Use Organization and Time Management at Work
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The strategies you use to get organized and take control of your time at school are just as essential in your work life. If you manage projects and meet with clients and coworkers every day, you know that things fall apart when they’re disorganized and that deadlines are missed when you don’t stick to a schedule. Let’s consider how you can apply the ideas from this chapter in the workplace.
Get a Job
When you apply for a job, the skills of organization and time management make all the difference. First, you can use these skills to prepare a stellar résumé. Describing your accomplishments will be easier if you’ve kept track of all the papers and presentations you created in college. For example, if you designed a social media campaign during an internship, keep a copy of the campaign so you can explain in detail what you did.
Second, you’ll arrive for interviews on time, and you will have prepared questions for the interviewers and information about your qualifications. Arriving prepared shows that you understand the importance of organization and timeliness — all before you’ve even said a word. And that can make you stand out in a crowd of job applicants.
Show That You’re Dependable
Once you get a job, being organized and effectively managing your time can help you excel in that job — no matter what it is. Let’s say you’re in auto repair and you tell a customer that her car will be ready by a certain date. You’ll be more likely to build customer loyalty if you deliver as promised — which you can do only if you have the necessary tools at your fingertips and if you’ve scheduled enough time to do the work right. In any job, your boss, customers, and colleagues will appreciate that you’re organized and in control of your time. As a result, you’ll gain a reputation for getting work done — and done right. Such a reputation could lead to huge opportunities for career advancement.
Make Time for Your Personal Life
When you’re organized at work and you control your time, you can boost your productivity on the job, without necessarily having to put in longer hours. In short, you’ll work smarter, not harder. As a result, you’ll free up more time for your personal life, enabling you to maintain a healthy work/life balance. Your job matters, but you also need time for your education, family, friends, health, and fun. Without that balance, you might get so burned out on the job that you have little energy to fulfill your nonwork obligations and goals.
WRITING PROMPT: Ask students to answer the following questions: How is time management related to success at work and in your personal life? Do you find yourself using different time-management methods at home and at work? Explain.
Prioritizing tasks at work helps you complete crucial tasks first. That way, you generate the business results that matter most to your boss and your organization, but work doesn’t take over your life. You can also find ways to “unplug” from work outside of your normal job hours. For example, resist the urge to respond to work-related e-mails and phone calls at 11:00 p.m., when you should be sleeping. And take advice from Tony Schwartz, a well-known author who writes about balance and work satisfaction: Assess your contribution at work in terms of the value you create rather than the amount of time you log in. In other words, focus on doing good work (quality) versus simply measuring the number of hours you work (quantity).4
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voices of experience: employee
MANAGING A BUSY WORK SCHEDULE
| NAME: | William Hatchet |
| PROFESSION: | New College Student Academic Facilitator |
| SCHOOL: | Augustana College |
| DEGREE: | Bachelor of Arts |
| MAJORS: | Sociology and Africana Studies |
“Staying organized and on top of things is critical for me to do my job well.”
After graduation I moved into my first job as a New College Student Academic Facilitator — I help students navigate college and support programs designed to help them stay in school. I wear several hats in this job and continually balance large projects, meetings across campus, and regular meetings with students. Staying organized and on top of things is critical for me to do my job well.
I figured out quickly that I needed to create a structure to stay organized and manage my busy schedule. I have two main strategies to keep everything straight. First, I use a projects list to keep track of everything I need to get done. As soon as I get a project, I write it down on a list that I carry with me, or I type it into a Word document if I’m at my computer. I add a few details to help me remember everything I need to do for each project. I also use calendars to schedule my time. I have separate work and personal calendars, and I sync them electronically so I always know what I have going on during the week at work and on evenings and weekends away from campus.
The combination of my projects list and my calendars has been working great. Using these tools has really helped relieve my stress. I know that everything I need to do is written down in one of two places. I often carry my iPad with me so I can look things up anytime I need to. These systems also allow me to look ahead, so I can keep track of what I need to work on during any given day and into the future.
YOUR TURN: If you currently have a job, which of the strategies that William describes might help you stay organized at work and manage your time? Have you developed other strategies that work well for you? If so, what are they? If you don’t currently have a job, which of William’s strategies sound useful for staying organized and managing your time in a job you’d like to get?
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