There’s word going around that rich businessmen value their time more than their money. Whether that’s a rumor or not is inconsequential. Because really, rich or not, who isn’t always running out of time these days, right?

Even the infamous Gordon Gekko, in the movie Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps said, “The one thing I learned in jail is that money is not the prime asset in life. Time is.” And with everything we hear and read about how a day, technically, is no longer 24 hours due to changes in the earth’s magnetic resonance and all that stuff, time supply, indeed, is getting shorter and shorter these days.

After all is said and done though, there’s always this time-tested solution to save the day: effective time management.

If that statement just got your eyebrow skyrocketing a teeny-weeny bit, I hear you loud and clear. Time management, given the myriad of distractions we experience all day everyday, isn’t always an easy thing to pull off, which is why the use of tools to effectively manage your time is imperative.

A workflow automation system is an application that manages and automates workflow procedures and distributes tasks to the right people at the right time. Given that, how exactly can it help you with time management?

• Clear your calendar.

 Project coordinators, managers, small business owners, for some reason, have this uncanny ability to get caught up in status meetings – project updates in the morning, development calls in the afternoon and whatnot. With a workflow automation system, these “briefings” that are usually not brief get reduced, if not totally scratched from your work calendar.

Visibility being a primary characteristic, an automation system, e.g., HR automation software, gives you and everyone involved a real-time view of the overall status of the project, plus the individual tasks being done by individual members, what’s on its way to completion, what’s lagging behind and where extra hands might be needed. This way, you don’t need to spend a big chunk of your day tied up in a conference room.

• Concentrate on what matters.

Okay, so meetings do matter. But they’re not the only things that matter. Spending almost all of your time conducting or attending meeting after every meeting is not an efficient way to bring a project to fruition. Analyzing, strategizing, delegating tasks to the right personnel, making sure that everything is up to speed by monitoring real-time accomplishments sound like, at least to me, a better way to meet or exceed expectations.

And should the need for a meeting arise, with a workflow automation system that integrates capabilities like file sharing, chat, project management and online library, chances are the agenda will no longer include listening to status updates but pitching and brainstorming ideas that can further the project’s progress.

Conclusion

Life – your work life, at least – is too short to get caught up in a slew of endless meetings and status briefings. Clear your calendar, concentrate on things that matter more – yes, give yourself a favor. With the right set of tools, the right workflow automation system, you’re well on your way to accomplishing whatever it is you had been tasked to accomplish.

This guest post is written by Maricel Rivera is a writer for Comindware, a business solutions provider.