07 Feb Time Management within a Bid
By Louise Lewis, Tuesday 7th February 2017
Bid managers have busy and somewhat chaotic working schedules with last minute deadlines disrupting everything! Efficient use of time management techniques in a Bid Process are imperative to helping improve your performance and reduce stress levels. There are some tips below we have put together that may help you to keep your cool with those stressful tendering situations and bid deadlines:
• Have a Bid Plan – set out milestones working towards your final deadline to break up the task which therefore helps you keep focus on shorter goals and tasks.
• Try not to get distracted from the task in hand – we can often get easily distracted by mobiles, e-mail, twitter and other social channels, try and focus on one thing at a time. Block out time for other activities during the day, schedule message checks and book appointments in at a certain time of day and allow time for emergency tasks if they crop up.
• Prioritising – this is essential. When is the bid deadline? Don’t do tasks that are not related to your active bids. Write a Do Now list and a Plan To Do list, prioritising in urgency and set aside some time during the morning to plan. You will probably know what you need to work on but it makes you concentrate on the task and see if you need to juggle your tasks and re-set your list. This is also essential when working in a Team where priorities need to be agreed and managed to avoid going off course and wasting time.
• Try to minimise the number of meetings you are involved in and maximise the effectiveness of the meetings you do attend. Try and avoid meetings without an agenda or clear purpose and take accurate notes avoiding the need for another meeting!
• Delegate where possible and utilise resources in and out of your company to make the task more manageable. All working together to get the job done. Introducing this way of working into your company environment can often reduce individual stress levels and create a team player atmosphere with everyone mucking in and pulling together where necessary and able.
