This one QMS secret can change your life

What price would you put on time? Can its worth even be quantified?

Sure, there’s the time of external advisors you’ve brought in to offer advice and consultation. A by-the-hour cost to the company is certainly relatable to time, but surprisingly many organizations fail to see time itself as a commodity, or with a significance just as vital as any other product or service.

As a business, we spend so much energy on staff, competition analysis, and revenue streams, but having more time, intelligently extracted from our traditional or habitual behaviors, can free us to accomplish these goals quicker, and with more efficiency.

Where is your energy going?

Importance of Time Management

Consider time management as you would any other manageable project. As an example, if you are budgeting for a vacation then certain amounts of money need to be allocated, by certain dates, and for particular reasons. Now substitute the word ‘money‘, with ‘time’.

Your organization’s QMS needs a time plan too. Much-needed time has to be taken back from within the current systems, and processes that you already have in place. Quality assurance depends on it. If there’s no time for evaluation and assessment, then how will you know what problems may occur?

You won’t. And there most certainly won’t be any time to fix them, when they do arrive.

Re-think and Reprioritize

Your business is evolving and change is ever-present, that’s a given in today’s business world. You are faced with more time-consuming challenges than ever before and are going to need a solution-driven system, not only to keep up, with those changes but also to complement your future goals.

Naturally, the core of your business lies within the processes, manuals, and procedures and with the people who execute them, so it’s essential to have a system that allows time to be saved. Endless paper streams and dysfunctional document processes will only create poor time management. The only way forward is to implement and utilize a system that by its very features, helps with time saving.

Imagine that. A solution that actually helps you change any bad habits.

Having immediate visibility on who is working on what project, for how long, and why, will assist your supervisory staff immensely. Correct software means never having to say you’re sorry.

A serial killing

What’s the number one enemy of time efficiency?

Here’s a hint. This entity gets in the way by ceremoniously catapulting tasks into the wonderful world of the ‘I’ll do that later’ basket. It has been described as putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before, the day before yesterday.

Procrastination is insidious and can be quite habitual. People have even defended this deferment of essential tasks as being a part of their thinking process. Procrastination is the lovechild of Languid and Unmotivated, born into the world from an unplanned tryst, and sent to rob people of a sense of urgency and resoluteness.

This tendency for ongoing non-action is right up there with many of the other scourges your business can suffer from and can be extremely detrimental to other staff, and the business as a whole. Opportunities can be lost, competition given an open door, and any possibility to get back that valuable time, is gone forever.

Tick Tock

So many organizations plan for time to be wasted. Whether it is waiting for I.T. to get back to us with an amended report, or waiting for someone to send the current complaint report, once they return from vacation. Putting things off becomes the norm. In a perfect world, nothing waits, and we all work efficiently and effectively, but we all live in reality, and with that comes a need to consider how to improve processes and free up time for other goals and objectives.

The correct time-saving solutions can open up a wealth of knowledge and knowledge is power, for any organization and its people. Time creates knowledge. Empower your staff to become more knowledgeable.

Who knows? The time you save could be your own.