Sep 30, 2020 There are many personal project management tools that can help you to remain organized and prepared at all instances. To help you with your tasks, we have rounded up on 10 must-have personal project management tools. A hybrid task and project manager, Asana is available for both iOS and Android devices. It has become quite a tool for. Task management is more than a lengthy to-do list, it involves a process by which you follow a task through its lifecycle, from planning to testing, tracking to reporting. For this kind of work you need software that offers a more robust set of features and tools molded to fit the unique demands of managing a project. Trello, Informant, and Todoist are probably your best bets out of the 25 options considered. 'Works well for visual thinkers' is the primary reason people pick Trello over the competition. This page is powered by a knowledgeable community that helps you make an informed decision.
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Regardless of where you stand in the organization hierarchy or personal accomplishments, this blog is for you. Here is a list of handpicked task management tips that you can work with today to accomplish your milestones without them getting the better of you.
Our daily lives revolve around a certain number of tasks that we identify along the way to achieve our ambitions and SMART goals. In the struggle to be at the top of our game and retaining our competitive edge, we often bite more than we can chew.
Although everything seems of high priority, something goes amiss in this race of getting things done and keeping your head. Some of us create a long to-do list to accomplish – before a certain time period or a certain age. Others spend so much time perfecting a single task that by the time it shines, it is obsolete.
Workload balancing and time management skills are not only associated with project managers or bosses. In fact, these skills need to be adopted on each level especially working in a team. If not, it can render dire consequences for a project altogether.
According to a study by Cornerstone, work overload decreases productivity by 68% in employees who feel they do not have enough hours in the day to complete their tasks. So, what are the essential task management tips that we all need to be effective and efficient, simultaneously?
Top 10 Effective Task Management Tips
1. Make To-do Lists
To-do lists are classic, yet powerful and effective more than ever today. Back in the day, people kept handwritten notes for ideas and things to get done. They are like your everyday essentials and add to your effective task management tips.
Now, people have smart to-do list apps that give out notifications and reminders before the task is due. It is easier than ever before to jot down ideas in the form of images, voice notes, text and so much more.
Shivani Siroya is the CEO of Tala, a microloan startup. Siroya states: “I’ve figured out how to make all these digital systems work for me, but I have to admit, at the end of the day, a list on paper still feels the most useful.”
Make it a habit to arrange a list of things to do. Also, make use of the many free and premium to-do list apps that will help you do just that.
2. Prioritize
Understandably, not everything on your to-do list needs to be done right away. Yes, there are some great ideas that can help you take your game a notch up. However, it is important to establish what is important at a specific instance.
Michael Mankins is a Bain & Company partner and co-author of “Time, Talent and Energy”, a CMI Management Book of the Year. According to Mankins, “Liberating time requires eliminating low-value activities altogether, not merely capturing them on a list,” he stresses.
Take help from the BCG matrix, and understand the strengths and weaknesses of your projects as well as the opportunities and threats it is facing. Once clear with what matters at the time, you can define the importance of the tasks better.
3. Schedule
Scheduling tasks is a great task management skill and keeps the team focused on what is at hand without going off-track worrying about other tasks. However, keeping on track is a major struggle in itself.
Adobe zii patch only 4 0 4. Did you know that according to a study, a person wastes about 21.8 hours a week? Professionals are more or less affected by distractions that seem harmless at the moment but result in major setbacks later. These distractions include phone usage and small talk.
According to a study by Udemy, more than a third of millennials and Gen Z (36%) say they spend two hours or more checking their smartphones during the workday.
Next, make a schedule and allot start and due dates. By assigning a due date to a task, we tend to be more aware of the cost it incurs, both monetary and time-wise.
One of the best ways is to go Agile. Create backlogs and assign it to a sprint. This also gives a better perspective on the time required for each task completion.
4. Be Flexible
Holding your stance is a great quality to embody if you want to achieve milestones and deadlines. However, some instances and situations require revisiting already made decisions. Being flexible is #4 on our list of the top task management tips.
This can be due to a sudden change in the market trends, change in customer drive or if a certain task appears to overshadow others.
Any of these factors, if not acknowledged on time, can strip a team off potential chances of success and growth. It is important to be on the lookout for likely loopholes of if another opportunity seems to be passing us by. Be flexible with deadlines when you need to be.
