Communities never close. Your community is a neighborhood that runs 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, but you can’t be expected to keep up with it every second of every day. Time management can be a big issue for many community management teams, especially those who work hard to ensure the best for their communities. In order to be your best, you need to take care of yourself, too, and this means learning about effective time management. With effective time management skills, you can not only enjoy a better work/life balance, but you’ll get more done during work hours as well. 5 time management tips that work are:

1. Write out your daily schedule – It’s easy to get off schedule if you don’t have everything mapped out and getting off schedule will often result in working longer hours and plenty of disorganization. At the start of each day, give yourself 10 to 15 minutes to write out your daily schedule, and then do everything you can to stick to it.

2. Prioritize your to-do list thoughtfully – Priorities are important when it comes to what you get done on a day-to-day basis. Your top priority items should be given precedence over the little stuff, so if you run out of time at the end of a day you don’t feel guilty “shutting off”. When you have high priority items hanging over your head at the end of a long day its much more difficult to disconnect yourself from your work.

3. Avoid multitasking when possible – Managing a community is managing people, and when managing people it’s always best to give your full attention to every important task. Multitasking might feel like it saves time, but what it really does is leaves more opportunity for mistakes. Avoid multitasking when possible and give any one task your complete focus at one time.

4. Remember to schedule breaks – Breaks are important. When you run yourself down putting your all into your community management work, you’ll quickly find yourself at the risk of burnout. Burnout can lead to mistakes, and mistakes lead to more work. Remember to put mental and physical breaks in your schedule so you have appropriate time to catch your breath.

5. Use your team – A big issue that many leaders struggle with is trying to take on everything themselves. Your team is full of talented and skilled individuals who often want opportunities to prove themselves. Use them to get your important tasks done and you can help to better develop them professionally as you better manage your own time.

At OccupancySolutions.com we know how important it is for community management teams to stay on their A-game. For more information on time management and work/life balance in community management, contact us today.