The effects of time management on your team productivity can be game-changing. By being mindful of how you use the hours in your workday, you can reach your goals, accomplish more in less time, achieve a healthy work-life balance, and improve the efficiency of your team operations without compromising on quality.
Conversely, being pressed for time, missing deadlines, and overworking are due to a lack of prioritisation and unclear goals. Your day may be full of unimportant tasks and distractions eating up precious time.
That said, it can be hard to identify unnecessary tasks in your routine, especially when you do not have a clear action plan. It is why hiring a time management coach can be a worthwhile investment. A good coach can help you identify your priorities, weed out unimportant tasks, and develop better work habits to help you make the most of each day.
Keeping this in mind, the effectiveness of your time management training will depend on the quality of your coach. It is crucial to select a competent coach genuinely dedicated to helping you improve and learn new skills. To learn more about the qualities of a great time management coach, below are a few that you should look out for:
They Know How to Reinforce Accountability
A good time management coach should instil a strong sense of accountability in you. They ensure that you are on the right track to achieving your goals.
A coach might ask you for progress updates or give you something to do that will help you better manage your time. For example, they might request that you make a schedule and then ask you to stick to it until your next training session. According to studies, having accountability appointments like these can increase the probability of completing a goal by 95 per cent.
They Are Committed to Helping You Set Achievable Goals
A great coach should be committed to guiding you through the goal-setting process. Even if you already had planned goals prior to hiring a coach, perhaps they are not clearly articulated. When goals are too ambiguous, it can be hard to get actionable steps to achieve them. It may cause you to waste more time and resources than necessary. A coach can prevent this by ensuring that your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.
For example, your goal might be to get a job promotion. However, that is not specific enough for you to break it down into feasible and concrete steps. When do you want to get the promotion? How will you measure whether you have achieved this goal?
Your coach might ask questions like these to help you better flesh out your objective. So instead of “I want to get a promotion,” you will have a more detailed goal like “I want to receive a 15 per cent salary increase and manage five employees by the end of the year.”
They Understand Your Priorities and Help You Focus on Them
If you have too many commitments, it is easy to forget your priorities. A skilled time management coach understands this and helps you focus on what is important. A coach can help you figure how much time you should be spending on tasks based on their priority.
For example, they might recommend that you devote at least 65 per cent of your time to tasks that directly impact your goals and sense of fulfilment. They may then recommend that you spend 20 per cent of your time working on unexpected tasks, and 5 to 10 per cent of your time resting during moments of exhaustion or stress.
They Know All the Best and Latest Time Management Techniques
A good time management coach is not only knowledgeable but also up-to-date on the latest information and strategies in their field. Your coach should be able to impart in-depth knowledge that you cannot find through a simple online search. Plus, the one-on-one nature of their training allows them to teach techniques that best suit your specific circumstances. Hence, a great coach ensures you learn the most relevant and effective approaches to time management.
They Are Skilled at Preventing You from Falling into Bad Habits
Without knowing it, you may be practising certain habits that are detrimental to your productivity. Some examples are procrastinating and multitasking. Unfortunately, you may be unable to spot and eliminate these bad habits yourself.
Luckily, a good time management coach can do just that, thanks to their years of experience. They can identify counterproductive practices and help you overcome them by teaching you better work habits.
Time management is an essential skill in the workplace, but it is not always easy to develop. Thankfully, a time management coach can help make the learning process much easier. A coach with the qualifications mentioned above will ensure that you take the right steps towards your goals, maximise your time, and reach your full potential.
Check Priority Management Australia’s online courses on Time Management today.