Have you ever wondered why most of your colleagues, classmates, and friends are more productive and successful than you? Maybe you are thinking they have superpowers and you are the one ordinary person always confused about making decisions. If you are thinking so, stop here. Successful people use excellent time management techniques to make them more productive, focused, and energetic. So, what are the best time management techniques, and how do you use them to improve productivity and success? Let’s find the best possible answers to make time management easy for you.
What is Time Management?
Before proceeding, it is essential to have good know-how about time management.
Effective time management means a systematic and mindful approach to using all the hours of your day. The benefits of effective time management include stress-free sleep as you are satisfied with your work efficiency.
Most people think keeping yourself busy by following a strict routine and working late-night hours are effective time management techniques. This is a totally wrong approach.
In simple words, efficient time management means a realistic and adaptable schedule to achieve your goals.
Best Time Management Techniques
Time management is all about planning and consistency. If you have a perfect plan, but you are not following it consistently, it is hard to achieve desired results. Take a look at some effective time management strategies that can help you make the most out of your day.
1. Identify Productive Hours
One can’t work for twenty-four hours. Therefore, you have few productive hours in a day to complete your tasks. These are the hours when your energy levels are at their peak, and you are fully focused on taking on any challenge.
Identifying your productive hours can change your mindset. You can save time and energy by focusing on your work. But, the question is, how to identify peak hours? Here are some good examples.
- Pay close attention to energy levels throughout the day.
- Avoid external stimulates such as caffeine.
- Assign a rating (1-10) for each hour to your mod, energy levels, motivation, and focus.
- Follow the exercise for one week.
When you notice a pattern, look for the time frame with a constant high score. Such exercise helps to create a daily schedule based on energy and not the time of the day.
It is useful to schedule the complex tasks to your productive hours and the menial tasks to the least productive time slot.
2. Be prepared for your day.
Do you know most people waste their time on social media platforms scrolling, liking, commenting, and sharing useless stuff? Did you ever try to find the answer to why we do this?
The best answer is we start our day without knowing our goals. Planning your day can help to identify the tasks that can add the most value to your life.
- Make sure to plan your day in the morning and don’t lose focus on your goals. Here are handy tips for day preparation.
- Take your work notebook or notepad on your smartphone and note down your daily goals.
- Make a list of all the things you want to accomplish today.
- Prioritize the most valuable tasks.
Remember, there is a huge difference between urgent and essential tasks. Once you are able to plan your day, there is nothing stopping you from unleashing your power.
3. Automate tasks
Task prioritization has countless benefits. You get clarity on which regular tasks are important but don’t add value to your business. If your employee working from home and you have a serious workload, don’t feel shy to ask your team members for help.
4. Avoid Procrastination Triggers
Procrastination costs time and money and may result in stress and anxiety. Have you ever tried to find the answer to this issue? Perfectionism is one of the biggest triggers for procrastination.
We set high standards for ourselves, and the fear of failure leads to confusion. Don’t overthink and start your task right away.
Psychological research proved that taking your first steps breaks the mental barrier effectively. You can continue work till completion or make prominent progress.
You can also try the “declutter your space” technique to get rid of procrastination.
Do you know a messy workspace can rob your mental clarity? Yes, the lack of clarity is another big reason that lets you realize new excuses to delay work.
One cannot focus on work when there are distractions lying on the table.
Take some time by the end of the day to arrange your workspace and keep it tidy. Remove unnecessary paperwork, gadgets, and stationery that disrupts your workflow.
5. Deep Work Ambition
A psychology expert revealed that it’s essential to direct your brainpower and focus on deserving tasks. Your attention is a valuable asset, and popular social media platforms are competing to get your attention as much as they can.
So, is it possible to stay focused on your work? Here are two tips to focus on your work and avoid distractions.
6. Time blocking technique
Another essential thing that most people ignore is to concentrate on one task at a time. Multitasking may seem a logical productivity hack, but in reality, multitasking is a bad habit and extremely counterproductive.
