Leading a project, a team, or anything that involves leadership can be quite daunting. At times, you may wonder to yourself, “How should I best manage these guys? What’s the best way to make efficient use of each individual’s skills?”
The truth is, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to those questions. The type of management to run varies heavily on industry and skill sets. You wouldn’t command a team of pool builders as you would an army of soldiers. That would likely lead to some unfortunate losses of workers and a pretty bad reputation.
With that being said, even though it’s difficult to pinpoint the best type of leadership, there is one universal management that can apply to just about anything: Time Management.
This probably isn’t the first thing you’d think of when asked, “What’s the best type of management out there?” In fact, most people would probably say something along the lines of, “a manager that listens or a manager that is confident.” After all, we hardly view Time Management as a skill now, do we?
Well, to burst your bubble, Time Management is indeed a skill — a very important skill.
When companies first experiences an influx of business, a lot of times, they find that they must delegate some of their responsibilities to others. Why is that?
Simple.
When the amount of tasks you receive exceeds the amount you can handle, you will experience diminishing returns among all other tasks you have to handle.
Allow me to break this down to you. If your job is to put together a house of cards, you could probably do it given that you already know how to. However, it takes you 10 minutes to build a house of cards. Now management comes along and tells you that you have to build a house of cards AND put together a stack of coins in 10 minutes. Well, it takes 10 minutes to build a house, so when will you find time for that stack of coins?
Do you try to build the house faster at the expense of less quality or do you build a quality house at the expense of a lackluster coin stack?
Do you see where I’m going with this? As a leader, one of the most important skills to have when leading is Time Management. If you KNOW it takes your employee 10 minutes to build a house and you demand that they build it AND construct a stack of coins in 10 minutes, then you can expect to see diminishing returns.
And in a world of efficiency, that sort of half-hearted management does not fly.
Let me make it clear to you. The goal of adequate Time Management is to make the most efficient use of time. In other words, to get the most out of what you’re given.
In a simple scenario like the above, it probably isn’t too difficult to reach that. Simply give your worker an extra 5 minutes and you’ll end up with quality products.
However, in real life, it’s not that simple. Most of us operate on 8 hour shifts with occasional breaks. As a leader, you must figure out how best to use those 8 hours without overloading your employee and without cutting down on results.
Too much work and not enough time leads to diminishing results. Inversely, too little work and not enough time leads to insufficient results.
So how do we find that fine balance between time and work?
The quickest solution is to use tools. Specifically Software tools.
As Software is electronic, it makes organizing time so much easier. It’s at your fingertips, it’s stored digitally so you can avoid clutter, and it’s fast.
But what kind of Software helps with management? Certainly, using an Estimating tool isn’t going to help very much with guiding your team efficiently.
The best tool to maximize time is Task Management.
The Pro DBX Task Management feature allows for employees throughout the company to easily delegate tasks to one another in a smooth streamline fashion.
With a Task Management system enabled, it becomes far easier to delegate certain jobs to your employees. Whether you need someone to clean up a spill or build another house of cards, you can easily delegate the responsibilities through this program.
Users can set up priority tasks to complete and give an estimated amount of time for completion. Communication becomes much easier then because what needs to be done is right in front of you. It’s easy to keep track of.
Task Management systems can help so much in managing time because it helps the leader delegate responsibilities to best fit the skill set of the employee. What one can do in 20 minutes, another can do in 15 and produce the same results.
This is an example of using the best of what you’re given. It’s an optimal way to create the balance between work and allocated time.
So while there is a plethora of management tips and strategies, the one that applies to just about every aspiring leader out there is proper Time Management.
