Some people say that you can’t really manage time, that whether you want it to or not, it passes all too quickly. There are times when there never really seem to be enough hours in the day to do everything that you need to do and that is why time management is so important – it’s important to make the most of the available time that you have and organise your workload accordingly.
Of course, by the time people begin work you might think that they are perfectly capable of managing their own time, but sadly all too often this is not the case. In any team you will always encounter at least one person who doesn’t have the necessary skills and awareness, and as the project manager it can fall to you to deal with this time management issue so that bad feelings do not arise amongst the team members. All those important project management skills you have can really come in useful when it is necessary to help an employee overcome their time management problems.
Identify Where You Have an Issue
If you have already worked with a team before, whether all the team members or just some of them, then you may already be aware of any team members who seem to have time management issues. If you are new to the team then you will need to keep an eye out at the beginning and see who, if anyone, the issues lie with. This will allow you to closely monitor the situation, and step in where necessary so that the poor time management of one team member does not have a detrimental effect on the rest of the team or the project deadline.
Make a Schedule
A detailed schedule for your project which clearly indicates what everyone’s responsibilities are with regard to deadlines is a vital tool that will help you to really keep on top of any time management issues. There’s plenty of good software out there that can really help with this and some people respond better to being reminded by technology of a deadline rather than relying on a list of dates.
Communicate
Make sure that the entire team communicate with each other – this is the best way to find out if someone isn’t going to be able to complete something by a deadline and offers you the most appropriate opportunity to do something about it. We have said before just how important communication is, but we really can’t stress enough that it really is the most important and effective tool you will come across during your project management career. It doesn’t matter whether you are a project management apprentice or fully qualified with years of experience, learning to communicate effectively with your project team will help you at every step, whatever the issue.
Again, there are many software packages out there that you can use to help your team communicate more effectively with each other.
Using the tips above should help you to impress upon your team the importance of good time management.
