How Time Management Tools Promote Better Outputs from Employees

As children, we were told many times that time is gold. In fact, the saying has become so used that others grew tired of hearing it.

Nonetheless, the straightforward message it imparts holds true for every aspect of life, especially in business.
Time translates to dollars, and a good business owner should know that optimizing time usage in the workplace is essential in taking any enterprise to the next level. Apart from digital marketing tools and e-commerce software, we are fortunate to live with an abundance of time management tools at our disposal. Such instruments help keep employees efficient and encourage accountability. Time management tools also promote better outputs from employees through the following ways:

Organizing Tasks

When job orders are given in bulk, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work waiting to be done. That is why most employees with a lot of pending tasks easily feel defeated even before starting to work their way into the pile. Time management tools are a great way to organize your employees’ tasks quickly and effectively to prevent these scenarios from weighing down on their morale.
The best way to present tasks is to organize them in order of priority. This way, employees don’t need to decide for themselves which projects they should complete first, freeing up more time to actually execute what they are paid to do. An organized list of tasks also guarantees that crucial pieces of work won’t be put on the back burner. With the right tool or software, you can apply this system to your company with ease to boost your workers’ productivity and performance.

Recommended Time Management Tools for Organizing Tasks:

Increasing Focus

In relation to organizing tasks by priority, time management tools are also a great way to increase focus. Workers are able to pour one hundred percent of their concentration at what they are currently doing knowing there is a definite, ranked list of jobs. In the absence of such order, the tendency of employees would be to jump from one task to the next before finishing what they have on hand.
Time management tools, coupled with the right amount of supervision, will ensure efficiency and cut panic out of the picture so as to help employees clear their workload intently, one task at a time. In the long run, you could expect to see outputs of better quality as they would be done without the usual half-mindedness and deadline-induced rush.

Recommended Time Management Tools to Increase Focus:

Eisenhower Matrix App
Harvest

Instilling a Sense of Urgency

Having a sense of urgency is often an overlooked facet of creating an efficient workspace. In a nutshell, it is the feeling of having to accomplish something now, rather than putting it off for later—even if you could. Workplaces that fail to establish this culture lose their edge to rival companies because employees grow complacent of allowing projects to take longer to finish than they should. Customer complaints may not be resolved promptly, fueling client attrition. Once a trend like this is in motion, goals are set back and a business may fall behind too much, unable to keep up with the demands of a dynamic market.
A sense of urgency is most effective when accompanied by a strong follow through of action. With time management tools, you can foster an environment where people are compelled to act the moment information is received. This is possible because such devices or applications give a tangible picture of what should be delivered versus what has been done, as well as the exact amount of time it took for a team member to complete a task.

Recommended Time Management Tools to Instill a Sense of Urgency:

Giving Immediate Feedback

Time management tools today are highly sophisticated. Some include features that not only report on your employees’ productivity, but also their performance, as well as your perception of their work. The beauty of using these tools is that you don’t have to wait for one-on-one sessions with your employees to give them feedback. While they should not replace thorough evaluations, many apps offer immediate assessment of an employee’s output with respect to the use of a business’ most important resource: time. As such, team members can make adjustments to their work accordingly and improve at a much faster rate.

Recommended Time Management Tools that Give Immediate Feedback:

Facilitating Self-Monitoring

Finally, time management tools help employees practice mindfulness without constant supervision. As an employer, you can’t spend all your time just managing your workers to uphold a standard. To have a sustainable business, you have to have a competent lineup composed of people you can trust to do their job even when you’re not around. While you could be lucky enough to hire such driven individuals right off the bat, transforming every member of your team requires you to invest in them and in the right tools.
Most time management tools are specifically made to monitor what employees do down to the second. They display timers, keep track of opened applications and websites, and produce insights on how to fine-tune one’s time management skills. Enforcing the use of such instruments remind employees to make use of their hours and attention on the right things while in the workplace. When used properly, this should ideally initiate better self-regulation and productive behavior.

Recommended Time Management Tools that Facilitate Self-Monitoring:

Indeed, technology has paved the way for us to work with superb efficiency. While they are of great help, time management tools can only do so much and must still be supplemented with strong leadership and a robust vision.