From running a team of employees to seeking new opportunities for the business, leaders must manage multiple projects at once.

Top leaders need to have great time management skills, to ensure they make the most of their time and achieve their goals. There is no shortage of tools designed to help improve time management. But many of these tools assume a person’s basic skill set. Purchasing high-end kitchen equipment doesn’t improve one’s cooking skills. Likewise, using a scheduling app doesn’t mean positive time management outcomes. Luckily for those wanting to improve their time management efforts, there is hope. To ensure you get the most from time management tools, there are three important skills you should build on.

Awareness

Awareness is simply approaching time management realistically, by understanding that time is a limited resource. We can achieve awareness through objective assessments like a microsimulation or feedback from others. Awareness of your inclinations related to time management, such as multitasking, can also deepen your understanding of where you struggle. But it can also help you see where you excel. For example, awareness can help you know where your peak performance times and energy lulls are throughout the day. Awareness is also about stopping other people’s priorities from becoming yours. And making the right choices when other people bring you problems, issues or tasks they want help with. That may mean learning how to say a positive ‘no’. And how to deliver it in a way that is honest and respectful.

Arrangement

Arrangement skills are about prioritising activities and obligations. For example, knowing what tasks you find easy or hard, combined with your awareness of when your concentration is at it’s peak, will inform the arrangement of your time. Knowledge around urgent vs important tasks is also essential when arranging a demanding workload. Urgent tasks require immediate action, but important tasks have more serious and long-term consequences. And then there are important tasks that are urgent too! To master the skill of arrangement, you need a solid understanding of goal setting, prioritisation, managing interruptions, procrastination and scheduling.

Adaptation

Adaption is about adjusting your time to accommodate interruptions or changing priorities. This skill is tested and developed in high pressure situations, including times of crisis. Adaption is about creating contingency plans and thinking about the best case and worst-case scenarios when planning your time. It is also about identifying time stealers and time wasters, and implementing strategies to reduce or stop their impact. This may mean managing your work environment, which can contribute to time wastage. Adaptation is key to handling crisis situations without getting upset, anxious or distracted.

All three skills are as important as each other to overall time management performance. As such, only improving one skill means two-thirds of the skills needed to manage time efficiently risk under-development. Conversely, if you focus on all three, you’ll find that your time management will improve greatly.

Enhance your professional development skills with courses at Odyssey Training. 

When life gets busy, it is common to feel overwhelmed or spiral into procrastination. Maybe you have a great plan, but distractions and other priorities are stealing your time. You can spend heaps of time doing things right, but if you are not doing the right things at the right times, it is simply a waste. Learn how to prioritise effectively and achieve peak performance through practical time management tools that are easy to apply with our 1 day Time Management course or our Time Management for Managers Training course.