4 Critical Skills You Need to Keep Your Job

With everything ranging from how we collaborate with technology and how easily we are able to undergo transformations helps evaluate our adaptability to our job.

According to a research study, more than half of the jobs in the US will be affected by automation in the near future. This points to one question—what skills do we need to keep our jobs within the next few years?

While the specific skills do vary industry to industry, you will need to polish some general skills to remain employable within the next few years:

Collaborating Through New Approaches

Companies today are using more soloist services to keep up with what we call today the ‘gig economy’; therefore you will need to be able to work effectively with dissimilar teams.

This also means that optimizing your work hours is crucial. On average, employees spend more than one quarter of their work day reading and writing emails. Any job responsibility that consumes too much time will disrupt your efficiency.

Many companies are cutting down the need to send emails by maintaining centralized hubs to share information and instructions on projects. Loosen up and be ready to adapt to new approaches to collaboration.

Ability To Spot Trends

Spotting trends, staying updated and implementing them in your work abilities is another important skill you need. Make sure that you keep up with industry trends, attend events, take classes for additional courses and gain inspiration from thought leaders. This also includes staying observant about everything and keeping clear track of how things are evolving.

Ability To Build Brands

Even though you have solid social media reputations, today, marketable employees are the name of the game. You can expect to be asked to show participation across various websites to represent your company and share important industry information.

As companies shift towards a ‘gig economy’, entrepreneurial skills like brand building, will hold importance when it comes to keeping your job and excelling at it.

Developing Emotional Intelligence

In the midst of job automation, one skill that will certainly come in handy is developing emotional intelligence. You need to be able to embrace vulnerability and build solid relationships at the workplace. These connections will help you stay marketable while enabling you to develop an unparalleled network.

Similar to all these skills, employers will also expect you to use and adapt to plenty of employee tracking software like Chrometa. Check out the software to find out what it’s all about. Introduce this revolution in your organization! 

5 Ways To Improve Time Tracking Accuracy

Setting up Time Blocks and Making Their Effective Use

Being an entrepreneur, you realize that time is money. Therefore, devising strategies to make more intentional use of that time facilitates creating an atmosphere that drives success. However, business owners must understand that they don’t need additional time; rather they require learning the art of making its strategic use. For businesses, time is an invaluable resource, and business owners have every reason to protect, organize and be calculated about it.

In order to encourage clients and employees to make effective use of their time, time blocking is a crucial step towards it.

Important Steps to Take for Time-Blocking

Determine Priorities and Goals

Analyze your weekly or yearly goals, and put the largest time blocks aside in order to particularly work towards attaining that target. Unless and until you achieve this objective, everything else will seem like an interruption.  

Put the Activities into Categories

Prepare time buckets for rest of the objectives in your list. Put similar activities in one group. Here’s how you can categorize all the duties:

· Customer Work,

· Marketing,

· Business Management,

· Team Management,

· Goal Setting,

· Dealing with Personal Secretary,

· Personal Duties.

Arrange Them as Consistent Appointments

Get a calendar and schedule all these activities. This will help you come up with a weekly or monthly structure. For instance, every Monday morning, you have to get in touch with all the clients, every Wednesday afternoon you’ve to handle financials, and so on.

By practicing this (bucket time), you will be better able to schedule activities and handle them during the blocks every week with maximum amount of concentration.

It is imperative that you follow your time blocks regularly; else they will not provide desired results.  Success lies in honoring your calendar and working systematically.

Now that you have setup blocks, practice one or more of these techniques:

Task Batching

Group all the activities that you need to get done within a single time block. This will provide you with some organization and structure. Let’s say you’re working in a ‘Marketing’ time block. You have to systematically shift from one component of the marketing strategy to another, instead of haphazardly working on various components.

Time Tracking Solution

Whenever you begin working on a new block, kick start your timer. However, not all time tracking software and apps will provide you with user-friendly and seamless time tracking.

There are myriad benefits of using a time tracking solution. This software keeps you accountable, while maintaining the integrity of time blocks. Moreover, time tracking solutions also provide reports on how each minute was spent over the entire week. If you’re on the lookout for making efficient use of your time, time tracking apps and software is just what you need. Time tracking solutions also help you determine areas of work that can be delegated, saving you more productive time.  