As stated by Osman Khan, CEO, and co-founder of the online auction house, Paddle8, in a Forbes interview,” In the right roles and with the right people, flex does offer tremendous productivity improvement.
It gives people time to process properly, and it gets them out of the office in terms of being bogged down in day-to-day admin. So, there is more thought leadership that comes to the table, and that’s where your creativity and innovation come in.”
See also:
15 Best Productivity Quotes by Productivity Gurus
5. Manage Change
Being open to change is important but mastering the how-to of it is equally important. Most of the times, we are unable to drive the change needed for a certain project or in our strategy.
However, this skill can help increase the chances that your project meets its objectives 6 times more than with poor change management.
With the Scrum methodology, you can be open to and manage change easily through the daily Scrum meetings. The daily scrum gives you an opportunity to not only have an overview on the tasks being done but also the bottlenecks they may face. This way you can alter backlogs to better suit the changing requirements.
6. Delegate
Being over-burdened is a real thing and if not addressed well, it can significantly affect productivity. By the end of the day, we are only humans working with other humans. Each of us hold a unique set of qualities when it comes to patience, resilience, working under pressure or getting a task done in the least amount of time.
According to Eli Broad, philanthropist and founder of 2 Fortune 500 companies, “The inability to delegate is one of the biggest problems I see with managers at all levels.” Hence, it is downright crucial, to not only be aware of your own strengths and weaknesses but those of your team, too.
When you stay vigilant, you can better analyze who can better help out at a certain stage. One of the best task management tips is to know how to delegate tasks, to the right person.
This opens windows for the other person to experiment and grow as well, which leads to growth in your team.
7. Be Involved
After helping the team sort out their priorities and delegating critical tasks, leaving the arena is a complete no-no. Setting up a team and schedule is great for success, but it also needs to be consistently followed upon.
If a project requires a daily scrum meeting, increasing workload or approaching deadlines can lead teams to give it a back seat. This may often lead the management to stay aloof in hopes that the team will suffice by itself. In reality, this is the time to be more involved than ever before.
Did you know that according to a study by the University of Ottawa, 33% of projects fail because of a lack of involvement from senior management?
Instead of micromanaging, be present and reachable if the team needs you. In order to make the most of your plans, prioritization, and scheduling ensure that all steps are followed by everyone in the team. This includes stakeholders and clients.
8. Be Patient
At times things may not go as planned causing us unprecedented setbacks. As per a study by Wellington, only 37% of teams in the U.K. reported completing projects on time more often than not. It is only human to feel overwhelmed and experience a dip in your morale at such times.
By mastering the art of patience, you can get through difficult situations and help your team get back on its feet sooner as well.
As Jack Ma, entrepreneur and founder of Alibaba says, “The very important thing you should have is patience.”
9. Communicate
The importance of communication has been reiterated on numerous channels on a variety of levels throughout the years. However, statistics prove that this is an area where professionals, even managers lack skills in.
The anomaly here is that despite the criticality of this skill, proven time and again, professionals choose to look the other way when it comes to communication. Whether it is your personal task management or project milestones to be achieved in a team, people seldom decide to state their mind. This is where team collaboration software plays a vital role in ensuring smooth communication between the concerned parties.
Fear of seeming incompetent, lack of availability by managers, and playing the blame game are some of the bland reasons why the most important information goes amiss. This can lead to major setbacks, in the long and short run.
According to David Grossman, in “The Cost of Poor Communications”, a survey of 400 companies with 100,000 employees each stated an average loss of $62.4 million per year (per company) due to insufficient communication among employees.
10. Use Task Management Software
Having the right ammunition can win you battlefields. The same goes for battling effective task management and time tracking. Technology has paved the way for many startups to become market giants and has built billionaires.
The right tool at the right time can render wonders for your personal and professional life. Task and project management skills may have a lot to do with on our personal traits and qualities but adopting the right task management tool can raise chances of success exponentially.
Be sure, to research and choose the right task management apps for you and your team.
Some of the free project management tools you can consider today are nTask, Asana, Trello, Wrike and more. However, be practical and adopt tools according to what is feasible, not just what is reining the market, keeping in mind finances, learning curve and team requirements.
