How to Manage Time More Effectively

Ankit Rathore June 3, 2022 0 Comments

You know what is the only thing that everybody in this world has in common? Time. No matter how much money, fame, or luxury one has, we all have the same 24 hours in a day and although this might not come as a surprise to you, it’s worth remembering every once in a while that behind every success there is a human being crushing it, day after day. Though having this in common, what makes all the difference is how we choose to spend our time. We tend to lean towards the things we find amusing, and step away from tasks that require perseverance. So, it is important to learn how to manage time in a way to bring out the maximum productivity, to accomplish more in less time.

Now, to get our affairs in order, management of time doesn’t really exist, what i mean by this is that time simply passes at the rate of 1second per second, you can’t stop it, change it or make it bend as per you will. What you actually have to do when managing your time is that you have to manage yourself and your way of approaching tasks.

Do you feel the need to be more organized or more productive? Do you spend your day in a frenzy of activities and then wonder that you got nothing done? Being conscious of time will result in self-improvement and goal achievement. That’s true in both your work and personal life. What’s the best way to manage time effectively?

11 tips on How to Manage Time More Effectively:

1. Set clear goals

Setting of a goal in your life keeps you focused and motivated. It makes you less prone to addiction of any sort. It makes you value your own time and by seeing your goals clearly and yourself moving forward towards it, gives a sense of belongingness and satisfaction. So, you should set some aims for yourself, goals that you actually value.

2. Record yourself

Before you start changing the way you live your life, you firstly have to ascertain how you are currently living your life. Recording your actions will tell you exactly where you are spending your time, how much of it, is put in useful activities and how much of it, is wasted in fulfilling unproductive purposes. Once you figure out where you are wasting your time, you can start cutting time from there and investing it to improve yourself.

3. Make a to-do list

At the start of each day, list out the activities that you either have to do or you want to do. This will keep things organised for you and not to forget the feeling of satisfaction after ticking against the job done, that makes it more fun to tackle the tasks.

4. Prioritize

You must learn to prioritize your tasks in the order of their importance, so then you can start with the most important things first. Getting an important task done first sets the tone for the rest of the day. Prioritizing also helps in not getting distracted by the other less important tasks. Here’s a way to prioritize your tasks:

1. Important and urgent

MANAGE

2. Important but not urgent

FOCUS

3. Urgent but not important

AVOID

4. Neither urgent nor important

LIMIT

By categorizing tasks, you will get a clear understanding of where to shift your focus and spend your time.

5. Learn to delegate

You have to understand that you don’t have to do all of your tasks on your own, you can simply delegate some of your tasks and save some time for yourself, to put it in a more important work. You can either train someone you are acquainted with or hire freelancers. By delegating you tasks, you are actually buying time for yourself.

6. One task at a time

We often think that we are great at multitasking and do more than one thing simultaneously. However, it only leads to diverse attention and focus resulting in ill completion of each of the tasks, also taking more time than what it should have, if tackled one task at a time. So, do one task at a time with complete focus on one task to get it done well and in least time.

7. Take breaks

Our minds get tired after doing an activity for an extended period of time, and it’s efficiency drops significantly. Therefore, it is important to take breaks in between tasks, to recharge your brain to work at its maximum efficiency. Taking breaks also enhances the mood and makes us more energized to do the next task.

8. Don’t aim for perfection

Perfection is the enemy of good. Trying to do something perfectly will take you far more time than doing it just naturally with the skills you have. You have to give your best, but do not aim for perfection. It will come to you as you do your job well enough for a substantial period of time. Aiming for perfection just kills time and leave other equally important tasks hanging.

9. Set clear deadlines

Parkinson’s law:

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for completion.”

To break it down, if you have one week to finish a required task, it will take you one week and if you have one month to complete the same task, you will take one month to finish. And god forbid, if you have a year to complete the one week’s task, you will spend most of the time procrastinating and take a full goddamn year to do it. The point is, you must have deadlines that are appropriate to the work assigned, and if you have no deadline at all for a task, you can almost be certain that it will never get done.

10. Learn how to say “NO”

Well, no is an extremely powerful word, and while many misinterpret it with rejection to people and opportunities, it is also the acceptance of your time’s worth, a doorway to not getting burned out and overwhelmed. And so we must learn to use this power. You can save a great amount of time by not getting into activities that don’t align with your long-term goals, by simply saying no.

READ: How to Master the Art of Saying NO

11. Schedule yourself

You need to schedule your day, week, or even month beforehand. Doing it, your work becomes an integral part of your life and part of it becomes autonomous. Scheduling makes it so much easier to get things done in an ordered manner. So, you need to develop a routine and then you need to stick to it.