HR professionals already have a lot on their plate. Here’s how to start chipping away at them effectively and efficiently.

With things like payroll, time cards, recruiting, training, monitor working hours using a time tracking software, and all other managerial tasks — the human resources umbrella is vastly expanding and might even be hogging some of the more crucial hours of a workday. It’s not easy to juggle all these tasks while also finding the time to invest in yourself and the aspects of your job you’d like to spend more time on as an HR professional. But you’ll be surprised how much of a hand good time management skills will play in making everything less overwhelming. A good time management plan can have you complete more in a shorter period, lower the amount of stress, and lead to career success.

Even when time-consuming extras threaten to derail your day, you need to remember to ground yourself and prioritize what’s important. There are plenty of time management strategies that can help you stay on top of your game to help you organize, prioritize, and streamline responsibilities so your workload is more manageable and enjoyable.

Here are some of them.

1. Set goals and priorities

When it comes to feeling overwhelmed with your tasks, it might be because you’ve been unknowingly committing one of the biggest time management mistakes: not having clear goals or priorities set for work. This is the foundation of a good time management plan. Without having a clear vision of what you want to achieve and why, it’s easy to get sidetracked by other tasks and distracted by them, making you lose focus and waste even more time. The easy way to combat this is by setting up SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). You can set them up for every project you have to do and break them down into smaller, manageable steps.

You can use tools like calendars, to-do lists, and project management software to keep track of your progress and deadlines. Checking off items from a list and bundling routine tasks so you can tackle them all at once helps streamline processes and keeps you on track. This way, you can spend the bulk of your time on the most important items without wasting time worrying about things that can be left for later.

2. Utilize time blocks

Setting aside uninterrupted blocks of time to work can do wonders for your concentration and productivity. Give yourself chunks of time like 30, 60, or 90 minutes during which you close the door, sign out of email, and put your phone on silent. Use the time to focus on your task at hand, and only that. Allocating specific time blocks for tasks ensures that you stick to them. The key is to consider realistic timelines and give your full attention to the task at hand. Eliminating distractions by closing unrelated browser tabs, putting team chats on “do not disturb” or “busy”, and keeping your phone out of immediate reach are also other ways to amplify your concentration.

3. Limit External Distractions

Did you know that an average worker loses the most amount of time by switching tasks? Actions we can take to keep focused and reduce distractions cannot be underestimated. For example, while meetings are essential for communication and decision-making, some discussions can be done over email or alternative communication methods. By reducing the frequency and duration of meetings, you can reclaim valuable hours to focus on other pressing tasks. But for the meetings that you do need, you can make it a requirement to have a pre-written agenda so that you have clarity for the meeting, and you can evaluate whether it really needs to be a meeting.

4. Delegate and collaborate as much as you can

Delegating is the act of assigning a task or responsibility to someone else who has the skills, time, and authority to do it. Collaborating is the act of working with others to achieve a common goal or outcome. Both of these are relatively easy concepts to learn but can take quite a bit of time to nail down in practice. They both help you save time, improve quality, and increase creativity.

However, many people avoid delegating and collaborating because of fear of losing control, trust, or credit, or because of lack of communication, coordination, or feedback. To avoid this mistake, you need to identify the tasks that you can delegate or collaborate on, and choose the right people to work with. You also need to provide clear instructions, expectations, and feedback, and use tools like cloud-based platforms, video conferencing, and chat apps to facilitate communication and collaboration.

5. Learn When to Say No

And finally, remember that you only have so much energy in a day. To avoid half-baked work, know your limits and be willing to say no. Recognize your strengths and weaknesses, and focus on what you’re good at. Learning to say no sometimes is not mean, but it’s recognizing that your current workload is already as full as it is, and adding more on top of it will only compromise the integrity of your work and may even result in a subpar output. It’s establishing a professional boundary both within yourself and your colleagues that will help you out in the future if you plan on doing this work for a long time.

The combination of strategic scheduling, prioritization, and designating time to focus can be transformative. Learning and implementing new time management skills takes, well, time. With all the responsibilities already expected of HR professionals, we know change isn’t always a welcome suggestion. But starting to make small changes now can lead to big relief later, which will help you, your employees, and your work environment function more smoothly.