News

Ever get the feeling you've got so much work on that you don't know where to start? Heavy caseloads, paperwork and staff shortages leave many social care professionals feeling overwhelmed by their workload and complaining that it eats into the time they have to spend with service users. Time management skills may not eradicate the problem completely but they should go a long way towards alleviating it. Some organisations provide time management courses, but you can start by looking at how you organise yourself at work, what tasks and processes could be dropped and where you need help.

Prioritise
Prioritise your workload, both in the short and the long term. If you've got a particularly bad week ahead, then make decisions about how you are going to tackle it. Grant Tevendale, senior support worker at Enterprise 5 Housing Association, finds daily list-making is essential for organising his time and making sure important jobs get done. For more long-term planning, make a list of your regular tasks and responsibilities and decide which are the most important. You might discover that some can be shelved or given to someone else.
Make it a rule to always tackle the most important tasks first, even if they are the ones you like doing least.

Get organised
It is very easy to put off mundane jobs such as filing, but you can save yourself a lot of time and hassle by sorting out your desk, files and computer. Ditch what is unnecessary or out of date and file the rest.

Delegate
Many people find it hard to let go. They just can't bring themselves to trust other people to do the job. But, if you have certain responsibilities that could be done by a colleague or someone junior - and might actually be good for their career development - think about passing them on. Make sure you are doing it for the right reasons and not just dumping some of your workload on someone else. And if you do delegate, let them know what is expected and keep an eye on progress, without interfering every five minutes.

If you're delegating a task on a routine basis, Tevendale says this should be formalised and become part of the colleague's work development plan.

Don't let things slip
If you are having a particularly busy week or something unexpected comes up, it doesn't mean everything else should go out of the window. Tevendale says anyone in a management position needs to be able to juggle all their responsibilities and maintain contact with their team. "It's important to keep things on the agenda even if there's pressure for them to be dropped," he says.
"Don't let things like supervision of staff get sidelined."

Do not suffer in silence
If you keep on ploughing through the workload, then chances are nobody will do anything to help you. They will assume you are coping and may even pile more work on you. Also, if you do have too much work and it is affecting the quality of your output, then you need to let your line manager know or it could reflect badly on other people's perception of your performance.

Evaluate the processes
Are you working in the most efficient manner? Are there processes that could be adapted or dropped to make your working life easier? Take a fresh look at how you and your team operates - just because things have always been done one way doesn't mean that it's the best way.