Good Time Management starts by setting priorities
Important or Urgent? When people mix up these two dimensions of any activity it gets difficult to set priorities to work. Start by identifying these two dimensions in a new task and classify it using ABC analysis (aka as the Eisenhower matrix).
It’s up to you to decide if a task must be executed by yourself, the Project Manager, or can be delegated to a colleague from the PMO and when the task must be executed.
A good Project Manager (PM) is busy running different projects at the same time so she/he must learn to simplify and focus on the essential. It is an art to gauge how much detail is necessary when planning. The key principles to make your life manageable are:
keep permanently in touch with the stakeholders. People make the project be a success: some contribute by doing the work while others constitute a risk to be controlled. Stakeholder Management is an ongoing task that cannot be delegated.
focus on the critical tasks. As you identify the critical path (a set of tasks that cannot be delayed without affecting the project delivery date) it is mandatory that you track these tasks;
track high-impact risks. There are hundreds of potential risks in any project but only a few of them can really hurt your project, so keep an eye on them and delegate the monitoring of the others to their owners. Risk Management is an ongoing task.
keep work oversight as high level as possible. The PM can decide on how specific is the list of activities, or WBS, but the more you document, the longer it will take you to check things to a detail that is not necessary. Get the right person for the job and trust her/him to do a good job. A good leader is around in case the team needs support, but they have to ask, do not impose.
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