In the world of social care, managers are often the glue holding everything together. We all know they are not just overseeing operations, but mentoring staff, ensuring compliance, managing rotas, handling the unexpected crisis and still expected to keep meticulous records.

As a manager wearing so many hats to wear, time can feel like your most elusive resource. But what if better time management was something you could achieve, and something that could not only help reduce stress but also improve care quality, compliance and team morale?

Why time management matters

Poor time management in most sectors is a missed meeting, a late deadline or a missed report, but in social care where everything is governed so heavily, it can have such huge implications and can lead to

• Gaps in record-keeping that compromise accountability.
• Missed compliance deadlines that put your service, staff and the people you support at risk.
• Burnout among staff who feel constantly rushed.
• Reduced quality of care due to time pressures which can then also impact on business reputation and viability.

This list isn’t exhaustive, but all these impacts ripple and they impact the people, our teams, and those will support

Heard of time audits?

Time audits are something that are relatively new to me but have transformed how I work. A time audit is a process of tracking how you spend your time, allowing you to analyse and identify areas where you can improve your time management and productivity. The key benefits I found from doing this were:

• I found out I lost lots of time to interruptions.
• I had lots of meetings that just were not productive.
• There were some tasks that I could be delegating to others.

I found this audit allowed me to review what I was doing, identify some patterns and make some informed changes. There are lots of resources online around time audits, so do make sure you go and check them out.

My top 5 tips

I often feel slightly hypocritical when it comes to offering advice around work-life balance as I feel I am the one juggling 101 things but I truly believe that balance is an illusion we are led to believe can happen, and you need to find what works for you. I wanted to share five things that work for me, that could work for you in terms of how you can manage your time:

1. Prioritise and Delegate

Use the Eisenhower Matrix (or don’t) but do prioritise your tasks and do delegate. You cannot do everything and it is important that you focus on what is urgent and important. Your team want to upskill, and you need to be able to trust that that they can do things when you are not there. Allow you team to take on some of those non-urgent, non-important tasks for you and help you un-burden your workload.

2. Batch Tasks

You will find once you start to prioritise tasks, you will there will be themes such as emails, paperwork or calls. Try to batch these tasks as it will allow you to focus on these more clearly, use less energy and be more productive.

3. Use Tech

Digital tools can streamline some of the repetitive tasks such as record-keeping, communication. Invest time in learning them, it pays off. I would focus on looking at digital tools for some of the tasks that take up most of your time, for example two quick wins could be:

• Team Meeting / Meeting Minutes or Supervision Notes – AI could help with this very easily and implemented with a relatively low cost
• Auditing – going from reams of paper which you are then manually inputting into excel spreadsheets to get the data from could be transformed into a digital solution where dashboards could revolutionise your service and informed decision making. Platform like Audit on Cloud by InvictIQ allows instant access to records and evidence, saving valuable time during inspections and internal reviews. Tasks and actions can also be seamlessly handed over between staff, ensuring continuity and accountability across shifts and teams. Additionally, with built-in templates and structured records, Audit on Cloud streamlines annual planning—saving time and reducing duplication of effort.

4. Protect Focus Time

Block out time where you need to concentrate and make people aware. We all operate open door policies, but it is okay to shut that door at times and tell people you can’t be disturbed. We all need to get our head down and not be interrupted. That 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 90 minutes or whatever it is can really make a difference.

5. Time Block your Calendar

Your colleagues may hate you (I think some of mine do) but this is one thing I do all the time, and I find really helps me, but means people can never find any room in the calendar, but instead of a to-do list, I block out chunks of time in my calendar for tasks. I find that it helps protects my time, prevents overbooking, allows me to manage my time more effectively and helps with good mental health.

The key thing from this, and my blogs (mine and others you read) is that often they are written by what works for the author and they may not always work for you. I honestly believe you have to try and do a few things till you find what works for you but don’t give up. In summary of this blog if you want some quick things to try, I would complete a time audit, start time blocking your diary and begin delegating some of those non-important tasks.