How to Apply Task Management Skills in Business and in Life

Task management is at the core of business leadership. Your ability to effectively manage a task from start to finish will determine whether your business succeeds. If you’re struggling with one aspect of task management, it’s time to hone in on improving specific skills that will enable you to become an even better leader for your company’s team.

Sometimes, hiring others like Right Touch Residential Cleaning can free up more of your time to focus on your business as well as free up more of your personal time for things you’d rather be doing. Best of all, becoming more confident in your task-management abilities can also allow you to accomplish other goals in your personal life. These tips will show you how to boost your task management skills at work and leverage these same skills in your life outside of work.

Stay Organized With Apps

You don’t have to handle task management on pen and paper, or by simply creating notes in your smartphone – instead, you can download apps that have been designed to help you with the very tasks you’re trying to accomplish!

For instance, you might be concerned that your payroll system is disorganized because you’ve been handling payments manually. A payroll app like QuickBooks Time offers a time-tracking feature in addition to mobile timesheets for employees, which streamlines team management. In addition, you can integrate this program with your other business software, use the program’s mobile app to manage payroll on the go, and get real-time reporting.

If you’re used to budgeting on the backs of envelopes, a financial app could also help you stay organized in your personal life. For example, you can use an app like Mint that connects directly to your bank account so that all of your deposits and expenses are automatically recorded, making it easy to keep track of your savings and spending habits!

Use the Right Communication Tools

Communication and project management go hand in hand for business leaders. And in order to handle both of these responsibilities, you’ll need the right tools. When it comes to communication, Slack is the perfect platform for teams of all sizes. You can create channels for different topics and projects, share documents, and even host spontaneous virtual meetings while keeping all your communications on one platform.

While Slack can be a useful communication tool for everyone working on the same project, it is not necessarily a comprehensive project management tool. For this, you’ll need a platform with more features, like Asana or Monday. You can integrate Asana with Slack, and this software also offers a variety of options for visualizing task plans and progress, as well as drag-and-drop functionality to change task-management plans. On the other hand, Monday allows you to see visualizations for progress on all your current tasks on one screen and create groups for project portfolios. If you need task-management solutions, you can turn to these programs.

Project management tools aren’t just useful for business – you can also use these tools outside of the office! For instance, if you’re working on a personal creative project, you can outline the different steps with a project management app. You could even use it to plan fun events, like birthday parties or holiday celebrations.

Become a Master of Delegation

You like to have a say in every aspect of your business, but you can’t tackle task management entirely on your own. You need to learn how to delegate to your team members and outside contractors. When you delegate a task to someone, Cleaner Magazine recommends giving out specific instructions and examples of the results you want. Clarifying your expectations will ensure that both of you are on the same page. Offer training if necessary and let them know that they can reach out and ask for help if they have questions.

Delegation is also a useful strategy to apply to your personal life. Hiring people to help you with domestic tasks like cleaning, ordering meal services to save time cooking, or simply coming up with a chore wheel for your household and assigning other people different tasks can create more room in your own schedule.

Efficient Time Blocking

Sometimes, figuring out the timeline for completing a particular task can become confusing. You might be trying to balance countless small subtasks in order to finish major milestones. It can be easy to spread yourself too thin or start working on subtasks in an inefficient manner. Instead, carefully plot out the schedule and timeline using a time management strategy. Productive Club states that by grouping certain related tasks together and scheduling them hour by hour, you can divide your time each day between working on long-term projects and taking care of daily responsibilities.

You can use time blocking to schedule your own week outside of work. You could group certain chores together to finish on a weekend morning, or you could combine grocery shopping, meal prepping, and cleaning the kitchen for Sunday afternoons. You’ll minimize the amount of time you spend switching between domestic tasks to get things done faster.

Understand Your Productivity Cycle

Finally, it’s important to identify when your personal productivity levels peak during the day. Maybe you tend to feel the most productive in the morning, or maybe you feel truly motivated in the evening. You can complete your most challenging and energy-intensive tasks during these hours, whether they happen to be work-related or personal goals. Your energy cycle will be unique compared to anyone else’s. But knowing the ins and outs of your own cycle is the key to unlocking a higher level of productivity that you can apply to your most crucial tasks.

Task management sounds simple enough on the surface, but mastering this art can be complicated. With time and practice, you’ll be able to manage every task that comes your way with efficiency and accuracy while guiding your team members through the entire process. And by getting the hang of these skills, you’ll also become a fantastic task manager outside of the workplace, whether you’re working toward personal goals, outsourcing a cleaning service, or trying to organize your household.

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