Supercharge your Productivity with an effective Task Management System

Quixy Editorial Team

January 30, 2024

Having a task management system is crucial to being productive in the world of business today.

Imagine this. It’s Monday. You get a couple of tasks and think, “Okay, doable. I have the week to get it done.” Skip to Friday, you go to work knowing you have a deadline to meet today with the work undone.

You’re already stressed. You get to work and realize you also have a webinar to attend that you forgot about. You also have a client call and a report to submit. On top of that, you have the end-of-the-week meeting today to discuss your progress.

You figured you were on top of things but suddenly, you’re a mess with a massive backlog wondering how you ended up here.

The Urgent vs. Important Dilemma

The human brain is unmistakably brilliant. No doubt about that. However, to depend on your brain to manage tasks is a bit unfair, considering there is scope for forgetfulness, unforeseen circumstances, and good old procrastination.

We tend to focus much harder on work when we know it’s urgently required; that is why the concept of deadlines is utilized. Prioritizing work is vital to successful and productive working.

According to Eisenhower’s matrix, the four quadrants of:

1. Do: Urgent and important tasks
2. Plan: Important but not urgent
3. Delegate: Tasks that can be handled by others so you can focus on more urgent and important ones
4. Eliminate: Tasks that were previously seemingly essential but, after consideration or a change of circumstances, are not required anymore

If you are consistently missing deadlines or letting genuinely urgent issues just sit on your desk, you will not excel in your career. Instead, while still doing excellent work, you have to learn how to handle the continual reception of obligations.

This can be done with a task management system.

What is a task management system?

A task management system is basically a set-up that enables a person to manage a task through its life cycle of planning, testing, tracking, and reporting.

A good system creates a productive individual rather than someone who procrastinates. You do not have to depend on your brain to constantly manage tasks coming in and prioritize them based on urgency and importance.

Instead, you can classify your tasks on a system that provides you with a visual aid and which you become accountable to, thus lowering procrastination and increasing productivity.

What does a task management system do?

The two most basic functions of a task management system include:

1. Store tasks to be completed
2. Enable prioritization

As a modern-day employee in the workplace, productivity is all over the place. Nothing is black and white. Working is essentially a large grey area wherein everyone is figuring their short-term goals out based on the long-term goals they know they want to achieve.

Perhaps a matter pops up in your head during a meeting, and you cannot attend to it any time soon, or maybe you remember that you have an important matter to attend to, but it is due next week. A system that manages tasks enables you to store your ideas randomly.

Simply listing it down in the system is equivalent to writing your tasks down in the notes on your phone; that does not suffice. A management system for your tasks creates a mechanism wherein you can organize as an urgent and/or important task i.e., it allows prioritization.

Project management

Managing your projects is essentially clubbing up a series of related tasks that head in the same direction i.e., a project. A task management system can assist project management as well.

Project management is essential so that resources are handled in an optimum fashion and the best possible work is done, it creates a set-up that creates manageable chunks of workload based on the sequence of tasks and the urgency and importance of them as separate activities.

Explore: Quixy for Project Management

How can a task management system be customized to your business processes?

With a general system, each and every characteristic may not be particularly suited to your unique business. The last thing an organization needs is for its task management system to be confusing and counter-productive.

It’s a good thing that a business can build a system to manage its separate tasks and facilitate project management as well. This can be done with the help of no-code platforms.

Not only can you create a mechanism to manage tasks and projects but also one that schedules and conducts meetings, captures the MoM (minutes of the meeting), quality assurance through compliance tracking, and viewing insights of projects through timesheets.

Also read: Meeting Management Solution to Streamline Meetings, from Scheduling to the Closure of Action Items

Qualities a task management system should possess

1. All-Rounder

A good system has to have the ability to hold and keep everything in one place. Otherwise, even with writing everything down, your work life would be a mess made up of sticky notes all over your desk, lists in your emails, and mental notes that you will probably forget.

2. Connectivity

An ideal system is connected to all working processes. Clicking a button on your email could register a task in your system, preparation of meeting tasks can be assigned whenever a meeting is scheduled, etc.

It is important to note that this is an ideal system, and the tools currently present cannot integrate every convenience yet. Customizing your system can definitely help to suit your business’s unique needs better.

Also Read: A 10-Step Guide to Enhancing Productivity

3. Versatile

The mobility of the task management system should be optimum, i.e., you should be able to use it for work as and when you get ideas or need to use the system, but it should not be so exclusively mobile that it induces you to take your phone out too much and distract you.

Benefits of a task management system

1. Saves time

Essentially, you know where to go and what to do when it’s time to work. There is no waste of time in opening your email and listing down what needs to be done or any errors in this list.

A task management system is a centering tool; it lets you structure the never-ending pile of tasks neatly and better handle daily teamwork. By getting a centralized program in place to execute things on time, the system helps teams save a lot of time and effort.

2. Allows better coordination

You should be able to delegate work, control dependencies, track time spent on assignments, remain on schedule, and meet deadlines with a good system. Tracking tasks helps everyone consider more critical or time-consuming tasks, so teams can schedule their time and meet deadlines.

3. Easier collaboration

All the information about work, whether yours or your colleagues, is available in a single place. As a result, you do not need to wait to speak to anybody in a meeting to stay updated on the work that is being done in the organization.

Also Read: Online License Management System for Businesses : From Paperwork to Progress

4. Gets work done

Employees often communicate the work that is to be done so much that they spend more time doing it than actually getting the work done. Constantly taking mental notes of what you have to get done and conveying that through physical communication is vital but not even close enough.

A task management system allows this communication actually to be put into action and gets things done. You visit the system, organize and prioritize your work, and then practically get it done.

5. Accountability

The task management system is essentially the boss. Work is usually determined by others through emails, meetings, updates, etc. When you prioritize these tasks in a management system, you are accountable to the system to finish the tasks in order of priority. Piling up work induces a sense of urgency to work; this sense is due to accountability to the system.

Also Read: Project Management Simplified for Non-Project Managers

Conclusion

Having a task management system is key to creating a successful work structure in your organization. It is a step towards better communication, better coordination, and better practical completion of work.

Choosing the correct software to manage your tasks can definitely be daunting, to say the least, but it is the right thing to do to better your business in today’s competitive environment. With the advent of brilliant tools in today’s day and age, such as AI, Machine Learning, No-code, a lot more is possible as compared to an earlier time.

No-code can facilitate the customization of a task and/or project management system for your unique business in its essence, all of this can be done within minutes, best suited to your needs. Get started with our platform, and experience the ease of automated processes and personalized app building.

Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)