“Time is money”: the ubiquitous term coined by our society as a standard business philosophy. In the agency world, where minutes and hours are billable, this expression rings nothing but truth.
Efficient time management is crucial in nearly every industry. While the insight to follow may be targeted towards how to best manage your time when working in an agency setting, these strategies can be applied anywhere that minutes impact your bottom line.
Let’s start with meetings. Meetings are important and allow for multiple people to hear the same message at once and express their thoughts openly. It allows participants to walk away with a unified conclusion and call to action. That’s the ideal at least. Too many times meetings are convoluted with unnecessary attendees whose time is being wasted. In fact, research has proven that people waste approximately 31 hours per month in unnecessary meetings. Make sure your invitee list is concise and that every meeting ends with assigned actionable items.
Then there’s multi-tasking. In theory, multi-tasking is a skill to be praised. But the reality of multitasking in such a setting is that it is completely inefficient. Just because it’s something you CAN do, doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it. For the average person, it takes an entire 26 minutes to reorient and refocus after being interrupted by another task. If you think that switching between 3 different projects every 5 minutes is efficient, think again.
Another often-overlooked tactic to saving time, is actually taking a break. That may seem counterintuitive as a 3-hour work session may feel like just what you need. It’s a proven fact that after 45 minutes, the average human starts to lose focus. Productivity levels will quickly decrease. Try the ‘45/15 rule’. Work a solid 45 minutes on one project, and take the last 15 minutes to either check emails, listen to voicemails, or any other short term task. Using that time for necessary “mindless” tasks will allow your brain to rest.
A few other practical ideas that may end up saving you more money than you think? Get in early before the rush where there are fewer distractions. Use multiple monitors to avoid tabbing between screens. Keep your emails in check. Delegate.
Regardless of your role or industry, chances are there are better ways you could be maximizing your time—big or small. This will in turn increase your opportunities for profitability.
Looking for an agency that knows how to respect and make the most of the value of your time? –Give us a shout!
Great article! Absolutely wonderful. Concise and actionable content. I’d researched a lot on Time management while building the Week Plan software (http://weekplan.net/) It basically puts into application a lot of the things you have mentioned in this article. Being a time management expert as yourself, I would love any feedback or suggestions you have to improve it’s experience. Cheers!