It’s true: Time is money. But for your business, it’s much more than that. From managing one-time projects to meeting overall organizational goals, efficient time management is essential to success.
A powerful and effective add-on for your Microsoft Dynamics 365™ (formerly Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM) solution is the Crowe Project Management tool.
In addition to helping you manage project expenses, this tool can help you manage and analyze your time while keeping your time management tasks and records in one place.
Consider the following four time management recommendations and how the Crowe Project Management tool can help.
1. Analyze where time is spent.
Evaluate how you and your team spend time. First, log all time – billable and nonbillable – for at least a week. Next, carefully analyze the results. Search for pockets of underutilized time as well as tasks you can eliminate. Notice the time of day and the pace at which tasks are completed, then adjust schedules and assignments as necessary. Investing time in this analysis task can be beneficial in the long run.
How Crowe Project Management Can Help
The Crowe Project Management tool helps you track billable and nonbillable time. By comparing your estimate to the actual time spent on various tasks, you can identify patterns and make adjustments where necessary.
2. Track your tasks.
Make lists that include your time estimate, due date, and any preliminary tasks. Can you group some tasks together? Can you delegate some tasks to underutilized resources? By prioritizing tasks, you might be able to devote less time and energy to noncritical items.
How Crowe Project Management Can Help
Crowe Project Management simplifies this step by enabling you to view and prioritize your task list. You can track time increments and totals, due dates, and notes. You can also determine from where or whom the majority of your tasks are coming. You can break your tasks into pieces or make them part of a larger project. Project management becomes simpler and more intuitive.
3. Prioritize your tasks.
If you could accomplish just one task today, what would it be? By prioritizing your most important tasks, you can gain a better sense of other tasks to delay, delegate, or even delete. Consider categorizing tasks in this way:
- Urgent and important – needs immediate attention and aligns with overall priorities
- Urgent but not important – not tied to priorities; may involve others’ urgencies
- Neither important nor urgent – perhaps not even necessary
How Crowe Project Management Can Help
With Crowe Project Management, you can create task categories to help with tracking and analyzing time spent in various tasks. You can also assign the task, with notes and pertinent details attached, to a team member. Through workflows, you can receive alerts when a task is assigned, reassigned, or completed.
4. Schedule your time.
To create an action plan for your days and weeks, block off one to two hours of work time on your calendar. Minimize distractions by identifying where and when time wasters occur and by taking steps to eliminate them. Review appointments and uncompleted items, projects, and goals. Schedule time on particular dates for major activities, using your priorities as a guide. For better organization and a sense of accomplishment, check off items as they are completed. Schedule your planning regularly – daily, weekly, or another interval – so it becomes a habit.
How Crowe Project Management Can Help
With Crowe Project Management, you can record to-do items in a centralized location, organize tasks and appointments on one page, and group similar tasks (such as returning calls) for clarity and focus. You can easily mark tasks as “done” and archive them for later reference.
Get more information about Crowe CRM services for Microsoft Dynamics 365 software. Have a question or interested in evaluating the CRM functionality in Microsoft Dynamics 365 software? Contact us today.
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