Whether you work in sales, account management or any other commercial position, the chances are time management is an important part of your role. However, keeping on top of your workload can be easier said than done. With this in mind, we've compiled some guidance to give you a helping hand.

Get your priorities right

The absolute key to successful time management is to get your priorities right. This may sound obvious, but it's surprising how many people fail to do it. Think about all the tasks you have to complete and rank them in order of importance and time sensitivity. Once you've done this you can better establish what you should be working on first and how much time you need to allocate to getting it done. 

Expect the unexpected

In the world of work, you should always be ready for the unexpected. Of course, the very nature of unexpected occurrences makes them hard to plan for, but you can take steps to factor this into your time management. When planning your day, make sure you set aside some time that can be devoted to anything that comes out of the blue. This way you'll be much more prepared and if nothing happens, you'll have a bit of extra time you can use for other tasks.

Eliminate distractions

The internet is great, but it means it's now easier to get distracted than ever before. Email, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn - they can all eat up valuable time if you're not careful. The best way to avoid social media is through simple will power, but you can make things slightly easier by removing any bookmarks to these sites on your work computer. Emails are a harder distraction to avoid and a task can easily get interrupted when you see a new message land in your inbox. One way to get around this problem is to set aside a certain amount of time for reading and replying to emails. How much this should be is dependent on how busy your inbox is, but five to ten minutes every hour is a good place to start in many job roles.

Stay calm

Stress is the enemy of time management. The more worked up you get, the harder it is to stay on top of everything. Indeed, one of the main reasons people get stressed in the first place is because they are not managing their time effectively.  If your workload is getting to you, the best thing to do is to take a little bit of time to calm down and then try and follow the tips above. Once you start managing your time more effectively, the chances are you'll find yourself feeling a lot more relaxed.