A human brain is not optimized to handle multiple tasks at a time. When you switch between tasks, it becomes challenging to focus on each one.
Time blocking is an excellent alternative to multitasking. You can divide a day into one-hour blocks. Use each one for a specific task. It will help to schedule your tasks in advance.
Time blocking is a great time management technique for two reasons.
It helps to save you from a multitasking trap. You can account for every task in advance. Even distractions get their own time block.
Time block helps to escape the laws that work expands to fill the time available. When you set a rigid boundary, it helps to prevent one task from eating up another’s time.
7. When to say yes or No?
If you are one of those who are always ready to say yes to the work that comes their way, you are killing your time management. Learn to say “No” to make your time management better and increase productivity. Take some time before saying yes to a new project.
Ask yourself whether you will be able to dedicate time and energy to it? When you don’t have enough time, and still you say yes, it results in guilt, regret, and anxiety as you can’t complete work on time due to an already available workload.
8. Recharge yourself
You are highly productive, good at finishing your work, and successfully save extra time and energy but are you recharging yourself? Productivity is linked to mental and physical health. Nourishing your body and mind can help you to remain productive for a long time. Here are a few proven ways to recharge you.
9. Taking Regular Breaks
When you take short breaks between bouts of workload, it helps to reboot your mind and body.
It breaks the monotony of the work and helps to regain interest and focus. However, it doesn’t mean watching videos on YouTube or getting engaged on social media platforms. It means to move your body from the workspace.
Get up from the chair, stretch your body, take a cup of your favorite beverage or have a nice chit-chat with your colleague.
Also, these small breaks can help to clear out smaller tasks from your schedule.
10. Don’t compromise on sleep quality.
Sleep deprivation wreaks havoc on productivity and work-life balance. When you don’t have enough sleep, you stray groggy all day, and fatigue hits you badly. Here is how you can improve your sleep quality.
Go to your bed at a fixed time because it helps you to fall asleep faster.
- Don’t use a smartphone, tablet, or laptop before going to sleep. The blue light from your mobile screen can impact the natural sleep cycle of your body.
- Don’t make a habit of sleeping long hours during the day, as it can hamper your night’s sleep.
- Health experts recommend taking a power nap for 15-30 minutes to boost your productivity.
- Avoid consuming caffeine after 5 pm. Choose a stress-busting brew such as chamomile tea as a healthy alternative.
11. Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness means to be aware of your actions, thoughts, words, and surroundings at all times. It helps to bring your attention to a particular activity that could waste your time. It is known as a holistic time management strategy. You can also use mindfulness apps to get started.
To be honest, mindfulness takes time, and a person with strong willpower can do so. It lays a great foundation to turn a time management strategy for work into a habit.
- Take a look at these good practices to achieve mindfulness and achieve strong willpower.
- Before starting an activity, take some time to think peacefully.
- Always consider the pros and cons of the work. Will it help to improve productivity, or it’s just a distraction? Momentary pleasure is always a hindrance to getting things done.
Reward yourself for making a good choice. This tricks your brain into looking for pleasure in doing the right things.
12. Reviewing Your Day
Reviewing your day is just like good planning for the best time management techniques. It’s all about how well you can execute your schedule. A successful person always makes it a priority to perform a daily review.
Here are good tips for reviewing your day.
- Keep aside 155 minutes before calling it a night.
- Note down things you accomplished throughout the day.
- Scan the task mine list for any essential work that you couldn’t finish.
- Make a list of reasons why you were not able to follow the schedule.
- Classify such reasons as avoidable and unavoidable.
- Check out avoidable reasons that appear regularly over a week.
- Make sure to refer to the list when you create a routine schedule.
Final Observations
There is no alternative for a time, and one must learn how to make his time most productive. However, using the best time management techniques for work and students can break the old unproductive routine and cultivate healthy habits. There is no secret to success but to manage your time properly. Don’t waste time on social media during working hours. Make sure to take a sound sleep to recharge your body and achieve your goals successfully.