This post is about how to organize your time better so you can be more productive.
At the core of it, time management isn’t actually about managing time at all, it’s about managing yourself.
We all have the same 24 hours each day, however, how well we use them is totally up to us.
The very best time management practices improve the ways you work, help control distractions and lock your concentration.
While there are lots of them circulating on the web, here are the five time management techniques– and their associated tools– that make the greatest difference in your life.
How To Organize Your Time Effectively
Tip #1: Prioritize
In some cases, a list of things you need to do might seem overwhelming.
To make it manageable, it’s better to divide your to-do list into smaller pieces.
Setting clear priorities will help you order your tasks according to their value, effort, and seriousness needed to finish them.
To identify important and immediate tasks from your to-do list, you might use the Eisenhower Matrix. It’s a productivity tool with a clear focus on organizing items into 4 categories:
- Important and urgent: Tasks you must do first.
- Important but not urgent: Things you can schedule to do later.
- Urgent however not Important: Tasks you might hand over.
- Not important and not urgent: Tasks you can avoid, and might be holding you back and distracting.
What’s great about the Eisenhower Matrix is that you might create it on the go with simply a pen and paper to rapidly prioritize your tasks. The matrix may look like this:
With a matrix like this you will easily identify tasks that truly require your attention, so you can focus on them first.
You may like reading: How To Write a To Do List For Maximum Productivity
Tip #2 Set Shorter Deadlines
Ever felt like the more time you have for a given assignment, the bigger the possibility that you’ll procrastinate instead of utilizing that time to get things done earlier?
This inclination to put work aside called the Parkinson’s Law has been very first explained in the Economist article back in 1955.
Parkinson said that “the work expands as to fill the time available for its completion”.
Hence, if you have more time to finish a job than you need, the chances are you won’t do it any quicker.
What you can do about that, is setting yourself shorter deadlines.
If you still having a hard time forcing yourself to end up a job quicker, ask someone from your group or a friend to review your work at a specific date, so you now have to do the operation to reveal the results.
Tip #3: Break You Day Into Blocks
In today’s furious and fast business world, multitasking has become the standard thing. People typically feel that they aren’t being efficient and productive unless they are doing 10 things at the same time.
But you will accomplish more if you can dedicate a block of time to a single activity, offer it your full attention and finish it before proceeding to the next task.
Find out just how much time you require to finish a to-do, and block it off in your calendar.
Then attempt to schedule any other meetings or activities that may disrupt your work multiple times throughout the day.
If you have an appointment with yourself, you need to acknowledge that as much as any other devotion in your calendar.
Tip #4: Get Help From Others
Delegating means appointing responsibility for a job to someone else, maximizing your time for tasks that need your expertise.
Identify tasks others can do and choose the appropriate person(s) to do them.
Select someone with the appropriate skills, experience, interest, and authority needed to accomplish the task. Be precise.
Define the task and your expectations while allowing the person some freedom to personalize the task.
Check how well the person is progressing periodically and provide any assistance, being careful not to take over the responsibility.
Finally, reward the person for a work well done or make suggestions for improvements if needed.
Another way to get help is to “buy” time by obtaining goods or services that save time.
For example, paying someone to mow your lawn or clean your house, or joining a carpool for your children’s extracurricular activities frees time for other activities.
The time savings from hiring someone for specialized projects is often worth the cost.
Tip #5: Avoid Multi-Tasking
Psychological research studies have revealed that multi-tasking does not conserve time. In truth, the opposite happens.
You waste time when switching from one job to another, resulting in a loss of productivity. Routine multi-tasking might lead to difficulty in maintaining a sharpening focus.
Do your best to concentrate on simply one thing at a time by keeping your space free of interruptions, including shutting off notifications on your all devices, and set aside committed time for specific tasks.
Further Reading: How To Stop Multitasking And Become More Focused
Tip #6: Learn How To Deal With Procrastination
Individuals postpone tasks for a variety of reasons.
Possibly the work appears undesirable or overwhelming. To help stop procrastination, think about “eating the big frog first.”
A quote frequently credited to Mark Twain says, “If it’s your job to eat a frog today, it’s best to do it very first thing in the early morning.
And if it’s your job to eat 2 frogs, it’s best to eat the big frog first.”
Undesirable tasks we procrastinate finishing are “big frogs.” Complete these tasks as your first action of the day to get them out of the way.
Another option is to “snowball” your jobs by breaking them down into smaller-sized pieces, finishing preparatory tasks, and ultimately finishing the bigger task at hand.
Whether you pick the “big frog first” or “snowball” method, try building a reward system for finished tasks to assist you to stay encouraged and motivated.
Further Reading: 10 Top Ways To Stop Procrastination Quickly And Get Productive
Struggling with procrastination? Click down below to download “The Procrastination Killer” for FREE where I’m sharing 6 of my best strategies to beat procrastination FOR GOOD, and get highly productive.
This post was about How To Organize Your Time Effectively
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