Time Management:

Time management” is the way that we organize and plan how long we spend on specific activities. It may seem counter-intuitive to dedicate precious time to learning about time management, instead of using it to get on with our work, but the benefits are enormous: Greater productivity and efficiency.

Good time management allows us to accomplish more in a shorter period of time, which leads to more free time, which lets us take advantage of learning opportunities, lowers our stress, and helps us focus, which leads to more career success. Each benefit of time management improves another aspect of our life.

Time Management strategies

We all have 24-hours in a day. But, why does it seem that some people are able to get the most out of every minute of the day? Believe it or not, we don’t have the power to slow down time. we do, however, know how to properly manage their time.

1. Create a time audit.

When it comes to time management, the first step we need to take is finding out where our time actually goes. We may believe that we only send 30 minutes on emails, but in reality that task is eating-up an hour of our day.

The easiest way to keep track of our time is to download an app or Calendar to track everything we do for a week. We can then access a report to find out what’s stealing our time. With this information, we can then make the appropriate adjustments.

2. Set a time limit to each task.

Setting a time limit to each task prevents me from getting distracted or procrastinating. For example, if I want to write an article for my blog, I give myself two hours. So if I started at 8am, I try to get it written by 10am. In a way, it becomes game. Since I put buffers between tasks and activities, if I don’t complete the task on time, I can still work on it without eating into the time reserved for something else.

3. Use a to-do-list, but don’t abandon tasks.

All goals and projects are made up of smaller parts that need to be accomplished in order to achieve the goal or complete the project. Create to-do lists for each goal and project, listing all the measurable steps that need to be accomplished.

Aside from keeping us focused, this also motivates us as we are able to see what we have already achieved, and what remains.

At the same time, there will interruptions that may prevent us from completing a task. Make it a point to return to and completing these tasks once we are able to. This may require us to set a limit on the number of tasks we are working on at any given time.

4.  Plan ahead

One of the worst things that we can do is wake-up without a plan for the day. Instead of focusing on what needs to be done, we wander aimlessly and take care of more trivial matters.

That’s why you should always plan ahead: either The night before (Before we leave work for the day, spend the last 15-minutes organizing our office and composing a list of our most important items for tomorrow) Or First thing in the morning. During our morning routine write down the 3 or 4 most urgent and important matters that need to be addressed today and work on those when we are most productive.

5. Spend our mornings on MITs.

We should take care our biggest and most-challenging tasks in the morning, our most important tasks (MITs) of the day.

There are a couple reasons why this such an effective time management trick. For starters, we usually have the most amount of energy in the AM(morning). So it’s better to tackle these tasks when we’re not drained. Also, we can use that feeling of accomplishment to get through the rest of the day.

6. Learn to delegate/outsource.

Delegation and outsourcing can get a bit tricky. For some it’s hard to let someone else do work that they used to do. For others, they don’t have the time to train someone else to complete certain tasks. Delegating or outsourcing are real time-savers since it lessens our workload - which means we have more time to spend on more important tasks or doing less work. If we do decide to do in-house training, the initial investment will be worth-it in the end.

7. Eliminate half-work.

In our age of constant distraction, it's stupidly easy to split our attention between what we should be doing and what society bombards us with. Usually we're balancing the needs of messages, emails, and to–do lists at the same time that we are trying to get something accomplished. It's rare that we are fully engaged in the task at hand.

Examples:

We’re writing a report, but stop randomly to check your phone for no reason.

We try out a new workout routine, but switch to a new program a couple of day later because we read about it online

While talking on the phone, our mind wanders to our email inbox

The best way to overcome half-work is by blocking out significant time to focus on one project and eliminate everything else. For example, we’ll pick one exercise and only focus on that exercise while working out. We’ll also carve out a few hours to devote to an important project, but will leave the distraction things like phone etc.. in another room.

This complete elimination of distractions is the only way to get into deep, focused work and avoid fragmented sessions where we're merely doing half–work.

8. Leave a buffer-time between tasks and meetings

Jumping immediately from one task or meeting to the next may seem like a good use of your time, but it actually has the opposite effect. We need time to clear our minds and recharge by going for a walk, meditating, or just daydreaming. After all, the human brain can only focus for about 90-minutes at a time. Scheduling buffer-time also can prevent running late to your next meeting. I find 25-minutes between tasks and meetings an ideal amount of buffer-time.

9. Follow the 80-20 rule.

The Pareto Principle also known as the 80-20 rule suggests that 80% of results come from 20% of the effort put in. This is commonly used in sales as 80% of sales typically come from 20% of the customers. When it comes to how you should manage your time this principle can also be applied. 80% of your results comes from 20% of your actions.

Start by looking “at our schedule or to-do-list every day. For the sake of simplicity try to get down five tasks we need to accomplish. Using the principle we can probably eliminate the majority of the items on our list. It may feel unnatural at first but overtime this will condition us to scale up effort on the most important tasks.

10. Use an online calendar

Calendars have long been a fundamental tool for time management. We need to schedule meetings and appointments, set up reminders, create time blocks, and schedule recurring events.

11. Stop being perfect

When we’re a perfectionist, nothing will ever be good enough. That means we’ll keep going back to same task over and over again. How productive can our day be as a result of it?

So, stop being perfect. It doesn’t exist. Do the best you can and move on.

12. Just say “No.”

I know that we don’t want to upset anyone. But we can only handle so much. If we already have a full plate then decline that dinner invitation or helping our colleagues on a project until we have the spare time.

13. "Too much to do" and "Not enough time" are victim words.

Every time we repeat those words, we are letting ourself off the hook for managing ourself. We are blaming circumstances beyond our control and subscribing to victimhood. Of course there is too much to do! Of course there is not enough time! Get used to it!

14. Our to-do lists are incomplete.

Not only are our lists crazy long, they are incomplete. Think about it. Have we included enough time for meetings, email, and phone calls? Questions from customers and staff? Time to sleep, eat, exercise, relax, and call our mother? What about time to search for everything from people to passwords? Or rebooting, correcting credit card expiration dates, and sitting on hold? Everything. Now how do those total hours look? And what are the chances we've anticipated everything likely to pop up? Face it, there are not enough hours in a day!

15. Out of six ways to deal with work overload, most people choose the only one that doesn't work.

When we fail to manage ourself, establish top priorities, and make conscious decisions about what to do and what not to do, the stress is unbelievable and the results aren't pretty.

It's time to bite the bullet, narrow our top priorities list to 2 - 3 items at any one time, schedule time on our calendar to tackle those items, and devote the rest of our energy to focusing and getting them done. Quit wasting so much time and energy listing, managing, and prioritizing the things that deserve to fall through the cracks.

Productivity Pyramid

We set long-range goals, break them down into intermediate goals, and then break them down into bite-sized daily tasks which we write in our Day Planner.

Then we prioritize them A (must do), B (should do), and C (could do.) Then if we have time we put a rank order on our A’s, B’s, and C’s with a 1, 2, 3, etc. This is highly efficient, and largely effective.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks

Ajith Kumar Gopalakrishna