Time Management

Do you ever feel like there’s not enough time in the day?

We all get the same 24 hours – so why do some people seem to achieve more with their time than others? The answer is good time management.

Time management means organizing your time intelligently – so that you use it more effectively.

The benefits of good time management include greater productivity, less stress, and more opportunities to do the things that matter.

Overall, you start feeling more in control, with the confidence to choose how best to use your time.

And by feeling happier, more relaxed, and better able to think, you’re in a great place to help others reach their targets, too.

So how do you start with time management and how can it help you?

Let me tell you in this video.

So you want to learn about time management. The first this to do is to understand what you do with your time. Audit and observe how you spend your day.

Most of the time, there is a difference between what we do and what we think we do. You may end a work day thinking you worked hard and yet did not achieve anything, but in fact, you may have spent time in the cafeteria, or on tasks that are not important like scrolling on social media feeds.

So once you know what you spend your time on, it is a matter of reducing the items that take time away from your day.

Do not remove all activities at once, or you will not succeed. Just stop doing one small thing that takes your time and replace it with something urgent and important.

To do that you need to have a task list. Something that you should keep updating. But instead of the simple task list, let us try the Eisenhower method.

This method organises all tasks into 4 buckets.

The urgent and important. The urgent but not important. The not urgent but important and finally the not urgent, not important.

You must first do the urgent and important tasks during the day. You can easily delegate urgent but not important tasks to your juniors.
For the task that is not urgent but important, defer it for a while and do it later, and avoid the task that is neither important nor urgent.

Once you have slotted all the tasks into the 4 buckets, now you need to get started. Focus on the task in the urgent and important colour, do it and cross it off the list once done.

There is a very popular technique called the Pomodoro technique to focus on working. In this method, you divide your time into slots of 30 minutes. You work with a focus for 25 minutes and then spend 5 minutes on a break. There are many timing apps available on your phone that can help you set the time.

You can use this method in your daily work and see if you manage to be more efficient. Also, try and practice this method on personal tasks. You can use the same urgent, important matrix there.

Now I will give you some additional suggestions to manage your time. It is a list so you can pick and choose what you want to do.

One, set smart goals that you want to achieve.
Two, plan your work for the week on your off day. This will help you start your week by understanding what needs to be done
Three, Complete your most important and demanding tasks early in the morning.
Four, Put a time limit on all tasks. That way you can get to all tasks.
Five, Be one day early on all deadlines.
Six, Set all notifications on the phone to mute. Look at it during the 5-minute window between tasks and respond if required.
Seven, Do not multitask. Do one thing at a time
Eight, keep some slack time to handle a crisis if they come.

Now your turn to practice sound time management. In this video, you learnt about the concept, but you need to practice what you learnt. Do try it today with a time audit and see where you spend most time.