Being organised allows you to concentrate on what's important and prioritise your work ahead of time.
Although we all have our distractions, having a list of what you need to get done in a day can help you remain focused, especially when you have less people around during high holiday periods.
Everyone needs a break, but how can you set your team up for success while you’re away? And how can you prioritise the extra work that needs to be done?
Here are our recommendations on how to B Organised across the summer:
Prepare Ahead of Time
Preparation and fine-tuned management skills can set you up to prioritise your time.
Having a calendar and setting deadlines for yourself are great ways of not only managing your own workload, but allowing time to support others with theirs, and for managing any new work that comes in.
Calendars are a great way to plan. Setting out blocks of time for the work you need to get done will allow you to focus on the task at hand and improve your time management. If it is a shared calendar then it will also help your team to see what you are working on, when you are supporting them with their projects, and when you have capacity to assist with a new task.
Project management tools such as Asana or Microsoft Planner can also help you to prioritise what you need to get done and tick off the tasks you have accomplished, as well as keeping a record of all your work. This will allow each member of your team to see what each other is working on, for who, and when the deadline is for these projects. Project management tools also allow for you to assign work to each member of the team. This can be especially helpful when it comes to holidays, as you can reassign work to ensure everything gets completed ahead of their deadlines. Having this knowledge can allow you to assign work ahead of time, to avoid deadlines clashing with holidays.
Preparing ahead of time can help you to get ahead of your workload, however you should also make your team aware of when you are going to be away so they can take that into account with their preparations.
Team Holiday Calendar
Different team members being away can impact your workload in several ways, which can make it harder to stay organised.
Knowing who is going to be away and when, will allow you to adapt your time to your colleagues, and a calendar is a great way of tracking this; however, it isn’t the only way of keeping on top of who is going on holiday when. Emailing out reminders, giving colleagues the heads up and setting up work beforehand can also help to not only organise yourself but make work manageable for your colleagues.
It is important to allow more time to pick up any work from someone you work with less often, rather than someone who you work with closely. It can be hard to estimate exactly how much work everyone will need to be picked up, especially if your colleague works with more than one person. Notifying your team and other teams ahead of time about who will be picking up which project, can be a great way of helping everyone to stay organised and prepare for the holidays.
Consider the School Holidays
Children play a huge part in a lot of people’s lives, and most workers with children adapt their holidays to the school holidays. Because of this it is important to take it into consideration when the school holidays occur so your team can be organised and prepared for the extra workload.
Organising your workload and workspace using a diary/planner, sharing documents, and having everything in one place will help to be organised. Having everything in one place that everyone has access to will allow for easier transitions between holidays, alongside handover notes. During the school holidays this is important as it allows everyone to see what has been accomplished, what still needs doing and what needs reviewing. Similarly using Gantt charts can help to keep track of projects.
Although school holidays are a busy time, ensuring that not too many staff members in a team are off at the same time, is vital. You need a certain number of team members to still be able to get all the work that is required accomplished. Encouraging your team to book holiday in advance will help colleagues to know what dates are available to avoid any overlap. As well as this, encouraging team members without children to take holiday outside these dates, will also help to keep dates free for those who need that specific time off.
Although keeping on top of things across the summer can be tricky, being prepared and helping your team to be prepared can help make things easier.
For more tips and information on how to stay organised, why not take a look at our B Organised brochure or be prepared this summer with our Summer Essentials catalogue.
To get in touch with us call your account manager, phone us on 0843 538 3311 or to become a customer email Contact.Banner@BannerUK.com.