It’s late, and you’re working on a deadline project!
You’re feeling burdened by your responsibilities and aren’t sure how you ended up here. You pledge to address this problem, but you have no idea how, so the cycle repeats. Many project managers and their team face this time and task management issues, which affects their overall work cycle. It is vital to follow a pack of strategies that can help manage tasks and time effectively during long-term projects.
Time & task management tactics assist you in completing tasks within the time allotted to you. It is critical for project managers and teams to complete work by the deadline. You must also plan, supervise, and track the work of your staff. Meetings, estimates, planning, communication with customers and your team, and reporting to management are all part of the job. It will also include percentages from a survey on how managers complete their projects. Following the right project management strategies can help manage every small and big long-term project in your organization.
As a Project Manager, why do you need to care about time & task management?
Your duty as a project manager is to plan and manage your own time and the time of the teams you supervise. The better you can arrange work for your team, the better you can juggle numerous tasks and priorities. And the latter results in better-run projects that are more likely to be completed on time and budget. In other words, time management techniques boost your efficiency and effectiveness. According to one study, around 37% of the organization’s team could finish their project on time, and the rest faced multiple issues that affected their completion deadline.
What is a time & task management skills?
As mentioned above, time & task management skills involve planning to complete an assigned project. The process of completing the project, irrespective of its timeline, is where your skills come to the role. The ultimate aim of following the time & task management is to complete the project on time and regularly keep the inflow of assignments.
How do time and tasks management skills help the individual?
Time & task management is an essential part of work-life. To meet the deadline, every project needs a timeline. To keep the timetable on track, a team and the project manager must manage their own time. There’s a risk that if you don’t make a project timeline or specify an end date, years will pass, and your project will never be completed.
To be successful as a project manager, you must manage your time effectively. A lack of adequate time management will have a long-term impact on the project. Managing your time effectively also aids in the production of high-quality work. When you see trouble having this talent, speed through your tasks and become easily overwhelmed.
Some effective strategies to manage time & task management for long-term projects
- Learning your Productivity Pattern
It is pretty common to differentiate people into morning people and night people. Different people have different patterns of work representing their skills to managing the task according to their comfort level. Perhaps you’re more productive when using the Pomodoro technique to break up your focus into small bursts. Alternatively, you may opt to complete all of your top priorities in one sitting.
Find out what situation makes you the most productive and capitalize on it. If you’re most effective in the morning, make use of it that period to complete focus-heavy activities off your to-do list. It will be easier for you to focus and be more productive in your workflow if you plan your work schedule around your natural routines.
- Finish off the vital work and feel overwhelmed
In other words, it is like giving priority to the most important task of the project. Completing a task gives you a sense of success and gives you momentum. Start each day to handwrite out the chores you need to complete for the day. It’s important to write out things by hand rather than typing them out that will allow you to have a better feel of which jobs will take the most time and which you should prioritize and mentally prepare yourself to tackle each one. Rank up your vital task that you can complete and feel overwhelmed.
- Multi-tasking is not your job
Multi-tasking is praised by some, although it appears to cause more harm than good. Many people, however, believe that multitasking is unproductive. Since the human brain requires time to transfer from one job to another, attempting to accomplish too many tasks at once results in a lag time during which we are not as productive as we may be.
Instead, concentrate on one activity at a time; accomplish it, and then move on to the next. The process allows smooth transition, and your brain is ready to take on new work, especially if you give yourself at least a few minutes of rest between projects.
- Project Tracking is the New Game
In the age of project time tracking software, project managers and team members can manage their projects with perfection and complete long-term task on time. Many people struggle with accurately estimating how long a task will take to complete when it comes to time management.
If you overestimate or underestimate some chores, it is challenging to stick to your plans. The task that was expected to take 30 minutes will consume your entire day. Many task management tools are available for a wide range of demands and functions.(How to choose best time tracking tools to solve time management issue) A project manager will need to use tools to manage time on projects in project management efficiently.
Even the most talented project manager will be unable to achieve deadlines if the necessary tools and equipment are unavailable. Project planning software, project time tracking software, and time management are areas to keep an eye on.
Here are a few things the project tracking tool can help you with–
Adding timesheets– Task management tools help create timesheets, allowing team managers to track their team’s performance by keeping track of all time entries committed to completing assignments.
Time Reports – Team leaders can develop bespoke time reports for individuals and projects to see where their time is spent. They enable users to improve work practices and improve overall optimization.
Set Task Time Estimates – Managers can set task time estimates to specify the “anticipated” time it will take to complete them. Make the most of time management tool functions by getting notified immediately if the time taken exceeds the actual time set.
- Using Team as your Support System
One of the important strategies to manage time and tasks is to seek assistance from your team, and is nothing wrong with doing it. It’s beneficial to have a big-picture perspective on which projects are most aligned with team’s objectives. You can also discuss whether there are any places where you can offer help each other to ease the workload.”
Your manager or team can assist you in prioritizing your duties by the larger aims of your team. When it comes to cross-functional initiatives, they can also help you save time.
- Shorter Deadlines Works Best
It is a common tendency among human beings that the more time we get from a task, the more we procrastinate on the work instead of finishing it off soon. In the economist’s social milieu, this tendency to put work aside is known as Parkinson’s Law, first outlined in a 1955 article in the Economist.
The job expands to meet the time available for completion,” Parkinson said. As a result, if you have more time to do work than you require, you are unlikely to complete it faster.
Setting up a shorter deadline is one of the critical aspects. If you’re still having trouble forcing yourself to accomplish a task faster, ask a member of your team to review your work on a specific date, so you’ll have to do the job before you can exhibit the results.
- Team Work is the Key
There’s a good chance that your team members carry the desired skill to assist you with some of the duties you’re having trouble with or don’t have time for. Use a project time tracking software having all the reports of each team member to find an available person with the capabilities needed for a particular assignment. You can rapidly filter all employees by their function and display their reservations and availability in a simple calendar view.
You can show your colleagues that you value their feedback by delegating duties. Allow them to make decisions and, if necessary, limit your involvement in supervision. By following this method, you’ll have less on your plate and allow your subordinates to advance professionally.
Summing it up
Time and task management are an essential part of the organizational function. Using task management tools, you or your team members make plans. It’s also easier to track your performance if you have a project schedule and a time tracking software.
Following the above-mentioned strategies, added with installing a management tool is certainly the best way manage time & tasks effectively.
I agree with your point of view, your article has given me a lot of help and benefited me a lot. Thanks. Hope you continue to write such excellent articles.