One of the queries most of us have internally is “how to utilize the time effectively “and simultaneously work on as pulled by external distractions and factors without much conscious about the time spending pattern. However, a few productive people are good at managing time and accomplish most in the given time.
The first step towards to utilize the time effectively is to understand your habit pattern and the time loss associated with it. Once you are aware of your losses, you are convinced to take corrective action.
Without awareness, any time management tools and apps are not going to be useful.
One of the simple and powerful ways to be aware of time spending patterns is to track and record your activity for every hour minimum for a week. When you analyze the data, you will get a pattern of your work spending in the category like traveling to the office, spending time in the meeting, communication with the team, social media, and so on. Also, you will get a new insight into time-wasters or the activities which are not helping your personal and professional growth.
When I did this exercise recently, I got an insight into my habits, which are time wasters and the lifestyle which consumes most of my time without adding value to my growth.
I believe that this awareness is the first step towards effective time management. Suggest you do the analysis for a week and be aware of your time wasters if you want to utilize the time effectively.
As we have been discussing for the last 20 weeks about improving communication in the workplace from an individual or personal effort perspective, now let us pause on this topic by summarising the key learnings.
Key learnings:
- Effective communication is all about meeting the purpose of your intent with others. It is not about language proficiency.
- As people are from different backgrounds in the workplace, each needs different levels of the communication process, and it is an individual 's responsibility to develop the skill rather than pointing others for poor communication results.
- People will listen to you only when your communication contains ALL the below elements.
- Expertise in the subject or creditability proof
- Connecting emotionally with the person
- Logically connecting with facts
- You can connect emotionally with others by consistently displaying.
Respect to others and feeling good with you
Listening and undivided attention to others
Prompting others and fulfilling the need of “what is in it for me “
Your friendly posture, tone, facial expression
Knowing the difference between criticism and feedback
Being approachable to others
- In the workplace, we can not avoid conflict due to differences in the thought processes of each person. The only way to manage the conflict is through appropriate usage of assertiveness, proactive communication, and sometimes to ignore the battle for the interest of higher purpose.
- Going forward, to manage the new generation, Influencing skill is mostly expected expertise in the workplace rather than the conventional way of commanding and directing. Influencing skills can be learned and developed with awareness and practice.
Developing communication skills is a lifetime learning process, and you need to invest in it to progress in the career path!
Improving communication in the workplace
Being approachable
One of the factors to improve the effectiveness of communication is creating a favorable environment for conversation. The atmosphere is not the physical environment at an organizational level, but on the emotional aspects at a personal level. That psychological, environmental factor is “Being approachable.”
What is meant by being approachable?Being approachable means how others are feeling when they want to reach out and communicate with you. The feeling could be memorable, friendly in nature, inspiring, relaxed, or fearful, disappointment, demotivated once they reach out to you.Approachability is not confined only by physical proximity but at an emotional level. In most of the workplace, this is a concern, particularly in the relationship between superior and juniors and between colleagues.
It does not mean that you need to give less priority to your job and to offer yourself for others when others want to reach out to you. Even if you are busy with your work, you can demonstrate your approachability with a polite, assertive, and permissible way of communication. For example, you might have observed and heard the following scenario in your workplace, especially with your senior members when you approach them, or you demonstrate to your colleagues or subordinates. 1. Not effectively listening with face to face, instead of doing something and listening to you
2. "Don’t tell me stories. Come to the point straight."
3. "Don’t tell me the problem, I want only solutions" (the person comes to you for solutions approach
)
4. Not returning the phone calls and messages
5. Not responding to mail communication Those are the behaviors that create a perception that the person is not easily approachable. All those behaviors distant you from others even though they are nearby physically. When there is a barrier to “approachability,” eventually, the quality of communication suffers either by not sharing full information or not getting information on time. Just be aware of behaviors that make you not being approachable .!
