Time management is pivotal to managing excessive workloads and providing deliverables before deadlines. However, time management does not always unlock high productivity. Other aspects like how to break the organizational silos or how to manage the lack of resources are essential to collectively produce unmatched productivity. While time management can teach how to efficiently use time, it doesn’t teach how to resolve team conflicts or how to negotiate a project’s budget. These supplemental skills assist in sidelining the barriers and clearing the path to an enhanced workplace and conducive environment. 

According to a report by hubstaff, 82% of employees don’t integrate time management tools into their system. Also, due to lack of prominent time management, people spend more than 50% of their available time on low-value tasks. 

Poor time management at work significantly impacts adversely to organization, causing increased operational costs, productivity and efficiency losses, hence a greater loss of revenue.

In this blog, we will venture out on the least discussed element of an idyllic professional life— organizational skills. 

What Is Time Management?

Time management is the skill of allocating the correct amount of time to a task to ensure a poised and healthy work-life balance. The idea behind practicing time management is to maintain a thick boundary between work and joy. With effective time management, an individual can dedicate time to their family, social circle, personal interests and hobbies, and long-term goals and visions. 

Time management has been held in high regard since the dawn of the civilization. The humankind have invented and implemented various techniques to manage their day. Gradually, the evolution of time management could be realized. 

Let’s reflect on the seamless transition of time management over the centuries. 

• In the ancient era, the Egyptians used ‘Sundials’ to divide a day into equal and small segments for different purposes such as religious ceremonies, and organizing their days. 
• The regimented schedule was gradually tailored for monastic life, dividing the day into time blocks for diverse tasks like prayer, labor, and study. 
• The Industrial Revolution propelled the idea of time management, prioritizing both time management and productivity (more work in less time).
• The 20th century saw a surge in the interest in time management with some best-sellers like, ‘How to Live on 24 Hours a Day by Arnold Bennett,’ or ‘The Time Trap,’ by Alan Mackenzie.
• Simple time management strategies and techniques like the Pomodoro Technique and the Eisenhower Matrix evolved and became predominant for utilizing time mindfully. 
• Corporate training sessions became a major priority for corporate organizations and adapting to a more disciplined and time-oriented approach to the workplace occupied the center stage. 
• Simple digital tools like Google calendars and to-do lists minimized the risks of missing out on crucial tasks and goals. 
• Currently, time management has transformed into an important work culture in organizations. Owing to that, the best time-tracking software integrated with advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and data analytics is becoming monumental. 

What Are Organizational Skills? 

Organizational skills are the set of practices that allow an individual to manage their workspace effectively by managing resources and time. Being the broader umbrella, organizational skills not only encompass time management skills but communication, planning, brainstorming, decision-making, collaboration, and other significant skills, making it the core of excellent productivity. 

As a spectrum, let’s understand what different skills combine to form a workplace organization.

• Time Management: To manage time effectively and meet goals before deadlines
• Communication: To minimize communication gaps and breaks the silos for efficient informational flow
• Task Delegation: To allocate the task that aligns with a team member’s capacities. 
• Collaboration: To collaborate effectively and keep the communication channels open
• Project Management: To manage every aspect of a project varying from employees’ performance tracking to project progress monitoring.  
• Attention to Detail: To identify minor defects or shortcomings in the project followed by immediate resolution. 
• Deadlines Management: To manage deadlines and strive to ensure deliverables without delays.  
• Problem-Solving: To stay prompt and find solutions to emerging problems. 

Mainly organizational skills comprise every aspect of efficient project management and goal achievement. 

Ways to Improve Time Management and Organizational Skills

Time management and organizational skills proceed side by side. With consistency and persistence, an individual can enhance their abilities to organize their workspaces and mental slate even amidst the chaos. elaborated below are top ways to learn and improve essential time management and organizational skills. 

1. Create to-do lists

A simple list jotted down with tasks can greatly organize the work and the day. A checklist narrows down the number of tasks that are urgent and highly important at the moment. Tailoring a list provides direction and prepares mentally before starting a project. Creating lists classifies the tasks based on their urgency and importance. It sorts the mental state and shifts the attention to highly critical tasks, cultivating more organization in the workspace. 

2. Prioritize tasks

Task prioritization helps in dedicating attention to a single task, making the doer aware of their immediate duties. Prioritizing tasks based on their importance is a crucial practice that enables one to save time and stay organized for the most critical ones. Prioritizing tasks narrows down the working schedule. High-priority tasks often have more impact on business revenue, therefore their completion is pivotal for business growth. 

