The Multi Skills That Make Good Time Management

Time management skills are an important part of the working day in the busy office. The ability to maximise productivity through careful management of the time available is a sought-after skill in the demanding office environment of today. But when you look at it closely, time management is really an amalgamation of other business skills. The following are some of those skills that help in creating effective time management.

Organisational skills
Good time management calls for excellent organisational skills. It is very unproductive simply to go through each task as it comes along. Time should be taken to study your to-do list and prioritise your tasks accordingly. It also pays to have a very well organised file storage and retrieval system in operation. You should be able to find a file or folder in as little time as possible, every time. Sifting through badly organised folders looking for a single document is counter productive in the extreme.

Assertiveness
Maximum productivity cannot be achieved if you are a shrinking violet in the office. Being assertive will improve your time management in certain areas, such as letting colleagues know that you will be unavailable and saying no to any requests that could slow your progress. Delegating tasks to others is another way in which being assertive can lessen your own burden. If you lack assertiveness and are seen as a soft touch, then your workload could actually increase as others delegate extra work to you. This is the worst possible way to manage your valuable time.

Decision making skills
In prioritising your workload you have to decide how your tasks will line up in the pecking order and there may be some difficult decisions to be made as to what goes where. For example you may have to decide which of two similarly urgent tasks takes priority, or one task may be worth more financially, but does it take priority over a regular client who has a good relationship with the firm? Dithering over such issues wastes time and so a clear, decisive approach is called for.

Communication skills
Good communications keep wasted time down to a minimum in more ways than one. Firstly, clearly laid out instructions allow others to respond immediately, without having to ask what this or that means. Having to explain instructions that have already been given only wastes time. Secondly, those who possess good communication skills know that work-based communications should be just that and nothing more. Stick to passing on the message and don't discuss last night's football match. Focus on hitting your targets and save the football talk for the pub after work.

Influencing skills
I mentioned in the Assertiveness paragraph that delegating tasks to others can free up more time for you to get on with your work. It may be that your colleagues don't take too kindly to having extra work foisted upon them, so you may have to apply influence. Instead of demanding that they do the work, explain to them that in so doing the team stands a much better chance of hitting its targets and that is beneficial to all. Nobody likes to be the one to let the side down so this request will usually be met with compliance.

So as you can see to be skilled in time management requires skills in other areas, all working together to achieve maximum productivity. And any skill that increases productivity is seen as a huge feather in the cap and so it is definitely worth taking the time to look more closely into this subject.