Whether you find yourself in a managerial position or temporary team leader on an important project, managing your time effectively is a must. The more organized, cool-headed and objective you are with your coworkers, the better your authority, respect and leadership efficiency will become.
According to Forbes, companies with digitally-capable leaders outperform their competition by 50% financially. Additionally, leaders who put meaning behind their directions manage to raise their coworkers’ performance and energy by up to 60%. In order to become a workplace leader, you don’t need a badge that gives you authority over others – all you really need are organizational skills.
With them, comes a plethora of development opportunities, allowing you to move up the ladder and fulfil your career goals in an organized manner. Let’s take a closer look at some unique tools and tricks you can use to manage your time, team and workload more effectively.
- SMART Goal-Setting Tool
To start things off, the best way to get a handle on your time is by segmenting your tasks into manageable chunks. One of the most efficient ways to do so is by introducing SMART goal-setting methodology into your work habits. The methodology can be used with simple pen-and-paper setups, chalkboards, projectors or any other collaboration tool available to your team, making the ideation a team effort.
SMART goals allow for critical thinking, objective milestone setting, as well as much better time management as a result of their implementation. Once they are defined, SMART goals can be implemented into any number of organizational tools or communicated to your team for further tracking and fulfilment.
- Team Collaboration Tool
As a team collaboration platform available on both desktop and smartphone platforms, Asana is a great gateway to digital teamwork and time management. You can invite your coworkers to a custom project group, assign tasks, provide and receive feedback, as well as collaborate in a variety of ways.
Asana is a highly intuitive platform that you will have no issues with as a workplace leader. Most importantly, having an overview of what’s done or not at any given moment will ensure that your leadership style is taken full advantage of.
- Task Management Tool
When it comes to day-to-day time management, having access to a small yet intuitive tool is a must. That said, 135List provides both in equal measure, allowing workplace leaders to keep tabs on their current duties and upcoming tasks with its slick UI.
While 135List is far from the most complex tool you could use, its elegance and ease-of-use separate it from the competition. These facts make it a welcome addition to both leaders and their coworkers in ensuring that everyone has an objectively defined list of tasks available.
- Focus Management Tool
The key to success in workplace leadership and time management is to take things one step at a time. While you can certainly multitask, using the Pomodoro technique and tools such as Tomato Timer is more effective in the long run.
Tomato Timer will allow you to focus on a single task as much as possible for the duration of its ticking clock. Afterwards, you can restart the clock and add time to that task or move on to another pressing matter quickly and efficiently. This is a great addition to your leadership arsenal as it will evenly split your focus and energy between coworkers and daily tasks.
- Long-Term Organizational Tool
Lastly, due to its extensive integration with services such as Docs and Gmail, Google Calendar is a significant time management tool worth keeping in mind. Google Calendar is designed with long term, complex organization of various activities such as meetings, trips, project milestones, etc.
The tool can easily be cross-managed with other Google services, further elevating its utility in day-to-day operations. Likewise, inviting collaborators from other teams and companies is as simple as adding their email addresses to your workgroup. By introducing Google’s suite of tools led by Calendar, your team’s performance and work ethics will improve significantly going forward.
Last but not least: do not shy away from the opportunity to delegate. If you feel like juggling all your duties becomes a challenge, there are many services to outsource some tasks. For instance, you may find good writing websites for episodic content tasks, hire a freelance accountant, let a virtual assistant do administrative tasks, and many more.
To Summarize
At the end of the day, workplace leadership tools will only be as effective as your relationship and understanding with the coworkers assigned to you. Make it a habit to organize teambuilding exercises, have lunch together or simply share daily thoughts and anecdotes with one another.
It’s important that your team is comfortable with your persona and approach to work before you can expect them to follow your instructions without downtime. Keep it friendly and focused on mutual goals and gain, and the rest will be possible thanks to the aforementioned tools to keep you organized.
Author’s bio. Daniela McVicker is a contributor to FreeEssayWriter. She is also an experienced writer with a degree in social psychology from Durham University. Daniela is primarily focused on writing about self-improvement. She has authored a number of insightful and motivating articles like “Making The Right Choices Every Day” and “7 Steps To Open Yourself To New Opportunities & Possibilities”.