3. Set small goals

Define goals for yourself. Breaking tasks into smaller tasks and setting small deadlines to boost the achievement rate. Goal setting ushers in the right direction, cultivating a competitive environment.  Furthermore, focusing on one goal at a time prevents multi-tasking, notorious for reducing productivity. Avoiding overwhelming goals can restrict actions due to fear or failures or the mental strength it may need. Creating lists classifies the tasks based on their urgency and importance. It sorts the mental state and shifts the attention to highly critical tasks, cultivating more organization in the workspace. 

4. Define deadlines 

Deadlines are crucial to set a time limit to achieve a task. Furthermore, it saves time for other important tasks. Imposing deadlines is crucial to time management. With deadlines, a worker saves time and is more productive at the workplace. Deadlines create a sense of high organization, strictly reserving a timeframe for an important task, and reducing interference with other less-significant tasks. 

5. Block disturbances

Screening the workplace for potential distractions and blockages in attaining high levels of productivity helps boost performance and organize the workplace. No time management technique can be efficient when the workplace disruptive factors. Removing or blocking disruptive factors like audio or visual distractions, unnecessary meetings, digital notifications, mobile phones, breaks or short outside trips significantly boosts productivity by saving time and triggering the flow state. 

6. Leverage technology 

Using efficient time-tracking apps or project management tools is important to stay competitive in the fast-paced work-life and deliver projects on time. Newer additions to productivity tools like automation, machine learning, data analysis, and outcome prediction have enhanced the standard and functionality of time-tracking apps or project management tools. 

7. Seek feedback

Feedback helps in understanding the pitfalls and implementing the corrective ways. By considering feedback from stakeholders such as end users product owners project managers workers can fulfill different needs while keeping the effort minimum. Also, reviews and remarks from users can help fine-tune the time management strategy and assist the organization in the workplace to enhance operational efficiency. 

8. Experiment with approaches

Learn and improve time management with experimentation. Evaluating which time management technique suits individual needs and produces desired results is essential. Enhancing communication, problem-solving, project management, and other organizational skills or evolving new strategies to help measure the effectiveness of the time management method and improve to maximize output and be more productive. 

9. Enhance collaboration and communication

Effective communication is the key to a seamless collaboration with other functional team members. Communication is the cornerstone of organizational skills as learning to put forth ideas and feedback is the beginning of a high-quality project. Breaking silos unlocks the adequate informational flow and provides resources to organize the workspace and arrange the project

10. Manage Stress

Stress management helps in decluttering the mind, creating space for mental organization. When plans and goals are sorted in the mind, they are executed in a highly organized manner. Stress handling teaches how to focus and regain attention to deal with the problem in hands rather than allowing the stress to engulf and kill your productive abilities and problem-solving tendencies. 

11. Strive to Improve

Time management and organizational skills need time. Instead of forcing the skills, stay disciplined and practice to improve with the help of self-evaluation or employing the best time-tracking app to monitor and track productivity. Employers can facilitate their workforce’s learning by integrating the employee time tracking software in their business system and assist their learning by comprehending their work patterns and striving to perform in the right direction. 

Conclusion

Learning and implementing time management and organizational skills are insufficient in the currently dynamic era of growth and development. Consistently enhancing interpersonal skills and effectively managing time to handle projects is pivotal to striving for perfection. Adapting to new methods or refining the old ones is the key to learning and evolving as a highly productive worker. 

Organizational skills require constant adoption of the dynamic environment and continuous improvement in every aspect of project and workplace management, whether it’s collaboration or communication. These strategic ways improve organizational skills if practiced stringently. Furthermore, popular project management and time management tools are highly efficient in making an employee more productive and aware of their performance and productivity. 

FAQ

Are time management and organizational skills two different concepts?

Yes, time management is different from organizational skills. Time management includes practicing mindful time-saving techniques to complete goals, leading to a balanced work-life. Organizational skills encompass many aspects of high productivity and leadership such as maintaining effective communication, facilitating efficient collaboration, demonstrating problem-solving skills, responsible for a productive workplace environment. 

What is the role of time tracker software in improving time management skills?

A time tracking app allows a worker to keep a tab of their productive and unproductive phase. Moreover, they may have access to further intelligence like idle time, work hours completion, and monthly performance reports, working as effective facilitators to enhance overall productivity.