You may have often heard everyone saying, time management is the skill you got to have. But, how?
WHAT IS TIME MANAGEMENT?
According to the Oxford dictionary; “time management is the ability to use one’s time effectively or productively, especially at work time management is the key to efficient working.”
It’s like packing a suitcase if you put stuff in an organized way you would be able to fit in more of such stuff instead of throwing things randomly.
It’s absolutely the same with time if you organize your tasks and events just correctly doing nothing it would seem like you have more time.
Basically, time management is optimizing and taking advantage of your most finite resource, time.
Achieving work-life balance is possible with effective time management. Learning time management tips will not only help you manage your time better but also boost personal productivity. Effective time management allows us to make the most of our day, accomplishing tasks more quickly and prioritizing those that will make the most impact. https://www.usa.edu/blog/time-management-techniques/
4 Basic skills for Time Management
I. Deduct – Do I need to do this?
II. Prioritize – what is most important?
III. Plan – when should I do this?
IV. Execute – how do I get it done?
I. DEDUCT
Before even prioritizing your tasks, you need to make space for things that matter and then go for prioritizing. Because to do what is most important to you, you need to avoid wasting your time on what’s not important.
– DON’T FALL FOR PERFECTIONISM
There is nothing like perfectionism. More often, the more you go for perfection you would find yourself going nowhere. Discard the idea of “all or nothing”.
– CONSTANT GROWTH ISN’T REALISTIC
Welcome to the modern life hustle in which we constantly trying to add the next best thing in our resume or going for exponential growth. But, we often overlook the time and effort it consumes and occupies you and keep you from doing things that are currently working for you.
Don’t get me wrong it’s nothing wrong with wanting to improve yourself. But, you don’t have to be improving yourself at a huge unsustainable rate. Make sure you are gentle with yourself as you grow.
II. PRIORITIZE
Your next priority should be prioritizing.
Eisenhower Matrix is of the organizing system that breaks down tasks into:
➡Urgent and important
➡Important and not urgent
➡Urgent and not important
➡Not urgent and not important
This technique is a perfect guide for letting you know know what matters more to you. The more you follow the concept of “first things first” you would find yourself practicing the right thing at the right time.
TIPS FOR PRIORITIZING YOUR TASKS
– Make a list of all your work in hand.
– Categorize your list as per the Eisenhower Matrix rule.
– Believe in your sorting and approach the task with the mindset, as per your category.
– Strictly follow the category until you complete the task.
III. PLAN
Every step of time management is important. But planning is an enormous task to deal with. Planning is the biggest challenge that would be tackled in the most possible ways. That’s why I have a special dedicated blog series on weekly and monthly plans with #planwithfarheen
TIPS FOR PERFECT PLANNING
(If I had to give a bottom line to all the planning techniques that work)
SCHEDULE YOUR TASKS
– Firstly, make a to-do list of everything you want to do, and make sure you use the checklist to keep track of the status of your tasks mentioned in the to-do list.
– Secondly, estimate how long each task is going to take, it doesn’t need to be accurate but yes it must give a rough estimate of the threshold limit.
– Thirdly, schedule your tasks as if they are in an appointment with a start and end time one after the other.
Scheduling your tasks would certainly make you less anxious with the amount of stuff you must be doing and would make keep a check on your small achievement and ultimately make you feel fulfilled at the end of the day.
TIPS TO MAKE SCHEDULING WORK SMOOTHLY
i). Batch small tasks together
When I had to write a self-development blog I often club it with my reading time. It helps me:
– collect new thoughts
– do critic reading by constructing philosophies into what I actually believe
– improve my vocabulary
– take perfect notes
ii). Tools you can use for scheduling
You may choose:
– daily, weekly, or monthly planners
– bullet journals
– Google calendars
iii). Be careful about analysis paralysis
Some of us especially the one perfectionist kinda people like me unfortunately tend to spend all of our time planning things and trying to optimize our schedule perfectly instead of doing something.
Planning for 80% of the time and then things going for its execution in the left 20% is far superior to waiting to reach the 100% full proof planning strategy and never getting anything done. Because you have spent all of your time in planning only then investing some of it in the action plan.
IV. EXECUTION
Of course, I can not tell you absolutely how you must be practicing your tasks because every person of different, your tasks are different, and the characteristic of your tasks are even different.
But, here are some tips to execute your tasks without compromising quality:
I. How to avoid procrastination
To beat procrastination I begin the task way before the actual time to execute it. This way I break the task into many chunks and help myself motivated to make the next bit because I never already invested some time earlier doing it.
You can also term it as a “2-minute rule”
The foremost reason why you procrastinate is your brain anticipates the pain of doing work. So, it wants to delay the potential pain as long as possible.
So, what you do with the 2-minute rule is you are going to commit to yourself that you are going to perform your task for only 2 minutes with full dedication. This significantly reduces the amount of pain in your brain to get starting with something as it would take less activation energy to get started.
And, we all know getting started is the hardest part. Once you train yourself to manage it for the first 2 minutes chances are of you getting into a flow and wanting to keep going until you finish your task at hand.
II. Create an efficient system
Efficiency comes with practice. When your know you have to practice a task again and again start looking for:
– The most focused time to practice it.
– The less exhausting way to execute it.
– The most interesting way to strategize it.
– The least time-consuming way to get the best research done.
III. Take Break
Taking a pause is important because even if you might kinda feel like you are wasting time it doesn’t improvise your efficiency.
Basically, pushing yourself through is not helpful because when your brain is tired it becomes less efficient as well as less effective.
So, taking a break can make you more productive during the time you are working which makes up for the amount of time you wasted without taking a break.
These were all the steps how could you manage your time efficiently. You are absolutely not bound to these steps. Do what works for you. But, I assure you if you practice time management in this sequence you would have much more time, less fatigue, less dissatisfaction, and a whole lot of fulfillment.
Literally You 