Managing Time, Energy, and Focus for Remote Employee Productivity

Thursday, February 22, 2024 | Remote Team Management Software

Talygen

Effective time management is of the essence for the modern business manager or leader. With the increased workload, distractions, and remote workers, proper time management is crucial in keeping the employees focused, prioritizing, and modeling the right behaviors.

Research revealed poor time management can result in stress and negatively impact work-life balance. This calls for the appropriate use and implementation of strategies that remote team monitoring tools like Talygen offer.

Simply put, Talygen and its remote team monitoring tools can change how your teams work and achieve high performance at the workplace

This post will provide real solutions to time management to help leaders increase productivity, reduce stress, and strengthen team performance in the long run.

Start with Self-Management

As a leader, you set the tone for your department or organization. Before implementing organization-wide changes, look honestly at your time management skills. Identify areas where you may need to catch up. To track your productivity, you can take assistance from Talygen’s time tracking with screenshots. It will provide screenshots of your activities at random intervals, making it easy for you to follow your work habits.

According to the American Psychological Association, leaders' daily time management mistakes include a lack of priorities, procrastination, distractions, and poor planning.

For example, studies show that managers spend, on average, one-third of their time responding to interruptions like emails or impromptu visits. Here are a few things you can try:

  • Use Talygen's time tracking with screenshots features to audit how you currently spend your time.
  • Block off 30-60 minutes daily for planning in your calendar.
  • Determine your three most important tasks daily and schedule time to concentrate on these in Talygen.
  • Limit distractions by closing emails, silencing phone notifications, and letting your team know when you are heads down.
  • Bring focus back to your work.
  • Execute recurring tasks earlier to avoid procrastination piles.
  • Delegate or remove activities of low importance.
  • Set the example of effective time management for your team.
Set Overall Priorities

With your schedule streamlined, determine the most critical team goals and priorities for the week or month. These may include high-level objectives like launching a new product, improving customer satisfaction scores, or increasing sales by 10 percent.

Make sure individual employee priorities align to support these overarching goals. Schedule regular strategy meetings to define, communicate, and realign priorities as needed. Talygen’s shared calendars of the module appointment scheduling can provide transparency on priorities across the organization.

As a leader, reference back to key priorities frequently in team meetings, 1-on-1s, and communications to reinforce focus.

Create Schedules and Manage Meetings

With priorities set, work with employees to structure their schedules around accomplishing critical tasks in Talygen. Encourage blocking off 1-2-hour time blocks for focused work aligned with current objectives. Limit unnecessary meetings during these productive periods.

According to the meeting management company Lucid Meetings, ineffective meetings cost businesses approximately $399 billion annually in the United States.

As a leader, be vigilant in managing your own calendar and team meeting schedules. Set meeting agendas focused on critical priorities rather than open discussion. Evaluate regularly if a meeting is still the best use of time or if the topic could be covered asynchronously via email or chat. When meetings occur, use Talygen’s remote employee monitoring tools to start on time, stick to agenda topics, and end on schedule.

Establish Time Management Policies

Institute organization-wide policies and best practices to align time management approaches across the company. For example, you may set email policies like not expecting responses outside core hours or on weekends. Create contingency plans for when key team members are out. Define appropriate lead times for requests based on priorities.

For remote teams, be clear on communication norms like response times, visibility when online, core collaboration hours, and policies on focusing time. Discourage last-minute meetings and over-asking for input. Enable asynchronous work with shared documents and task boards in Talygen’s remote employee monitoring tools. Maintaining structure and alignment on time management will keep distributed teams productive.

Lead by Example

As a leader, your employees will follow your actions. If you institute significant policy changes but continue to work evenings and send weekend emails, mixed messages will be sent. Lead by example through your strong time management discipline.

Block focus time on your calendar and stick to it. Prepare diligently for meetings and finish on time. Practice avoiding non-essential meetings and trivial requests. Be honest if you are overwhelmed and need to reset priorities or deadlines. Your commitment will motivate others to mirror your practices and create a culture of productivity.

In today's complex work environment, focus is a scarce resource. Effective time management starts from the top, with leadership modeling desired behaviors. You can transform your organization's work by auditing your habits, setting clear priorities, managing schedules, and leading by example. Employees will replicate what you do.

The time spent focusing on priority tasks will far outweigh any inefficiencies. You will realize the performance gains your team can achieve with Talygen’s remote team monitoring tools supporting new time management disciplines.

There is no better time than the present to evolve your organization through time mastery.

About Talygen:

Choose Talygen for a reliable and robust business management automation solution. Our cloud-based SaaS suite, including remote employee monitoring tools, is perfect for businesses of all sizes.

Sign up today to streamline your operations.

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