Productivity for Managers: How to Organize Your Workflow

As a manager, it’s pretty much your job to think about the others - what your employees are doing, what their tasks should be, who’s going to do what, and so on. Among others, you’re faced with the question of how to increase workplace productivity on a daily basis, but you very likely usually take it to refer to employees’ productivity. However, one thing you definitely shouldn’t overlook in all this hustle of a manager’s life is optimizing your own workflow.

Some things are universally applicable to you and your employees, such as the value of taking breaks, avoiding too much multitasking, having clear goals that you can track and setting up your work environment so that the distractions are kept to a minimum. But there are a couple of things you have to pay special attention to because of the nature of your job.

And there’s no reason to get all frazzled thinking that this is just going to add on to your already full agenda. These aren’t difficult tweaks. And plus, a simple tool that you might be using for your employees anyway can help you do this more easily. We’re talking, of course, about a work time management app such as Insightful.

How? Well, most of the distractions and business processes are computer-based, right? Therefore, you’ll need a way to track those. And the answer to ‘How to monitor my PC activities?’ is essentially the same as for your employees.

So let’s see some ways in which you can optimize your own workflow for increased productivity and how ‘when I work time clock app’ can help you along.

Decision Making Flow

As a manager, you’re expected to make a lot of decisions every day that ultimately end up affecting your whole company in a significant way. That’s in your job description. But the harsh truth is - you’re actually getting gradually worse at it as the day moves on. It’s almost as if you have a psychological credit at the beginning of each day that gets spent with every decision you make.

Similar thing happens with productivity flow, as your time management software can show you. If you look at the timelines you get when you monitor your computer activity, you’ll see that the productivity tends to have a slightly downward trajectory over the course of the day.

This is natural and you can’t do much about it. What you can do is implement a work-around - assign all of the most important tasks and decisions for first thing in the morning. That way, you’ll ensure that the most critical issues are dealt with clear mind and fresh perspective instead of in the middle of wondering what time it is and when you can go home.

Learn how to monitor your computer activity in order to see when you’re most productive and when it’s the best time for you to make the most important decisions.

Work Delegation

It’s often overlooked how important proper delegation can be for smoother workflow. Doing everything yourself is a bad idea - both for your productivity and the efficiency of those who you’re micromanaging.

So, start delegating as much as you can. It’s tough enough that you have to track your work, but tracking every single activity of every employee is going to drain your energy. By all means, you should use an app to track your work hours as well as the overall performance on the company level, but you should always share access to your work time clock app with team leads and department managers - they can then worry about the minor details within their respective teams. This will leave you time to focus on being productive at your own job.

Trust the Technology

You’re not replaceable just yet, but you also don’t need to do everything yourself. Tiny details are important, but do you have to track attendance manually for every employee? Do you have to check if they’re actually working by approaching them and looking at their screen? Of course not!

You can use work time tracking app for all these small details. All the reports that it gives you on active time, productive time, attendance, overtime, payroll, software used and so on are highly accurate and almost completely automatic. Figuring out how to monitor all activity on computer devices with this simple app will relieve you of having to worry about these business details and there will be nothing more to distract you from being productive.

Conclusion

Employee productivity is important. But it’s just as essential to get your own workflow in check. Organize your day according to your natural productivity flow, delegate whenever you can and don’t be afraid to rely on technology such as work time app to help you with some details. After all, the best way to lead your company to improved efficiency is by example.

‍