Managing your time. Time is a limited resource at work. Being an administrative assistant means you will be dividing your time with your manager. Your manager will ask you to do things and take up your valuable resource. This, however, is the nature of your job as an administrative assistant. Developing good time management skills takes discipline. It is a conscious effort in knowing what you are doing for how long. It is defending your schedule and fending off distractions. Wasting time at work could infringe into your personal life, like working extra hours or taking work home. If you resolve to make time management your goal, you will be good at it. Do not be ashamed to let people know that you are conscious of your time. Furthermore, if you demonstrate respect for other people’s time, they will respect your time. Being fervent in managing your time transmits a productive attitude to your peers and manager. When you find yourself with free time at work, look for ways to make use of it productively. Go to a peer or manager and ask if they need help. They will see that you care about their time. If you are easily distracted, then remove anything that distracts you from your work area. Avoid the internet or talking with peers at length. Constantly feeding these distractions will become a bad habit, and you will be seen as unproductive and subject to scrutiny by your manager. Time management is not an art, it’s a discipline. Use it wisely, and you will reap rewards that will impact both your work and home life. Use it unwisely, and see how time will seem scarce. Remember, once time is wasted, you cannot get it back. We are all given the same amount of time per day; no one has more and no one has less.
