Time management is an essential business skill to learn both from a team management point of view, and from an overworked worker's point of view. It is not only a great tool for helping you to manage your workload, but it also a great aid in helping you to prioritize your workload, and to get certain time sensitive tasks done on schedule.
I am sure that many of you have been in that awful situation that we refer to as "fire fighting". It's when things just seem to keep on going wrong, and urgent jobs are screaming for attention because they weren't attended to when they should have been. All you have the time to do is to go around rushing from one panic to the next and dealing with them on an individual basis, then rushing on to the next. Once you are in this situation it is very hard to get out of, but one thing is for sure. The more you "fire fight" by going round putting out the individual fires as and when they arise, the more fires you are setting light to that will come to full blaze at some time in the not too distant future. So, how to stop it? - By introducing time management.
The first thing that you have to recognize, is that things are going to get worse before they get better. Thankfully, if you get your time management set up quickly and correctly, this will be for a short time only. But the short term worsening will produce long term gains.
Step one in getting a time management schedule made out is to study the work flow. There is always a pattern in which things should be done. One task leads on to another, and in many cases is essential to be done before the next task can take be actioned. Take for example placing a purchase order for goods. Before you can place that order, someone needs to tell you that those goods are required. This might be by way of a bill of materials, or an inventory report. Either way, one of these two tasks needs to have been done before you even know that you have to place an order for the goods. So, step number one is to catalogue the jobs that need to be done in the correct order.
The second step is to do a time study, and if necessary a process review. The time study may be no more than you best guess as to how long it takes to do something, or it could be an actual time study carried out buy a time and motion professional. At the same time the actual process itself can be reviewed. It may be that there are simpler ways of doings things, or that some things that are currently being done, don't actually need to be done at all. Look at the benefits of what is derived from the task. If it's not worth it - dump it! Never do things just for the sake of doing them.
Once you've got your schedule in place, you must then make sure you have the necessary resource to carry it out. If you haven't, there are two alternatives. You can either hire in new staff, or you can contract out certain elements of the workload.
Once you are sticking to your schedule and getting your tasks done on time, and in the right order, your fires will stop appearing. One thing though. You must, from time to time, review your schedule. Things have a way of changing, and unless you spot the changes and amend your schedule accordingly, your time management will just go out of the window again, and those brush fires will start reappearing. A regular review program is essential to keep your time management up to date and effective.
