How To Improve Time Management
We all have 24 hours a day. Yet, why does it seem like that influencer has a magical 48-hour schedule? How do people juggle school, work, events, fitness, and STILL have a social life? Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but we are all living on the same 24 hours. The hard truth is – learning how to improve in time management.
Time and tide wait for no man.
If we want to accomplish more, we need to learn to manage time well. This is an extremely important skill set in today’s fast-paced world. Organising and distributing our time effectively between activities helps us to maximise productivity and achieve our daily goals. Good time management leads to higher levels of life satisfaction and lower stress levels.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed and stuck in a rut. Here are some practical tips on how to improve in managing your time properly:
01 AVOID DISTRACTIONS
With so many technological gadgets around, it can be hard sometimes to stay focused on our tasks. Instead of taking the usual 30 minutes to read the newspapers, we could possibly end up taking up an hour, because of the latest music playing on the Spotify list, or the constant notifications from chats.
I don’t blame you, because that happens to me at times. But what you could do is to control the external environment around you to make it favourable for you to finish your work.
Let others know that you are trying to stay focused. Simply switch your devices to airplane mode or even place them far away. Learn to resist the temptation to check out a notification and answer a message right away. If it is a life and death situation, the caller will find all ways to get hold of you (could be calling your friends around you, home phone, office number, etc).
As of now? Focus on what’s on your task list.
02 DIFFERENTIATE BUSYNESS VS PRODUCTIVITY
They are NOT the same. We can be busy and still not accomplish anything meaningful. Busy time does not bring us any closer to finishing the to-do list or achieving our goals.
Busyness makes us feel stagnated while productivity is fuelled by purpose. You know what you want to achieve the entire day. You know what your goals are and you know how to work towards it!
Start by learning how to prioritise what is important. Learn how to say “NO” to things that don’t matter. Create a schedule and stick to it. Try doing the dreaded work first to avoid procrastination. Lastly, multitasking is a myth. Instead you should focus on one project at a time.
Feel that your outputs are still not good enough? Check out this article for lessons learnt on productivity.
03 ESTIMATE TIME WISELY
Most of us tend to underestimate how long we take to finish a task. This is probably because we keep thinking that all tasks will proceed smoothly, without any last-minute changes, or simply underestimating the complexity of a project. We end up wasting a much longer time than we planned on the specific task, which results in a substantial backlog of work. This is known as the planning fallacy and we should, by all means, avoid it.
Always have a contingency plan with you for whatever task you are working on, and include them in your time estimation. This helps you better plan your activities for the day, so that you do not overload tasks in one day.
WE ALL SHARE THE SAME 24 HOURS, THE SAME 1440 MINUTES, THE SAME 86,400 SECONDS IN A DAY.
Make every single second count. No amount of time management self-help books or training can make you perform any better unless YOU are determined and set your mind to it.
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