How can you better manage your time?

Too much to do and not enough time to do it in?

We get it.

Time often feels like it is in short supply for comms and media team professionals working in a fast-paced and relentless world.

Every minute counts. So, how can you make better use of your valuable time?

Our latest free webinar offered expert tips, techniques and advice to help you manage your time. If you missed it, you can watch it here.

James White, our managing director, was joined in our training studios by Dan Boniface and Laura Bridgeman, expert tutors – and time management gurus - from The BCF Group.

“One of the things I often hear from my clients – and the reason I think time management is so challenging for people in the comms, media and PR fields – is that there are many competing priorities,” James said.

“It is a bottomless list of things you are doing. And that can be tough.”

So, is better time management something everyone can learn?

“I think everyone can learn it, but they learn it differently,” Dan said.

“You might have a logical, theoretical person who likes their day to be strongly structured and time blocking, where time is put aside for certain tasks, can work well for them.

“More free-flowing people may find it hard to work in such a disciplined way.

“You have to find the ways that work for you, and there are tips and tricks you can amalgamate that can make the difference for you.”

What about the role of neurodiversity?

Laura said: “It is something we see with our neurodiverse delegates. Some like to have the work sequenced and chunked in small bits.

“Some almost have time blindness and have to work hard on that.

“But a few tips and changes can make an improvement and help people feel better about time management.”

Why is time management crucial?

That may seem like a daft question as your mind wanders to your never-ending ‘to-do’ list.

But it is essential to consider the implications of poor time management.

Dan: “If we are not effective with time management, we run the risk of stress, anxiety and poor effectiveness.

“On the extreme end is burnout, where you can’t function.

“So, we have to put things in place that allow us to be effective and in control of what we do.”

Laura added that poor time management can have far-reaching consequences.

She said: “If there are individuals on your team who are under pressure and struggling with time management, that will impact the rest of the team, department and organisation. It can impact productivity and staff retention.”

So, what can you do about it?

Well, our panel offered seven top tips for better time management you can use now.  

 

1 Plan the day ahead the night before

Dan describes this one as a ‘game changer’.

He said: “I’m confident this works effectively – it gave me a better life/work balance.

“I spend the last five minutes of each day planning what I will do tomorrow. Things can change overnight, particularly in comms with crisis media management, and you need to prepare for the unexpected.

“But you can set yourself up so you know what you will do when you walk into the office or sit down at your desk.

“It means you don’t waste the start of the day trying to remember the key things you need to be getting on with.

“It also means you are not stressing overnight because you have a clear plan of attack for the next day.  

“Less stress means better sleep and a clear mind as you go to the office the next day.”

 

2 Effectiveness with people, efficiency with things

This one is more about where you should focus your time.

“When dealing with people, give them the time, effort and energy they need and deserve,” Dan said.  

“When you are working on things, get them done. That doesn’t mean lowering standards. But sometimes, when working on a project or task, it may not need to be 100 per cent completed. Sometimes 90 per cent is a job well done.  

“You have to make judgement calls – but give people the time they need.”

 

3 Understand the monkey, the elephant and the frog

Ok, I know this one sounds weird. But stick with it.

These are different analogies and metaphors we use for better time management.

Let’s start with monkey business.

“This explains why middle and senior managers are time-poor,” Dan said.

“The idea is that we have a monkey on our back that is the tasks and projects we are working on.

“And then someone comes to us and says, ‘I have this problem that I don’t know how to resolve’.

“Typically, managers say something like, ‘Leave it with me’, because they know they can do it quicker than how long it takes to train them to solve it.

“So, you take that monkey, and then someone else comes to you with an issue, and you take that on as well.

“Now, you have your monkey and two others on your back. If you’ve got 10 in your team, that’s a lot of monkeys climbing on your back.”

Coaching is key to avoiding this time-consuming chaos.

Dan said: “You need to make sure you know exactly what the problem is, and then you assign it to someone you empower to solve it, plan for what happens if that person is away and make sure you have regular check-ins. You must check up on that monkey and ensure things are going alright.”

Laura added: “I find the analogy helpful. When you imagine someone bringing you a difficult monkey, it makes you think about it differently.”

So, that’s monkeys sorted, but how do you eat an elephant?

“I think of all the analogies, this is my most-used one,” Dan said.

“The idea here is that we get overwhelmed by a big project and need to break it down into small chunks.

“You couldn’t eat an elephant in one go.

“In coaching, we talk about the first next step – the next thing you need to do. If you think about conflict management and difficult conversations, you think about meeting with that person, and it can feel like a daunting task.

“But that’s not the first next step. The first next step is booking the meeting. The first next step after that is planning what you have to say. The meeting is four or five steps down the line.  

“Breaking tasks into small chunks gets the ball rolling.”

How about eating a frog instead?

Who knew time management was so closely linked to eating animals?

This tip is based on a Mark Twain quote.

He once said: “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.”

And here’s Dan to explain what that means.

He said: “What this means in real terms is do the task you have been putting off first.

“Then it is done, you can tick it off and get on with the rest of your day.

“If you do it the other way around and leave it until last, you may run out of time to do it, and it carries over to the next day. And it plays on your mind all day. You can’t focus if you have something heavy weighing on your mind.”

 

4 Build positive habits

A good way of avoiding the daily race against the clock is to build routines that become habits.

Dan said: “This is about looking at what works for you already and building on it so you do them automatically.

“Building habits allows us to make marginal gains – those one per cent improvements that add up and make a difference.

“The habit needs to be obvious – if we find something hard to follow, it is unlikely to form as a habit.

“It also needs to be something you want to do, and there must be a sense of achievement from accomplishing that habit.

“Something I like to do is get through the quick wins first. If I have 10 things I need to do in the day, ticking off six or seven of them gets me off to a great start.

“The two-minute rule is also excellent. If it takes two minutes, get it done now.”

Forming new habits is not always easy.

But Laura says habit stacking can make the process smoother.

She said: “This is about recognising the habits, patterns and routines we have in place and – rather than building a new habit out of nowhere – you loop it on to an existing habit.

“So, if your comms strategy review keeps sliding down the to-do list because it feels like a big job, once you have got your coffee and check your emails set aside an amount of time to do part of it.

“I find that kind of routine particularly helpful when working from home.

“The more you do this stacking, the more automatic it becomes, and you do it without thinking about it.”

 

5 Self-discipline

Imagine that feeling when you are in the zone, fully focused, and your full attention is on the task at hand.

It's called flow state. And self-discipline is integral to it.

Laura said: “You need to eliminate the distractions like the notifications that pull on your attention. Are they helping in your role and staying focused or taking you off task?

 “Once the flow state is broken, it can take 15 minutes to get back into it.

“You also need to appreciate that you will have different attention spans for different tasks.

“Recognise your limit for certain tasks and when you are at your best. Are you more productive in the morning or more of a night owl? Are you more focused at lunchtime when the office is quiet?  

And deal with one task at a time.

Regular breaks are also essential. “You can’t schedule every minute of the day,” Laura said.

“You need to build in breaks and stick to them.”

Laura added: “We talk a lot during our courses about emotional intelligence. And it is not just about the emotions of others. It is about self-awareness and self-regulation.

“It is about recognising there are jobs we prefer to do – and that we will prioritise as a result – and ones we don’t like and try to put off for as long as possible.”