As a project manager you have a little more leverage in terms of managing your and other people’s schedules. You should use it to your advantage and schedule meetings in a way that works best for you. One good example is to schedule your meetings in blocks, say in the morning, to leave the remainder of the day for focused work time.

Given our open economy and multinational work landscape, the aforementioned arrangements are not always possible, but you can take it as a base and try to regulate your calendar blocking time in-between meetings to allow yourself to stay productive yet maintain a healthy work load balance.

Creating a meetings-free day is another great way to stay productive without burnout.

You've started your workday, opened Jira and see a multitude of tasks in front of you, but you don't know which one to start with. Or you start doing low-priority tasks while burning urgent tasks are pushed to the back of your mind.

All this suggests that you don't know how to prioritize tasks and don't understand which tasks are more important than others. And most likely, besides your own tasks, you have a hard time prioritizing the tasks of other team members when you're working on the same project.

So what to do?

To effectively prioritize your work and complete the most important tasks first, start by clearly defining your project and team goals. Break down the project into stages and identify which tasks are critical to achieving those goals.

Use tools like the Eisenhower Matrix or MoSCoW prioritization to categorize tasks by urgency and importance, helping you tackle high-impact items first. Regularly review and adjust your priorities as the project progresses, ensuring your focus remains aligned with the team’s objectives and deadlines.

If you like to perform tasks manually, we can disappoint you - your working methods are outdated. Experienced specialists have long been using special tools to automate routine tasks to increase productivity in project management.

Performing some tasks manually not only wastes your time, but also prevents you from focusing on productive work. To reduce the amount of manual labor, find a tool that automates it. There are many tools out there (Asana, Monday.com), all you have to do is choose the right one.

By automating tasks, you will realize how long you have been wasting time and controlling every step.

One of the most dangerous productivity killers in project management is micromanaging every task, both your own and your team members'. When you try to track or control every little detail of developers, designers, or business analysts, it not only consumes your valuable time, but also reduces the trust and autonomy of your colleagues.

This approach often leads to micromanagement, which can demotivate team members as they feel they are not trusted to handle their responsibilities. This, in turn, leads to a collective decrease in productivity.

How to help? Try instead focusing on setting clear (not overestimated) deliverables for each task. Reward team members for a job well done by giving them freedom and autonomy. Most importantly, resist the urge to control all the details.

Shift from a “control” mindset to a “support” mindset by offering help in the form of providing needed resources or just informal camaraderie. Have regular meetings and allow team members to express their wishes, problems or difficulties.

Use convenient channels, such as Slack, to discuss various topics and projects. This tool helps reduce the number of unnecessary online meetings and formal emails, speeding up the exchange of information between team members.

Additionally, such services are integrated with other handy tools like Google Drive, making it easier to collaborate on projects.

With real-time messaging capabilities, team members can quickly ask questions, share news, and communicate without the delays often associated with emailing.

So if you're still discussing tasks with coworkers via email or phone, consider integrating communication platforms into your workflow. They can help create a friendlier and more productive environment.

Knowing your team is not only knowing them by name and role, but also understanding an individual's strengths, weaknesses, motivations, and work styles.

After all, each team member is different and brings unique skills and experience to the project. By understanding and appreciating these characteristics, project managers can assign tasks with a specific approach.

For example, if one team member is great at analyzing data and another is more creative, tasks can be tailored to fit their personalities and work styles.

When team members work on tasks that are not only tailored to their skills, but additionally tailored to their individual personalities, they are more likely to appreciate it and be more engaged and productive at work.

If you are an experienced or aspiring project manager, there is nothing wrong with seeking mentorship from more experienced colleagues. Being surrounded by similar professionals will allow you to share your experience and learn from others. In such communities, project managers learn about new ways of running projects, share useful know-how, including productivity, time or risk management.

Finding a mentor is a great chance to get support and help. Use LinkedIn and other social networks to find events in your city. Perhaps in the future, you too can become not just a mentor, but a trusted support for someone.

With the shift to remote working, many workers found that they simply had nowhere to work. A dining table, a bed, or simply working from a coffee shop were the go-to options.

In this mode, there are many distractions in addition to the uncomfortable work staff. For example, your family thinks that since you work from home, you can be constantly distracted, loaded with household chores, on and on, and sent to the store for groceries at all hours of the day.

A project manager is constantly communicating not only with the team, but also with customers. For instance, while communicating on Zoom, it would be strange for a customer to see your relative casually enter the room, or to hear cafe visitors talking loudly. However, an inappropriate work environment will distract you from your work as well, and reduce your productivity.

Wherever you work, try to shield yourself from external distractions so you can focus on the tasks at hand. Take care of the organization of your home office: buy a comfortable chair, think about good lighting, buy a quality headset. If you work from home, ask your relatives not to disturb you at certain hours.

It will be useful to put your desk in order, hide any distracting and interfering items, such as a phone with quick access to social networks or dishes with uneaten breakfast. Leave only the essentials for work. This will help you focus on your work and be productive.

When you are persistently asked to participate in new initiatives, learn to say “no” by constructively explaining your current priorities.

The advice to say “no” to new tasks may seem a bit toxic, because we're talking about productivity, flexibility and adaptability. However, productive people are the ones who firmly know their priorities, which means they are clear about their boundaries and current task list.

When you give up tasks you don't have time for, you free yourself up time for other important things on the project. After all, you shouldn't try to have time to do everything and turn on maximum multitasking mode.

To effectively say “no,” explain your priorities as early and clearly as possible. Even if you don't explicitly say “no,” make sure that other team members and stakeholders understand the relative priorities of your tasks and that new tasks are not yet part of your plans.

If you find it difficult and uncomfortable to say “no” right away, try practicing saying “not yet.” Keep these tasks in mind, but don't prevent yourself from being productive now.