Earlier this month, I attended a workshop where the Time Management Matrix was shared.  I remember having seen it a long time ago but had not thought about it or made a conscious effort to apply the principle.  In a nutshell, you have a box divided into fourths.  The upper left quadrant is tasks that are urgent AND important.  The upper right quadrant are tasks that are important but NOT urgent.  Lower left is “urgent / not important” and lower right is “not urgent / not important.”  To be effective and productive, you want to spend most of your time in the upper boxes. Out of curiosity, I did a personal check-up…placing the tasks I completed over the past few days into the matrix. It became obvious that I would benefit if I were a little more intentional in planning how to use my time.

Criteria other than TIME must be used to measure productivity and value of a remote employee.  It not possible for a supervisor to constantly watch their employee, especially virtually.  For remote workers, employee evaluations are usually based on the quality and reliability of their work; in other words, the focus is on RESULTS-BASED work criteria.  Productivity may be monitored by tracking time, tasks, or deliverables.

To effectively manage time, you will need to identify your work priorities, estimate the time needed to accomplish tasks, organize your schedule, follow through with completing your tasks, and track and report your progress as your situation requires.  You will also be expected to effectively adjust your schedule and processes as priorities shift. 

The Remote Work Certificate Course goes into great detail on how to best manage your time when working remotely; it shares tools that are currently used to track and report RESULT-BASED work performance…all things that would benefit ALL employees, not just the remote worker. Could you benefit by improving your time-management skills? For more information or to enroll in the next class, visit https://www.extension.iastate.edu/humansciences/remote-work .