What are we doing so? What mistakes do we make? How to control time and keep up with all the cases? So, here are the top 6 time control errors:

1. Prioritization is important

To Do-list is a useful and important tool. It helps to make a plan for the day, sometimes even to distribute tasks in time. However, if priorities are not placed in the cases, you can perform unimportant tasks and at the same time not have time to do something extremely important.

Managers who practice time control do not tire of recalling: always set a clear goal for the team and, in accordance with it, prioritize. Most managers use the rule: 80% of the time – priority tasks, 20% – secondary.

2. To indulge procrastination – a big mistake

This error can be a consequence of the previous one. It was quite common to postpone a difficult task, delaying its decision as long as possible. An important and difficult matter, as a rule, requires considerable effort. If you do small tasks – you can much easier spend a working day.

The main disadvantage here is not even in harm from delaying the task (although if you control the time, you can calculate the monetary expression of the loss of precious hours). The main harm is that as a result, the task, which will bring a significant result, will not be accomplished.

3. Evaluate your abilities correctly

Competent project time tracking software helps to soberly estimate how many hours or minutes this or that task will take. Often people think that it takes at most 10 minutes to complete it, and in fact it turns out to be 3-4 times more.

In order to better plan the working day, you can use special project time tracking software. It shows how much time you spend on certain cases, displays the average value for the selected period, and at the same time shows where you spend time inefficiently.

4. Level the distractions

Another point in which you will need project time tracking software. What distracts us from work more often? That’s right, mail, the Internet, social media sites. Systems like the one mentioned in the previous paragraph will help identify the main “devourers of time”. Then everything is in your hands: block notifications, pop-ups or, if necessary, access to these resources.

A great way to control time is to schedule incoming messages to be checked for a specific time. Then it won’t be tempting to check the mail every 3-5 minutes.

5. Time control is not a superfluous occupation

And again about the control of time and its calculation. Time management ideologists, before using its practice, are strongly encouraged to analyze: what, in fact, is your day spent on?
There are simple and complex ways to control time.

Complicated: a few days (usually 7 or 14) to measure the time to solve work assignments. Simple: install special project time tracking software, which will do all the work for you. The main purpose of this calculation is to analyze your day, identify errors and, on the contrary, best practices.

6. Multitasking is a myth

We want to do everything at once, manage to solve several tasks simultaneously and even more. However, there is scientific evidence that multitasking does not exist. In fact, this is a throwing between several cases, a low concentration on each of them and a high probability of errors.

What are the fears of being late?

The main minus of delays is that the company can simply lose customers. In the absence of a competent employee time tracking system, employees are in the office with regular delays. At this time, a potential or current client of the firm can call or personally look into the office. If he does not solve his problem, he will go to the competitor.

Unorganized control of staff is fraught with other drawbacks. The employee may be late because of insufficient motivation or low appreciation of his own place of work. In this case, the problem will not be solved until corporate values, professional control of personnel and the correct methods of motivation are introduced into the company’s work.

Do you have creative staff and, do not you think, they need employee time tracking? It’s just a stereotype. Creativity is one thing, respect for colleagues and clients, is different. Explain to employees that you are not “tightening up the nuts”, but instilling corporate standards and working on the reputation of the firm.

Another disadvantage of lack of staff control and frequent delays of subordinates may be discord in the team. The fact that everything is possible to one, and others fined for the smallest fault, will not bring your company anything good. The control of the personnel, if any, must be objective and impartial. Have you decided to take control of the delay? Conditions must be the same for everyone.

How to fix the situation?

I would like to make a reservation: the control of personnel in small organizations should be gentler than in a large company. Yet small and medium-sized firms are a group of like-minded people who go to the same goal, are motivated and aim at the result. In the strict control of personnel at this stage of development is not necessary.

In large companies, employee time tracking and other methods for staff control must be established clearly: the rules are written, the responsibility for their violation.

How to get rid of delays?

1. Give a personal example and ask other managers to maintain discipline. The rules for monitoring personnel should be the same for all.
2. Do not leave tardiness without attention, but do not “report” the subordinate publicly.
3. Enter the automated employee time tracking in the company. Such software will allow taking control of personnel to a new level. You will not only be able to control discipline, you will have data to analyze the entire work of the company.
4. Practice personal conversations with unscrupulous employees. In this case, you can even not strongly “press” on the employee. The situation when the leader personally understands the offense, in itself is very unpleasant.
5. The rules introduced in the company, should not be perceived formally. Meet them with new employees and emphasize that employee time tracking is serious.
6. Penalties for violators and bonuses for conscientious employees are not a panacea. Try to start non-material methods of motivating employees. Do not go the easy way, especially since in the long run it will not lead you to the desired result.

The control of personnel in modern organizations is an objective necessity. Remember that a young employee or a new employee of the company is almost never late in the first days of their work. Therefore, non-punctuality is just an excuse. Everything depends on the discipline and system of control of personnel in the enterprise.

The work of the personnel is monitored through various means and techniques. In general, it can be divided into internal and external impact. The external impact further stimulates the work of personnel through difficult tasks, helping to avoid manipulation by the staff and showing the relationship between the employee’s achievements and his remuneration. But it is worth considering that with external control over the work of the staff, the subordinates will strive to improve the final indicators, but not the optimization of the process itself. They will perform, if possible, only what will bring them a concrete benefit, while keeping silent about the mistakes made in the course of the task.

It is for this reason that internal control over the work of staff is considered more effective. In this case, each employee has his own specific goals, errors are identified in the course of the tasks, but when they are detected, radical measures (dismissals, salary cuts, etc.) are not applied, rather the process is corrected, and the quality of the work is taken into account. Such control over the work of the staff is gentle, but no less effective: employees begin to orient themselves towards the common goal and specifically their own, it is no longer sensible to withhold information about misses and mistakes in work. However, mistakes can not be ruled out: the manager may lose the possibility of operational control, and the employee begins to follow only his own interests, forgetting or ignoring the general.

Internal control over the work of staff can be accomplished via employee time tracking system. It shows the productiveness of each employee, providing the manager with the needed information – what websites the employee visits during working hours, how much time he spends on personal activities, how focused he is on work, etc.

The main mistakes in the control of the work of staff:

1. Control is carried out sporadically: from case to case, which, of course, leads to disorientation of employees, and this contributes to the appearance of more errors.
2. Total control over the work of personnel, which does not allow employees to make even a step freely, of course, will kill any independence and initiative. When the manager is observing the results from employee time tracking system, he should not control the work of the employee too much.
3. Hidden control in some cases is prohibited by law, but in any case harms the relationship in the company: it degrades both employees and the employer. When using employee time tracking program the employer must inform the employee about the use of this software.
4. Particularly close monitoring of the work of employees of one particular department. This is extremely demotivating the selected observation site and undermining the basis for interaction between subordinates and the leader.
5. Imaginary or conditional control, when the manager is deliberately lazy or afraid to control his subordinates, so as not to lose their location or spoil their personal relations with employees.
6. Control, the reason for which was distrust of the team, would worsen the psychological climate and aggravate the situation even more.
7. When there is no feedback in the control of the work of the staff, it is difficult to understand its effectiveness, to evaluate it and to find possible ways to improve control.
8. Surface control over the work of staff will never give a full picture of what is happening and will not bring appreciable benefits.
9. Disorienting control introduces the employee into a state of ambiguity, bias and significantly worsens his productivity index.

Monitoring the work of the staff has never been a simple task, but one thing is clear: the ways to make it really useful for the company, for employees, and for the head are many, it is only necessary to approach this issue consciously and solve it competently.