard Business Review authors of Managing Your Boss, John J. Gabarro and John P. Kotter put it, understanding your boss is very critical in the workplace. “Managing your boss requires that you gain an understanding of the boss and his or her context as well as your own situation. At a minimum, you need to appreciate your boss’s goals, pressures, his or her strengths and weaknesses. What are your boss’s organisational and personal objectives?”

Once you gain an understanding the motives behind the power plays, it is easier to handle the situation in such a way that both/all bosses remain content.

5.Managing the relationship

Your relationship with your boss is probably the most crucial one in the workplace. Your relationship may determine your promotion, pay rise or even longevity in the company/organisation.

Strategy 5

Ultimately, your bosses are only human. So, treat them with grace, kindness and respect. Display a positive attitude. Be resourceful, be flexible, support them in execution of their roles and remain emotionally intelligent in dealing with them.

Learning to handle multiple bosses is key in today’s complex work place. The strategies shared above are key in to today’s dynamic work environment.