How to plan and organise work for business leaders

How to plan and organise work for business leaders

Planning and organising are vital skills for school business managers. With a high workload, we understand that this may not always be viable to do. So, to make things easier, we have put together why the importance of planning and organising will help develop these skills and effective ways to do so.

Importance of planning and organising

Planning your workload is essential. As a manager, organising yourself allows you to work smarter by focusing on the necessary tasks and then completing them correctly, while at the same time eliminating all wasteful activities. You can only lead a high-performance team within your school if you’re a highly efficient person. It’s hard to expect teachers to be organised and deliver results if you are not capable of doing so yourself. With such an approach, you can create more value for your school.

Therefore, we analysed many different tips and practices and selected the best ones for this comprehensive guide.

How to plan and organise work

1.  Track your time

One of the best things you can do as a manager to have better control over your time is to track how you spend it. A good time-tracker will help you be aware of how much you are working on the most important tasks, and how much time is going to waste.

With a good time-tracker, you can also make a very good analysis of where the opportunities are for optimisation. You can also have an honest metric of how much time you spend on the most important tasks for you as a manager.

Only what you measure, you can manage. The most orderly managers use time tracking for themselves and teachers and make sure no time goes to waste.

2.  Know your limit

An effective manager knows how to limit work in progress and how not to put too much stress on themselves or other people. We all have daily limits on how much we can accomplish, and we often overestimate our energy capacity and the amount of meaningful work we can achieve in a day.

No matter how well-organised you are, some parts of your day will be occupied by pointless meetings, in-between time, and breaks, among other things.

Accept your limitations: There may be nothing you can do about the fact that you have a limit to how structured you can be. There will never be enough time to complete everything, but there will always be enough time to complete the most important tasks.

Set aside 70–80 percent of your time for meaningful work, and make sure nothing gets in the way of those productive hours. Maintain some flexibility throughout the day, and don't overwork yourself in the long run. A burned-out manager isn't a well-organised manager.

3.  Everything in its place

A neat and tidy work area is a productive one. You should only have the tools and documents that you’re currently working within your area at any given moment.  Although being out of sight isn’t completely off your mind, it reduces the chance of distraction.

If you don’t need a document for a project but want to keep it, quickly scan it, file it electronically, and toss it.  Running an electronic search of your documents is much faster than rummaging through paper files.

4.  Invest in yourself

Investing in yourself is an important rule among time management techniques. Investing in your abilities will help you grow as an SBM, but you must also remember to care for your physical and mental health. You will have more energy for productive work if you take care of yourself. The rule is straightforward: put yourself first.

For a manager, taking care of yourself is even more important. Be sure to exercise, have a balanced diet and take time out for yourself to recharge.

One of the most critical aspects of being a great leader is being extremely efficient and disciplined. People regard you as a sharp leader who knows exactly what to do, how to do it, and when to do it.

And you can only organise yourself if you also have the requisite skills to organise others. Not only that, but you are also a role model for others. One of the best and most established methods to be a successful SBM is to be systematic and methodical.

It is not easy to become extremely organised, but it is well worth the effort. We looked at a variety of approaches to becoming a well-organised manager in this guide. If you want some more quick tips, check out our 13 organisation tips for school business managers.