TIME MANAGEMENT IN THE WORKPLACEbecome isolated and lose sight of what’s going on
in the workplace around you. The point of being
focused is not to completely tune out distrac-
tions, but to manage them.
If poor time-management habits have allowed
distractions to derail your goals, then focusing
can put you back on track. When you are asked
to take on extra work, for example, make it clear
that your availability depends on the priorities
you are currently focused on. “I’ll certainly try to
help,” you say, turning to your schedule. “Let me
see where that fi ts into my agenda.”
KEEPING YOUR TEAM FOCUSED
When your team members are tearing their hair
out, you can be reasonably assured that their
time-management skills are lacking and they
are not focusing appropriately. Their failure
to accomplish goals and tasks becomes your
failure. You need to step in and help them learn
to focus on the right things and to manage
distractions.
As the boss, you are the one who ultimately
has the responsibility to be a good steward of
all resources—especially time—available to
you and your department. That means doing
whatever you can to improve the effi ciency and
the time-management skills of the members of
your group. One way to approach that goal is to
remember the saying that the best way to learn
something is to teach it. The smartest thing you
can do to help everyone improve their time-
management techniques is to teach each other.
You can take both a macro and micro approach