It’s impossible to do everything all at once.
In the fast-paced world of marketing, there are and will be times when you’re at a loss as to which activity to tackle first out of the seemingly infinite pile of work.
Those days feel overwhelming and unproductive.
In this situation, priority management is most likely the solution to your problem and we will show you how in this article!
Continue reading to find out how to solve the problem of prioritizing staffs time on marketing.
What is Priority Management?
Essentially, this means managing your priorities effectively.
And in order to do so, you will need to improve your judgment and work more efficiently so that you and your team have more time on your hands.
It is quite a bit different from time management which is about planning and managing the time spent doing the work.
In priority management, however, you have to decide the importance and urgency of each task to know where to put extra efforts and where you can be a little flexible.
Tips for Prioritizing Staffs Time on Marketing
Now, this is the part where the magic happens.
Without further ado, let’s jump right into how you can do priority management effectively!
Understand top company objectives
An effective strategy is built around a certain goal.
In the context of an organization, the overall business objectives have a vital impact on how the company functions.
Failure to align with those goals in the management of each department will hinder growth.
It might be an upper management fallacy if you aren’t informed about the overall company goals, regardless of your position.
But it’s best to actively reach out and ask for clarity, for in the end, it will harm you more than them if you remain in the dark.
Follow your workflow
When arranging your own priorities, working in favor of your brain and energy level’s schedule will serve you well.
For example, if you are more energetic in the morning but prefer to do more creative work in the afternoon, schedule your “quick wins” before 12 p.m. and your longer tasks after that.
It can get trickier trying to fit multiple workers’ personal workflows together when you’re the one in charge.
But with the help of some observation and personality tests, you can divide your teams into groups to maximize productivity.
Determine what is worth your time (and what is not)
It is better to just focus on the tasks that will help your business progress.
Posting 20 tweets per day may feel productive, but if you don’t gain any clients from Twitter, you should spend that time on something more worthwhile that will gain results.
Such as creating your target audience profile, compiling a list of potential clients, and structuring an introduction email around it,…
Those are time-consuming tasks, but if they bring valuable profit to your business, it’s better to concentrate on them rather than tweeting.
Find out where your staff’s time is going
Make an effort to get a better understanding of how they spend their time.
Demand that they keep a log of how they spend their time over the course of a week or have them use some basic time management tools.
This data will be of great value when you come up with a strategy for prioritizing staff time.
Also, if they have taken on too much work and are falling behind schedule, you should provide them with some assistance so that they can catch up. They will appreciate that.
Standardize and score work requests
A smart approach will be to put into practice a standardized scorecard system that assigns point values to each and every task that, of course, everyone has access to.
The point values can be in terms of importance, urgency, or ideally both. This will make it easy for your team members to know what to prioritize.
You should also promote open communication if there is a change in priorities or an overlap of responsibilities.
Talk about priorities collaboratively
Help your staff in finding the answers to the following questions:
What should be the company’s top priority in the long run? Is the path that they’re on the one that should be taken? Do they fully comprehend how to prioritize tasks?
When managers and workers are able to have open conversations about priorities, it helps the whole team become more aligned in the workflow.
Save your staff from the “planning fallacy”
When you make plans for a project, it’s usually a best-case scenario. The reality may not go in your favor.
Therefore, you should make space for the unexpected and help your workers by holding them responsible for the work they’re doing and evaluating their weekly plan.
Ensure your team members don’t get tired or fearful of penalties when they are unable to follow the plan.
Set a daily limit
Give your staff daily, manageable activities to do in order to promote their progress toward achieving their monthly goals.
Then set up a daily limit and tell them to stick to it and not overdo themselves.
The goal of this process is to avoid burnout and anxiety caused by impossible workload and demands, at the same time making a high-volume task more manageable and can be achieved with a thoroughly planned out route.
Track tasks regularly
If certain tasks are more crucial and/or urgent, you’ll probably want to check in on them more often to see how things are going.
A good practice is to leverage tools to help track projects and activities so everyone is clear about the progress, including the stakeholders.
This can be done on a simple whiteboard or with a more high-tech solution such as project management apps.
Conclusion
That’s about it. We hope these tips are in any way helpful for your business in general, and your team in specific to accomplish your goals with more focus and productivity.
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