Do you want to get more done every day in your firm? Increasing productivity and momentum towards getting phases complete is the best way to improve project management and your firm’s profitability.  

Given that you have a fixed number of hours to accomplish everything, the only way to achieve more is to improve your overall time management. While utilizing a time tracking software to track data that you can then analyze is one of the easiest ways to improve time management across your firm, there are a few other tips that can help you accomplish more each day.  

How to Improve Your Time Management Skills 

Here is a simple five-step mantra to help you get started in the right direction when it comes to improving your firm’s time management.

1. Set Objectives

It’s important that you set objectives and goals for your day, week, month, and year. This helps you stay focused and makes sure that you give yourself completely to the task at hand. Distractions are one of the biggest reasons individuals and firms fail to see progress in their work.  

Any objectives beyond the daily ones are likely to change over time, but it is important to write them down and monitor them as you go. It is also recommended that you assign a priority value to each task and objective. It is easy to get caught completing small tasks, wanting some quick wins, but letting the higher priority items that will have a bigger impact but require a larger effort get pushed to the backburner. This is a common mistake and something every person and firm should strive to avoid. Try to build a personal habit to work on the highest priority items first, before taking on smaller less important tasks.  

You should also learn to set milestones for your bigger tasks. Do you need to finish an assignment or a project? Break it into smaller steps and schedule a deadline for each. This will help you concentrate on where you are, rather than worrying about how much there is to do and allows you to analyze whether you are making progress.  

2. Prioritize

Now that you know what your objectives are, you must learn how to prioritize your activities. Until you understand the difference between "important" and "urgent", you will constantly switch from one task to another, instead of taking each in turn and fully completing the work.

Try making a to-do list for your day, outlining the most important tasks for that day, and ranking them in terms of their priority. Try to limit yourself to two or three major items per day. After you have completed these tasks, you can devote yourself to other responsibilities, working steadily to get through your activities in order.  

Remember, there can only be one priority at a time. If you have three tasks and all of them are marked priority, then none of them are the priority. Instead, review all your tasks and rank them from highest to lowest priority.  

Consider using a Kanban style organization tool – either digital or simply using sticky notes on a wall. This can help you visualize what is in your backlog, what you are currently working on and what you have completed. Visual cues can help you focus on the right things but also see the progress you are making.

3. Remove Distractions

If you examine your daily routine, you will find activities that waste your time or distract you from the important work you need to get done.  

Focus. Close all unnecessary tabs, windows, and applications on your computer, mute any distracting incoming messages and work with your apps in full-screen mode to further eliminate distraction. Set your phone to silent or use the do not disturb feature to prevent distractions. And if you must, leave the office or your home to find a location where you can focus on your work without interruptions.  

Observe your habits and look for unconscious actions that interrupt your flow. Try to be aware of when you pick up your phone to check headlines, sports scores, or social media. Force yourself to avoid these sorts of actions while you are working. By moving your visits to extraneous sites or apps into your scheduled breaks, you can save an amazing amount of time and accomplish more than you imagined possible in a single day.  

4. Be Productive, Not Busy

It’s important to understand the difference between being busy and being productive. Every task can be completed in many ways, so make sure you choose the most efficient one, rather than the one that only makes you look like you’re doing a lot of work.

Efficiency is something that improves over time and is a learning process. Keep your eyes open so you can identify ways to work smarter, rather than harder. Don't forget to watch for the latest tools and updates to your existing software that may improve your systems or processes.  

Automate as much as possible to eliminate the menial tasks you do daily. If you find yourself repeating something a few times each day or week, look for tools that can automate that item so you can focus on more important things.

5. Learn to say No

One of the most common causes of overwork is the inability to refuse a polite request. You must learn to say "No" when colleagues and clients ask you to take on another task and you're already too busy. Be polite, but firm...even with your boss.  

If you don’t want to say no directly, a polite way to do this is to say I already have a full workload this week, but I can put that task into the backlog to work on in the future. Quite often the person making the request will say never mind and find someone else to do that task or they will do it themselves.  

Another effective strategy when your manager requests additional tasks that you don’t have time for is to ask them which of your existing work items you should put on hold or cancel to take on the new work.  

The more experienced you become at estimating your workload and how much you can handle, the more your colleagues and clients will trust your judgment. They'll learn that you're not refusing their request because you're stubborn, but because you know you won't be able to give their work the attention it deserves.  

Time management is an essential skill that you must master to achieve success. It will also help you reduce stress at work, build your self-confidence, and take control of your workflow. Follow this simple five-step mantra above until it becomes second nature to you, and you'll find you can achieve more in less time!  

Bonus Tip: Time Blocking

The five tips above will help you better manage your time and be more effective in your work. But there is one more tip that can really help you balance your workload and distractions: Time Blocking.  

Time blocking is a time management strategy to group similar tasks and give you larger chunks of time to focus on specific types of work. It involves dividing your day into large blocks of time dedicated to various tasks or activities. During each blog you focus on a specific type of work and say no or block all other distractions. This can have a profound impact on your productivity.  

For example, you may structure your days like this:

• 9am - 10am: Ramp up.
  Arrive at the office and check and respond to email, review to-do lists, communicate with your team, have your daily standup meeting, etc.
• 10am - 12:30pm: Design Time.
  You block your calendar and decline all meeting requests. All notifications on your phone and computer are turned off and you put on headphones so your colleagues know not to bother you. You take this 2.5 hour block of time to focus on your design work for the day, completely uninterrupted by any other type of work.  
• 12:30pm - 1:30pm: Lunch Break.
  You leave the office for lunch to get some fresh air and some exercise. Often you try to use lunch time to meet with colleagues, consultants you collaborate with, or prospective clients.  
• 1:30pm - 4pm: Administrative Work.
  This is the time block in which you review reports, hold client meetings, plan out your project schedules, create invoices, etc.  
• 4pm - 5:30pm: Wind Down.
  Your schedule is open for internal meetings with colleagues, 1:1 management meetings, ad hoc questions, planning for your next day, and other smaller tasks.

It is important that when you are time blocking you say no to the tasks and requests that aren’t related to that block’s focus. If a client asks you hold a meeting during your design time you politely say that time doesn’t work for you and instead you propose meeting with them during your administrative block of time. As we discussed above, you are allowed to say no, and you should b diligent about protecting your daily schedule to maximize your productivity.  

Better Time Management with BQE CORE 

Now that you know some time management tips you can start implementing right away, let’s talk about what you can do to help manage time better in the long run. Spreadsheets and outdated software do not help your time management. In fact, they just make things worse. The whole idea of time management is to save time and better manage your projects and profitability. BQE CORE can help.  

CORE is an all-in-one dashboard that provides easy time and expense tracking, project management, billing and invoicing, and accounting designed for architects, engineers, and other professional services. While you implement the above strategies into your daily time management, take advantage of software that is designed to make things easy for you and your team. Get detailed real-time insight into projects and your employees’ hours. Never spend time fixing errors again when you have a smart platform that handles all the numbers for you. And best of all, it makes time entries such a breeze you won’t have to hound your employees to input their time again.  

Try a free demo today to see just why the AE and professional industries are all moving to CORE.