It isn’t unusual for managers to provide their team members with to-do lists, especially in smaller organizations where such a feat is easy to manage. This alone is an example of delegation at its best, giving you peace of mind, and freeing staff to achieve the work/life balance they require once they tick off all those items.
Sometimes, though, managers make the mistake of failing to streamline these to-do lists. Rather than helping team members towards manageable workloads, this mistake could see your staff struggling to keep up, and forever feeling like you’re piling on pressure.
Given that this can lead to employee burnout, it’s time you addressed it sooner rather than later with the following pointers for manageable and useful to-do lists every single working day moving forward.
Remove unnecessary tasks
Admin and repetitive tasks can kill to-do lists because they take untold amounts of time. Simple things, like answering emails, phone calls, etc. could even take a team member’s entire morning or afternoon if you include them, leaving your team forever scrabbling to catch up.
The answer? Remove unnecessary tasks from to-do lists wherever possible. You could eliminate the need for call answering or appointment organization by instead implementing a virtual assistant through options like this Ivy Answering Service. Think, too, about automated processes for things like filing, accounting etc. By knocking these tasks out of circulation, you can streamline focus while removing distractions for better results, and a team that’s far happier with your delegation.
Add time stamps
Most managers don’t think to add timings to tasks and, in some cases, this can be a good way to remove pressure/allow your employees to determine schedules themselves. Still, adding rough time stamps on tasks as guidelines could be more useful for work streamlining than you realize. As long as you aren’t too stringent about this requirement, a general deadline guideline can be helpful for both letting team members understand the amount of work they should put into a task, and helping them to better manage their hours. It really is astounding how much even a rough deadline like this can boost productivity!
Prioritize tasks by importance
The majority of managers list tasks as they think of them and leave it at that, but you might also find it worth streamlining with the help of prioritized to-do lists. By listing tasks in the order you’d like team members to complete them, you simplify your life and theirs. Not only can you thus ensure the right jobs are in your inbox by the end of your day, but you can also highlight tasks that could be passed over, ensuring that employees never feel so overwhelmed that they reach the dreaded burnout stage.
There’s no denying that streamlined to-do lists may take you a little longer to prepare each day, but trust us when we say that the productivity-boosting benefits of doing so will soon speak for themselves. Your team relies on you for efficient delegation, remember. Don’t let them down.
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