Three Multitasking Techniques Every Office Manager is Using

If there’s one constant in office manager jobs it’s that you have to keep a lot of plates spinning. Every employee working in your office has their own roles and responsibilities but coordinating them means having a good understanding of everything that’s happening around you.

Finding good office manager mentoring can be a challenge, especially if you’ve only just found yourself in the role. That’s why, in this article, we’ve decided to share our top tips for an office manager role to help you learn how to become a better multitasker and keep your department on track.

1. Keep A Cool Head

Multitasking is always stressful but if there’s one thing you take away from this article then let it be this: panicking never helps.

In many ways, you can think of an office manager job as that of a captain. Your crew each have their roles to focus on but you have to make sure the ship gets through the stormy waters and reaches its destination. And just like a captain, you have to know how to prioritise.

Your ship might be running out of food, you might have damage to the hull, and your crew might even be feeling a little disheartened from all the rain. That might sound like a pretty dire situation, but when pirates attack, you have to know how to set all that aside and manage the problem at hand.

It’s just the same in an office. Those problems still exist and they’ll still need dealing with but you can only do one thing at a time so you have to learn how to prioritise.

It’s also worth noting that things often feel more dire than they are when you have people reporting to you. Everyone is concerned about their issue. That makes sense – it’s their job to be. Don’t let their worries cloud your perspective.

When problems build up they often feel like they multiply one another, becoming exponentially more stressful with each new dilemma. If that’s how you feel then remember to take a deep breath and focus on what matters. So long as the ship is still on course then things probably aren’t as bad as they seem.

2. Careful Communication

As well as prioritising problems, you should also prioritise what you say. We’re not saying you should always be keeping secrets from your colleagues but when communication gets complicated it can be good to keep things on a need to know basis.

This is less about confidentiality and more about minimising confusion. For example, if one person’s job is to plan out a project, then it would be disheartening to learn that the CEO is considering cancelling that project. That said, there’s a big difference between considering and actioning. If the project isn’t cancelled then you’ll want that person’s work to be the best it can be.

As an office manager it’s your job to decide when to pass that information on and when not to. That means knowing your employees and understanding how much they’ve got on their plates. In some ways, you’re acting as an information shield so that they can focus only on what’s relevant to them.

3. Build Better Systems

We’ve talked so far about the day to day challenge of multitasking but for this last office manager tip, we’d like to talk about the value of planning ahead.

When implementing new systems, it’s important to understand that people are usually more predictable than we give them credit for. Or, to put it simply, people behave systemically and you can plan according to that.

Let’s say you have an important weekly meeting where you need everybody to be on the ball – never put that meeting on a Friday afternoon. It doesn’t matter how smart, sensible, and professional your colleagues are, they’re still human and their ability to concentrate will fluctuate just like everybody else’s. If you put that meeting on a different day or in a morning slot, you will get better results.

That might sound small but it’s those kinds of micro changes that can be incredibly powerful when well implemented. Unfortunately, that’s also the kind of understanding that takes time to learn.

Office manager mentoring is a great way of learning effective systems, built up over the course of careers. By working with experienced office managers you’re essentially getting access to the results of a career-long study on human behaviour. Instead of having to learn as you go, you can ask questions directly and get solutions it might have taken you much longer to come to.

Jump start your office managing skills by working with an Office Manager mentor today!