5 Tips for Effective Time Management

Many small business owners struggle with time management, there is never enough time to get everything done. Bouncing from task to task and never really crossing things off the list is frustrating and can become stressful very easily. However, time management is all about managing yourself. We all have the same 24 hours each day, but how well we use them is completely down to self-discipline.

We put together 5 best time management techniques to improve the ways you work, protect you against distraction and lock your concentration:

1. Set Goals

The foundation of effective time management is knowing where you are going and how to get there. Setting goals can help you create a plan to guide your business where you want it to be. It is difficult to accomplish anything without specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART) goals. When it comes to time management, productivity, and goal attainment, working to carry out the small, short-term goals matters the most.

You can start by breaking down your long-term goals into monthly goals, then break them down even further into weekly and daily goals. Your goals for each day will help you set a target and measure when you have hit it successfully.

2. Plan Activities

Plan your month, week, and days based on the goals you have set, and the work that needs to be done. Do not forget to also plan time for your planning.

By creating a plan to guide your employees and yourself towards your smaller goals, you create a path towards larger goal achievement. Communicate your plans and goals with your employees. You want them to understand where you want to be. You may even get some feedback from them that could be beneficial.

Writing a to-do list is one of the most powerful ways to become more productive. Having a list of tasks helps keep you intentional about what you work on. It effectively lays out what you must complete and if your mind does wander, a quick glance at your list reminds you of what you should be doing. Keeping a to-do list also allows you to enjoy one of life’s unique pleasures: visualizing what you want to achieve, and then striking your way through it.

There are plenty of to-do list apps out there to help you.?Todoist?is a popular choice due to its flexibility and simplicity.

3. Prioritize Tasks

Prioritizing your tasks is the next step towards an effective time management strategy. Creating a priority task list will ensure that the most important/urgent tasks are dealt with first. In this way, you will know which tasks are less important and can be left out without disturbing the workflow in any significant way.

Apps like?MyLifeOrganized?are to-do lists that factor in things like deadlines and your own prioritizations to help you calculate what should be top of your list.?nTask?is another helpful app that allows you to organize, prioritize and monitor tasks as you go along.

4. Manage Distractions

Despite our best intentions, we all get distracted. Sitting down and getting things done is sometimes harder than it should be. Distractions are all around us, from social notifications, talkative colleagues, to the very human problem of procrastination. Given that it takes about 23 minutes to refocus after an interruption, the production cost of our daily distractions quickly adds up. In order to keep focused and proactive, you need to identify the distractions and effectively control them.

For identifying and quantifying distractions, an app like?Dewo?is your best bet—surfaces the time you spend on different activities and even quantifies how often you switch context in a day. If you just need more discipline when your concentration is waning, apps like?StayFocusd?and?Mindful Browsing?can put access restrictions on time-wasting websites.

5. Track Your Time

Time tracking is an excellent way to manage time, as it can help you increase productivity in two ways: first, it can keep you focused on the task you are working on right at that moment, and second, it can give you a picture of exactly where your time is being spent.

Ultimately, you cannot improve how you use your time, without understanding how you actually use it in the first place. If you have never done this before, time tracking is an eye-opening process that provides valuable insight into how you spend your time throughout the day, as well as self-awareness to make effective changes, surfacing hidden time drains, highlighting inefficient processes, and laying out your productive patterns. You will be able to identify some strengths, weaknesses, and the actual duration spent working on certain tasks.

Luckily, automatic tracking apps?can now do the hard work for you, recording every detail of how you spend your day in the background.?