You can start with free task management and productivity apps, and upgrade along the way.
Which task management tips have helped you manage your workload? Share your story and lend us some tips in the comments below.
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Sometimes, it can be difficult to manage everything that life throws at you. Whether you are trying to keep your daily schedule at a manageable level, or you are trying to add another layer of organization to your day, it can be more than troublesome to try and figure out how to keep yourself properly organized.
However, as times become more and more dependent on technology, and people spend much more of their time online, there are more options available for keeping yourself organized on a day-to-day basis. For instance, you could consider getting yourself software that is designed to keep you organized. There is much such software out there for you to choose from.
2What Should a Reliable Personal Task Management Software Include?
How Does a Personal Task Management Software Work?
Having software such as this can make your life, especially as a manager, much easier to manage. Although, some people might be worried about losing days to getting this type of software setup.
With that being said, a capable and well-rounded task management software is going to be something that you can set up on your computer within the afternoon and have it benefit your work life within the day. After all, this type of software can be something as simple as an overlay to your email’s inbox.
From there, there will almost always be a brief rundown of all the features within the software and how you access each and every one of them. Once you understand that, you will be done. You will then have a task management software, and you can begin taking the steps needed to manage your business life properly.
With task management software that focuses on emails specifically, there is a very good chance that you won’t have to leave your inbox all day and manage everything hassle-free from one place. This means that you won’t have to open any heavy-duty programs or step away from your important work to get distracted.
You will be able to do everything from managing your own tasks to delegating the task to your teammates, on a daily basis as well when you choose to invest your time in reliable management software.
You also won’t have to worry about your inbox becoming cluttered, as everything will be visualized in a neat view, better than the old-school way of displaying and reading articles in Microsoft Outlook.
You will still be able to read your emails as if nothing is different, although there will be a few extra options. Some software, such as the type that allows you to schedule your day, will have a timetable at the bottom so that you can keep track of the tasks you have to do.
Other software, especially ones that are meant for managers, will also include ways to keep track of what your employees are doing, too, so that you can completely stay on top of your work and keep everything properly managed.
What Should a Reliable Personal Task Management Software Include?
As you begin to look into personal task management software, you might begin to wonder what exactly it can cover. Some types of personal management software can connect to your email inbox so that whenever you check your email, you can also look at what needs to be done today.
1) Calendar
This type of software can help you visualize your calendar so that you can see what you need to do by the end of the day, week, or month and plan for it appropriately. The fact that it is connected to your email can also help you out a lot, as you can seamlessly flip between checking emails and your schedule so that conflicts become a distant happening of the past.
With this calendar, you can even add special reminders for due dates. Whether you are trying to juggle work and school, or you have a busy few months ahead of you in your work, you can rest assured knowing that with a personalized task management software, you won’t be falling behind anymore.
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However, some personal management software is designed for people in certain positions, such as managers, freelancers, or small business owners. Clipart stack 3 1 2 download free. When your software is specially designed for people who work in your position, you can continue bettering your business with ease.
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2) Visual Workflow
Management software for managers often includes ways to keep your inbox organized by who the sender of the email is so that you can make sure important clients always get their messages read in a timely manner.
If you are working with a reliable personal task management software, you can also see that emails become a visual workflow that you can keep track of.
This will ensure that you are up to date on everything that you need to take care of, without having ever to leave your office. In many cases, you can even customize this workflow for your own personal needs and processes.
In that same vein of management software for managers specifically, you can also create a visual calendar that you can use to keep track of what you need to do. Not only will you be able to see these tasks on a timetable that covers the day, but you will be able to add the duration of the task, what and who is involved, and where the task will be.
3) Reminders, Delegation, and Work Prioritization
Having a capable management software that includes this will allow you to easily keep track of your business while being able to remind yourself easily when things need to be done. In addition to this, you can delegate tasks to members of your team and follow up on those delegated tasks without an issue.
These are all the features and aspects that a reliable and capable task management software should have included, especially one that focuses on serving managers with the tools they need to keep their companies running smoothly.
As companies depend more on email and communication between managers and employees, it becomes even more crucial to make sure that any task management software you have an eye on can stand up to the heat and pressure that managing a business can involve.
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