11 Time Management Hacks to Share with Employees

Time is certainly a very valuable thing because it is limited. In fact, every human need some rest and one certainly, can’t afford to work round the clock. This is the reason why one has to know the art of managing one’s time in the best way to accomplish more work in terms of both quantity and quality.

However, some of us already have it in us while others don’t but it is only a matter of a constant consciousness about the ‘dos and don’t to make the most out of one’s time and it can be attained by simply following a few hacks on a regular basis. In this post, we shall enlighten you about 11 such time management hacks to help you achieve more in your limited time.

Let’s get straight to the point.

1. Keep the Picture Really Clear for Yourself

Before you could start assigning tasks and sub-tasks to various employees, it is important for you to visualize the things the way they should be and in order to have a perfectly clear picture of your project and then, plan it to the best. As a matter of fact, there are actually a lot of useful tools that you could use.

Lucidchart is one of those few tools that can help you with a brilliant mind mapping of your project. Tools such as Workflowy or Dynalist can be pretty handy as well when it comes to breaking down a task into different sub-tasks. You can actually achieve more than just breaking down the tasks using these tools.

2. A Checklist of Daily Goals

Every day is a new day and you may have different priorities on different days. However, creating a checklist of all the tasks and goals every day is a wonderful way to start your day. Technically, the moment you do it, you actually take a lot of burden off your shoulders and make the picture pretty clear for yourself. Also, you can have them all right in front of your eyes. You can either do it using a pen and a paper or using various tools such as Evernote, Google Keep, Todoist, Wunderlist, and more.

If you are an active Gmail user, you can switch to the new Gmail interface and you can have your Google keep checklist by your side even when you are checking your important emails in Gmail. Also, the same Google Keep Checklist can be conveniently synced with the Google Keep app on your android and that way, you can take a look at your checklist even on the go.

3. A Single Point of Control

A lot of us actually use multiple tools and sometimes, this may cost us a lot of time while we switch from one tool to another. Although we don’t often realize it, we lose a lot of time that way which is why one must try to integrate things as much as possible. Also, you can achieve a single point of control with the right selection of applications for your purpose. Integration tools such as IFTTT or Zapier can be pretty handy in this regard.

In fact, a lot of emphasis is put on creating more platforms for both collaboration and communication these days to help many employers save a lot of their time from being wasted. One such brilliant platforms is Slack. Using Slack, you can have all your tools integrated together under the same roof and hence, have a brilliant single point of control.

4. A Task Management Tool

Everything will just fall flat on its face as long as you don’t have a decent understanding of task management. Task management comprises breaking a task into several subtasks, assigning them to the employees and getting them completed in due time. It certainly is not as easy as it apparently seems to be and things can just get so messy while one tries to do that if one doesn’t use a proper task management tool for that.

This is something that can’t be done using a pen and a paper for sure. With tools such as Trello, Slack, Asana, Wrike, Zenkit and more, you can conveniently assign subtasks to various employees and get them done in time and you could actually check their status, collaborate or communicate with your employees anytime from a single point of control. Also, these tools help you integrate your tasks conveniently with your Calendar.

5. Neo Multi-Tasking

There’s absolutely no denying the fact that there are a lot of posts wherein multi-tasking is described as something very unproductive. However, there’s one aspect to it that has been simply overlooked by many. This actually makes a lot of room for a new type of multitasking and we can call it ‘Neo Multi-Tasking.’ Unlike the traditional approach to multitasking, you could first spot the various small tasks wherein there’s a considerable amount of waiting time for those tasks to be completed.

Once one has a clear picture of that, one could conveniently choose to work on some other task or subtasks during that waiting time to make the most out of one’s time and of course, you must only choose it after you are fully certain that the waiting time is good enough for you to accomplish that extra task in terms of quality.

6. Take a Break and Catch a Breath

Accomplishing tasks in time is certainly a very commendable thing. However, things tend to get a bit tiresome without a break and this may eventually affect the quality of the work. This is why while one is managing the task, one should bear in mind that the amount of time allotted for a certain task assigned to a certain employee should be good enough for the employee to work at a perfect peace of mind.

Another important thing to do would be to assign tasks to the employees on a rotation basis. That way, one can ensure that the employees stay energized and work on every task with a perfect focus. Taking a day off after the successful completion of every project is not a bad idea at all. Such breaks can get things a lot more productive in times to come.

7. Rewarding the Employees

While you are managing a project or a task, you would certainly know as to which employee is performing well and you can’t afford to lose an employee who is performing at one’s best, right? Hence, it is important to keep such employees motivated and one of the best ways to do that is rewarding them by giving them an extra amount or buying them a brilliant gift. That way, you could make them feel special and let them know that they are doing really well which will eventually help them in wanting to do even better for you.

However, while you do that, don’t forget to share the news with the other employees. If you are using Slack, you can add an announcement in the general channel and that way, everyone will come to know about it. Also, it will create an enthusiastic as well as a competitive environment among all the employees. There is nothing as effective as this hack to improve the overall productivity of your team.

8. A Regular Briefing

Briefing or a short team meeting on a regular basis can be a lot effective in reducing all the errors made in the past. It can be done using a Slack general channel or a hangout group. It can actually save you a lot of time if you are the one who is managing the projects and tasks. This will minimize the confusions to a large extent and eventually, we will have to answer fewer questions in the middle of the project.

Also, this is when you can actually appreciate some of your employees for their excellent performance and create an outstanding vibe of enthusiasm for the other employees to perform equally well. Also, this will help you maintain great transparency among your employees.

9. Create an FAQ

We are pretty much aware of the fact that typing usually takes more time than sharing a link. Hence, you could save a lot of time by not typing an explanation each time an employee asks you to explain a certain thing provided that you are pretty predictive of the possible questions that they might ask from time to time and you have an FAQ already created in advance.

However, in order to share a link to the FAQ, it is important to have your FAQ on a cloud platform or in the form of a website. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of free platforms wherein you can conveniently create and save your FAQ. A few of them are such as Slack, Google Drive, Evernote, Google Docs, Blogger, OneNote and more.

10. Automatic Reminder at a Regular Interval

This may seem to be an old technique but it is still one of the best techniques to keep the team focused at the work. Using apps such as Workast for Slack or even Google keep, you can actually send reminders to your employees to complete their work in due time.

It’s pretty normal for one to get distracted and such reminders will help the employees get their focus back on to the work if at all it has been diverted to something else. Interestingly, these reminders can be sent to their phones as well.

11. Time Management for Employees

For one managing projects and tasks, it is absolutely important to educate one’s employees about the various ways to manage their time efficiently. On top of that, one must strive to put it in the most interesting ways. Also, one must be able to explain things based on logic and reasoning. A few of the best tools for the employees are Mitrefinch, toggl, Google calendar, Google keep, Todoist and of course, a cloud platform such as Google Drive or OneDrive.

Toggl is a time tracking tool that can largely help you comprehend the time that you are actually taking for completing your works and also, help you improve it with times. Besides, it also helps you work with a better focus. Todoist can be pretty helpful in viewing all your tasks with their due dates and you can use in on your mobile phone too. A cloud platform such as Google Drive or OneDrive can be pretty effective in preventing your work from being ever lost due to any disruption caused to your local devices.

The Bottom Line

A task completed in time is directly proportional to your mental happiness and as a matter of fact, there has been a complete transformation in the perception of task management over the years. Of course, a lot of credit goes to tools such as Slack, Asana, Google apps, Trello and more for having played an excellent role in making things so innovative.

However, the real innovativeness lies in how effectively you use these tools to accomplish most in limited time as well as maintain the quality of your work.