5 Top Time Management Tips For eLearning Professionals
We all know how every eLearning project has time constraints. Time flies, and if you’re not good enough at managing it, you’ll barely make it to the deadline. You’ll also have to turn everything in at the eleventh hour. Is that an option? ‘No,’ I hear you cry.
No matter how many times you try to adjust plans and reallocate resources as work changes when next-to-impossible deadlines get overwhelming, there are unhealthy amounts of stress.
Luckily, I have a plan for every time the timeline doesn’t seem to work in my favor.
Down here, I am going to share the best time management tips for eLearning professionals to cope with their unrealistic targets.
1. Plan Your Work, Then Work Your Plan
No matter how life is unpredictable to live by a schedule, eLearning professionals may never get to experience that. In real life, eLearning professionals will be as relaxed as detailed their scheduled plan is. Using an online calendar to mark the important dates for current or upcoming eLearning projects is one way to stay organized and not miss deadlines.
Further, procrastination is not an option. Not only the calendar should be in detail, but it should also be up to date. As soon as you know about new events, add them to your work schedule to avoid double-booking your time or even worse: forgetting about the event altogether.
2. Expect The Unexpected
As I’ve already mentioned at a point earlier in this article, eLearning professionals may not enjoy the unpredictability of life as far as planning a detailed schedule is concerned. However, anything they plan should leave room for them to expect the unexpected.
Sometimes, there are challenges like the lack of learner motivation and engagement, inexperienced clients, transforming a dull subject matter into an amazing eLearning experience—all of them demanding extra time on the professionals’ end. So, you might need to allocate a ‘grace period’ for all the extra work, or the work that you suddenly had to add to your schedule or say virtually every eventuality.
3. Don’t Always Do It All By Yourself
A helping hand from a reliable team will always save you when you simply cannot tackle all the tasks by yourself. You should know when it is the right time to leave the thought of being the only one for you and delegate tasks so that you can stay on track.
Not to forget, you also have to find the right collaborators for your eLearning team. When you are used to flying solo, you may feel scared of relinquishing control. But when your schedule is full up to the brim, and there are eLearning projects to add to your schedule, it’s high time to outsource.
4. Define Short-Term Goals To Add Up To Bigger Results
While there always has to be a long-term goal to keep us going, short-term goals can help add up to the big picture too. Not only the latter become more manageable, but they also help you assess both what the daily tasks are and the order in which you need to accomplish them.
Short-term objectives are like the building blocks that help you recognize any kind of obstacles that may stand in your way of accomplishing a long-term goal too. What if you need an alternative plan of action to control a situation? Having a progression chart that leads to a big picture will help you map out every step and take steps accordingly.
5. Choose One Place To Plan, Collaborate, And Organize
There is plenty of online Project Management software like ActiveCollab, ProofHub, or Mavenlink that can help you keep all your teams, clients, and eLearning projects at one central place. No matter if you need a Gantt chart to set dependencies and adjust plans as work changes or you need Kanban boards to see work moving through workflow stages—they have it all.
A Project Management tool packed with all the right tools makes it easier for you to plan projects, collaborate with teams and clients through chats or discussions, organize and share files, and meet deadlines too. Not to forget that they can also be accessed anywhere at any given time. You just have to make sure you choose a software that fits your needs.
Conclusion
Being tasked with eLearning projects while managing time, teams, and clients – there’s a lot to manage at once. There are challenges one faces throughout the day; some that can be planned for, but others that cannot. How do you keep pace? Feel free to share in the comments below!