In essence, you need to come up with solutions that balance your time and work. Chrometa provides time tracking software and apps for PC, Mac, Android and iPhone to help users track time passively. Visit http://www.chrometa.com/ to learn more about their time tracking services. 

Improved Time Management with a 3-way Strategy

It is true. We’re getting increasingly addicted to screens – be it mobile, TV, or laptop. And unknowingly, this habit is turning into procrastination. Result? We are becoming more unfocused and distracted than ever.

The internet is filled with countless tips on time management, maintaining productivity, and getting maximum amount of work done in least possible time. At times, it seems like the world wants you to save time. And guess what you’re doing: skimming through these articles while almost dozing off.

Consequently, that’s why we often recommend adopting the non-management approach towards managing time. Or more appropriately: a lethargic take at this rising trend.

Consider these time management tips for people who fail at managing.

Plan to be Interrupted

To stop procrastinating, you have to take out time for procrastination. The idea is to schedule interruptions, because somewhere you know you will be distracted.

 Take out some time and stay focused on work. Realizing that you’ll get time for your break, you will be more productive in a timely fashion – of course, without any procrastination.

In essence, you have to eradicate it from your system.

The same holds true for interruptions. Quit the habit of consistently checking e-mails and social networking platforms. There is nothing called, ‘urgent’. Schedule your time in a way that you check them after a few hours, not after every 10 minutes.

De-cluttering

Nothing can kill your productivity more than clutter.

Most people end up cleaning the mess, leaving no time for actual work – thinking, preparing and working.  More than occupying the physical space, clutter takes up your mind, attention, and concentration away from work. Whether you work from home or office, it is a good practice to keep your work space clean. This will surely help creating a productive working environment for your mind.  

In essence, de-cluttering helps, physically and mentally – saving lots of time.

Tracking Bad Habits

What is it that distracts you? May be you’re a chain smoker, or an avid social media user. When managing time and improving productivity, these habits can prove to be obstructions.

Take a week’s time and track these bad habits using a time tracker. Make sure you show consistency throughout the week. The idea is to track time for bad habits you need to get rid of.

Would you be willing to watch an assumingly interesting 5-minute video on Facebook, knowing that it counts for 5 hours for the whole week?

Similarly, if you start tracking time for your unimportant work for a string of few weeks, you may find out that you waste most part of the week in doing unproductive stuff.

As you follow these crucial steps, investing in a personal, passive timekeeper is a good move. Chrometa is a time tracking software and app that captures time as you work on PC, Mac, iPhone and Android. It passively records time and puts on a timesheet for easy viewing.

Click to download its free 30-day trial. 

Work Harder Not Smarter Time Management Tips

How Time Tracking Benefits The Construction Industry

There’s a lot at stake in the construction industry. The client has invested a lot, you have a deadline to meet and have limited resources. So, you just can’t afford any production gap or wasted time. But, how would you ensure this? A time tracking program can help!

For the construction industry, time tracking software helps improve operations, makes work processes more productive, and ultimately increases profits for the company.

Here are more benefits of the software:

Creates Better Workflows

How much time is being utilized for the completion of a single activity? Are all employees investing the required time to complete various phases of construction? Will the entire project be completed on time? A time tracking program can help seek answers to all these questions. It reveals the true information regarding the working process of employees and if the project is progressing or not.

Ensures Compliance and helps in Sharing Information

Complying with the industry standards is essential. You need to make sure that your construction process is legal and in accordance with the procedures and standards. Accurate time tracking helps companies stay in compliance with standards. The software also helps create and share reports and other information with members.

Helps in Better Planning

Planning in the construction industry changes frequently as compared to others. There are different phases of a project that you’re working on and completion of each phase requires you to change your planning.

With the detailed information provided by time tracking software, you can improve your decision making.

Offers Off-Site Tracking

Working in the construction industry means that many of your members will be working off-site. So how would you communicate with them? Or how will you know if there are production gaps? Are your workers dedicating time towards the completion? There are time tracking apps that help you keep track of all your members. All the employees have to do is to install this app in their smartphone and they’re all set to track time and create timesheets.  

Looking to implement a construction time tracking app in your business? Get Chrometa – one of the best time tracking apps! The app tracks time and all your work activities in your smartphone and also helps you create billable time entries.

4 Ways How Time Tracking Software Makes Information sharing Easy