Plan ways to meet responsibilities and organisational priorities while maintaining own wellbeing

For this assessment criterion, you will be required to plan to meet your own organisational priorities, while maintaining your own well-being.

Managing your time effectively so that you can achieve organisational objectives involves identifying the tasks that must be carried out and prioritizing them. You will then need to delegate the responsibility for completing the tasks to teams or individuals. The team/individual’s tasks and objectives should be clearly defined, along with expected timescales and the resources that they have available. This will be the basis of your operational plan.

Although you will delegate tasks and accountability to others, you will also have your own tasks and accountabilities. Effective time management involves knowing what should be delegated and what should remain your own responsibility. Sometimes, it may be hard to let go of some of your responsibilities because you may worry that nobody else will be able to perform a task as well as you do or you may feel that you are ‘passing the buck’. However, part of being a good manager is being able to trust others to perform day-to-day tasks that help you to achieve organisational objectives so that you are able to free up your time for more important tasks.

For example, your management and leadership responsibilities should be considered an important priority. This includes strategic planning, service improvement, networking and motivating your team as well as being accessible to team members that need to report concerns. If you do not have enough time for these responsibilities because you are constantly stuck in the day-to-day operations, it will result in your organisation having a lack of direction and leadership and it will not be able to move forward or adapt to the changing environment. As Micheal E. Gerber says in his book ‘The E-Myth‘, “Most entrepreneurs fail because they are working IN their business rather than ON their business.”

Another important part of effective management is being able to make time for your own professional development. This can include regular self-reflection to assess your own performance and identify areas where improvements could be made. 360-degree feedback is also useful for getting the perspectives of others and you may consider working with a mentor to help you to perform your role better.

With all these responsibilities, it is easy to let work spill over into your personal life, so it is important to set clear boundaries between the two so that you can maintain a good work-life balance. Too much work can lead to work-related stress, which can affect your well-being, so you should understand your own signs and triggers related to stress and have a good support network in place.