Project management is all about time. The better you manage your time, the more likely it is that the project will be delivered on time. 

While the actual work itself takes up a major part of the allocated time, administrative tasks are a close competitor in that regard as well. 

Optimizing such tasks is vital for managing project deadlines. So, let’s see how project management personnel can save time on administrative tasks.

Identify Time-Draining Admin Work

The first step in improving admin workflows is understanding them. So, start by creating a list of all admin tasks related to the project. Then check which tasks are taking up unnecessary time.

Common examples include the following:

• Manually updating project documentation
• Transcribing meeting notes from screenshots or shared images
• Extracting information from scanned files
• Organizing visual assets and reference materials
• Re-entering data across multiple platforms

These tasks may seem trivial at a glance, but they are repetitive and soul-draining. They break the team’s tempo and focus, thus wasting time. Additionally, such tasks often need to be done manually, which makes them quite slow.

Let’s see how many of these tasks can be improved to save time.

Standardize Documentation Processes

Poor and inconsistent documentation is one of the reasons why administrative tasks take so long. All team members create documentation in their own way (in a way that makes sense to them). The problem with this approach is that others are very likely to struggle to make sense of the different formats.

To combat this, team leaders should have a standardized documentation process. All team members need to follow it. This eliminates varying versions of documents and makes it easy to review and correct them. 

This also makes it easier to onboard new team members and share information across related departments. This saves time because nobody has to do excessive ‘check-ins’ to understand the documentation.

Reduce Manual Data Entry

Manual data entry is one of the biggest time drains in admin work. Unfortunately, data entry is a necessity. Without data entry, you can create backups or port information from one medium to another. 

The solution is to remove the ‘manual’ part of this process. This is what wastes time. It is slow, inefficient, and has a lot of room for error. Examples of manual data entry include the following:

• Transcribing data into digital formats from pictures, screenshots, and scanned documents.
• Creating reports from meeting notes and shared media.
• Creating documentation from client requirements and feedback.

Stuff like this can’t be fully automated, but some parts can be boosted with tools. For example, an image to text converter can cut transcribing time from minutes and hours to seconds. Instead of manually rewriting text, team members can just chuck images, scanned docs, and screenshots into the tool and get the extracted text, which they can edit much more quickly.

Similarly, using LLMs, you can create reports from meeting notes and media and edit them more quickly. 

Identify manual data entry tasks and use the appropriate tools to speed them up.

Automate Routine Updates

Routine updates such as project milestones, progress reports, task status, and deadline reminders are part of the project development cycle. However, doing these things poses the same problem as most other administrative tasks:

• They break the tempo
• They take away from the time teams use for being productive
• They take unnecessary time

The solution to reduce this “administrative load” is to automate most of these tasks. Thankfully, that is an easy fix (although it will cost some money). All you have to do is buy a subscription for project management software. These software suites have automation features that handle such “routie” tasks on their own. As for the tasks that still need your personal touch, they are completed faster thanks to the streamlined methods these tools provide.

Such tools require setup once or twice, and then the rest is a breeze.

Centralize Information Access

One task that takes a lot of time for no reason is looking up information. When team members don’t have a single source of truth (i.e, one central repository of data), they have to sift through various data silos, such as emails, messages, and attachments. That’s a meaningless waste of time, and it can be stopped in one way: by centralizing access to information.

You can do that with a knowledge base. Modern knowledge base software lets you create and publish documentation in a centralized hub. People can retrieve documents from it, and any edits made to the master copy get reflected in all personal copies. This way, everyone always has the same updated version of any documentation.

So, you can see how centralizing documentation, assets, and references in a single workspace like this reduces friction and minimizes interruptions.

Encourage Tool Awareness Across Teams

The thing about administrative tasks is that most employees have to do them in some capacity. That’s why it is necessary to teach them how to use tools and technology that can hasten those tasks. 

If only a few people know how to use them, then the problem is not solved because other team members will hold up the rest due to their slower pace.

To fix this, send memos, short internal guides, and quick demos to your entire team. This will make a significant difference in how consistently tools are used.

When everyone follows the same streamlined processes, the administrative burden is shared more evenly and becomes far less noticeable.

Conclusion

The long and short of it is that saving time on administrative tasks is really about protecting team members’ focus. When they don’t have to waste time doing admin tasks, they can focus more on actual problem-solving and decision-making tasks. 

And the best part is that you can easily save time on admin tasks. All you have to do is standardize processes, reduce manual input, and use digital tools to hasten menial tasks. In the end, this lets teams reclaim hours from their workweek without burning out on menial tasks.