Has this ever happened to you? You arrive in the morning ready to tackle some of the items that have sat on your mental to-do list for too long. But the minute you get started, a team member needs help in the shop, and something goes wrong, and a customer wants to speak with you, and so on. Then, before you know it, you’re being pulled in a million directions, neglecting the tasks you were planning on getting done.
There’s never enough time in the day to get everything done, but that begs the question: Why do you need to get everything done? As a shop owner, it’s imperative to focus your energy on what matters rather than wasting time on tasks that could easily have been passed off or pushed back to a later date.
Let’s break down how to prioritize your efforts and ensure you’re spending time where it counts—and how to make sure those tasks actually get done!
Determine Your Goals
Are you working ON your shop, or just IN your shop? It’s easy to get caught up in the daily grind, but as a leader, you need to stay focused on your company’s big-picture goals. When deciding how to spend your time, ask yourself: “Am I moving the needle on my long-term goals?” If the answer is no, it’s time to refocus and incorporate small daily steps toward achieving them.
Stay Focused
If you’re someone who gets lost in the details, it can be easy to get sidetracked as you work through the nitty-gritty of this particular task. Then, before you know it, you’ve spent an hour on something that should have taken a few minutes.
It’s imperative that you stay focused. Especially as a professional tasked with juggling a ton of balls in the air, you need to ensure you don’t lose sight of the larger initiatives that can make a significant impact on your business.
Prioritize and Organize
Especially if you’re an owner with a hundred things going on at once, you’ve probably got a mental to-do list that just scratches the surface of what needs to get done this week – not to mention the tasks you want to get to that contribute to your business’s bigger picture success.
A simple to-do list works wonders when prioritizing what needs to be done today and what needs to be done in the longer term. Mapping out what needs to happen first and what can wait until tomorrow or next week helps you attack your day, using your time wisely to tackle the tasks that will make the biggest impact. That way, when you’re getting ready to head out for the day, you can feel empowered by what you accomplished rather than feeling overwhelmed by what you didn’t get done that day.
Delegate
Remember, you’re not in this alone. Free up time for high-priority tasks by delegating responsibilities to your team. Trust your staff to handle the routine work, while you concentrate on what drives your business forward
Work Toward Something, Not in Circles
Look at it this way: If you’ve got ten items on your to-do list on a given day and you only have time to get to three of those duties, make sure you’re completing the right three. Finishing three tasks is better than scraping the surface on all ten and chasing your tail in a circle while not finishing any of them.
Don’t Just FIND the Time, MAKE the Time
How often have you said, “I’ll get to that later”? And a follow-up question: do you actually end up getting to it later? Our industry moves a mile a minute, and it’s not enough to plan on accomplishing something when you have the time. If there’s something you know you need to work on, block off the time on your calendar, shut your office door, and get to it. If you don’t make the time, it may never get done.
Seek Best Practices Your Manufacturing Network
When you have an issue in your shop, think about how your NTMA network can support you. The topics of time management, delegating, and prioritizing high-value-added tasks come up a lot at NTMA conferences and in our Emerging Leaders program. In addition, a recurring topic on NTMA Connect is all about how shop owners manage their time.
Remember that you’re not an island – you’re part of a rich community of like-minded professionals with similar goals and challenges.
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