Proven time management techniques that will help you to finally be on top of overwhelming situations and get things done faster. Do more, stress less!
We all live in a world with 24 hours, 1 440 minutes, and 86 400 seconds a day, but only some of us live a life worth living. Every morning, we are all given the same opportunities, but it’s not easy to learn how to balance your time between work and life.
Before we get into your morning routines, we’d like to say that successful time management depends on pre-planning and thinking ahead. We highly suggest you choose a day during the weekend and write down the things you want to accomplish during the week. The tasks may change during the week, but it’s extremely important to have a general idea of what needs to be done. Another effective way of pre-planning is to plan every evening for the day ahead.
Here are some time management ideas that will help you accomplish more in a day..
Wake Up Early for Time Management
We know it’s a very popular statement but it is essential to ensure a quality life. Waking up early means you have more time to start your day, the way great leaders do. What we do not suggest is to wake up early, turn on your computer and start working or checking your social media. Instead, create a game for yourself: open your eyes, jump out of bed and reward yourself with something healthy and pleasurable. Waking up early means you have extra time to exercise your willpower and do something valuable. This is also your first step in improving your time management skills. Don’t forget to have a glass of water right after you wake up to hydrate yourself; it will convince your body’s internal clock that it’s time to wake up.
Exercise for Time Management
Big statement, you say?! Have you ever heard of neurogenesis? If not, we highly recommend you start reading about it (e.g., Google search is a good start, and a book called The Neurogenesis Diet and Lifestyle by Brant Cortright would be a good follow-up). Basically, when you exercise, not only do you become happier and healthier, but you also improve your cognitive functions and the growth of new brain cells. Until recently, it wasn’t even a known phenomenon, and now it’s being explored more and more every day!
Do you still need more reasons to convince yourself to start working out? We, for one, love the idea of a longer and healthier life. And because we are talking about time management, starting with 20 minutes every morning can lead to great results over time. We highly suggest you try mixing it up: try running on your first day, followed by some aerobics the next and maybe even some weight training the day after. Then repeat in the same order; this will keep you away from overexercising the same muscles, especially your heart.
Get Inspired
So you woke up early, did a workout and now feel invigorated? It’s time to make sure your day starts with some powerful emotions. Spend at least 10-20 minutes every morning doing something that inspires you! It can be reading a book about great leaders, self-development, time management, art, science; learning a new language or watching a motivational video. It doesn’t really matter what it is, as long as it boosts your sense of achievement and helps you feel positive.
Eat Healthy Food
You may think, what does healthy food have to do with time management? You’d be surprised by the number of studies that examine the connection between eating habits and productivity. Eating healthy means higher energy levels and less stress for your body. So, forget the sweets and grab a green smoothie!
Avoid Traffic Jams
Now, let’s talk about more specific time management ideas that can actually save some of your time. To ensure you have a healthy work-life balance, plan your schedule wisely. If your city has traffic jams at 8 a.m., avoid getting on the road at that time. Leaving early may cost you a few minutes of sleep but save you from morning stress and frustration that may happen due to traffic jams. It also allows you to plan your day ahead and might even help you get promoted.
Efficient time management doesn’t always mean having more time; sometimes, it just means planning your time well in order to avoid any hindrances. An hour of traffic per day would waste about 300 hours per year, which would equal 18 conscious days if you take away the sleeping time, which makes it almost a month if you count only working days. So, get that 1 hour in traffic back into your life by going to work early and doing something to improve yourself!
Save Time Commuting
While we understand it’s not always possible, think about the distance between your home and work. Before applying for a new job or buying a new place, consider how it would affect your commuting time. Similarly, if you can’t change anything regarding the time on the road, maybe you can use it productively. If it takes you an hour to get to work by car, it might be smart to take the train or the bus instead, which may reduce your stress level and give you time to read, learn or practice something en-route. Sometimes, having good time management skills means being smart with how you use time.
Time Management with To-Do Lists
To-do lists have always been mentioned as a major part of time management. During your morning routine, if you remember something important that you need to do during the day, write it down. Subsequently, spend 10-20 minutes planning your day. When you come to work, do not jump to checking your emails, phone and other devices. Have a look at your calendar and think of tasks that need to be done today. Review your current to-do list and see if anything is missing or not essential.
Planning your to-do list might actually be even more important than following it later. If you know what you have to do in advance, it’s easier for your mind to prepare the energy needed to complete all the tasks. Did you know about Google’s “Tasks” and “Keep” applications? They sync seamlessly to your Google account and are comfortably placed at the right panel of the Google Calendar in your browser.
Prioritize Tasks for better time management
We know all your tasks feel important. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be on your list, right? Unfortunately, that’s where the bias comes in. A colleague might have talked about a task for so long that you may now think it is a priority, however, if you stop to think about it, you’ll soon realize that it’s not actually a must for the day. Time management is all about the level of importance.
Simplify Tasks
On the other hand, a big must for great time management is to be realistic with your to-do list. Do not just write ‘reply to all the emails’; it’s overwhelming and not specific enough for you to succeed. It’s like you are setting yourself up for failure and that’s never a good idea. Who’d want to fail without even starting, right?! What we recommend is to write down something achievable, for example, reply to 5 emails in an hour, submit that proposal, arrange a meeting with your colleagues, complete assignment x, and so on.
To-Don't Lists for Time Management
This one is super obvious and usually forgotten. Before you start working through your to-do list… REVIEW IT. Is everything actually necessary to be done today? The 80/20 rule says that 80% of the results come from 20% of the task; the rest is just a distraction. Think of the tasks that will impact your company’s/your own performance the most. We want to emphasize that time management also means avoiding unnecessary activities.
Say 'NO' to Procrastinating
We know, we know… It’s easy to say but difficult to stick to. The key to effective time management idea is to use your time—all of it. Do not let your conscious mind find excuses for why you should NOT do something. No, that TV show will not increase your productivity. And no, gossiping with a colleague will not bring you success. Whatever you need to do, start right away. Mel Robbins talks about the ‘5-second rule’ and how you have to act instantly or you’ll succumb to temptations.
Also, don’t expect perfection. Most of us delay the tasks because we feel we might not do them well enough. That’s detrimental to our time management.
Now that you’ve had a productive and full-of-action start of the day, what can you do to ensure you continue with successful time management?
Follow Your Energy Level
Figure out in which part of the day you are the most creative, inspired or even efficient. Some might choose to work on emails and other admin tasks in the morning and continue with meetings in the afternoon. Others might choose to lead meetings with the team before lunch and then lock themselves behind the office door in the afternoon. Understanding what works best for you is a huge part of successful time management techniques. Our personal advice on time management would be to start your day with the most difficult tasks while your mind is still fresh and awake. Start with that proposal or the business plan that you wanted to do for so long and never found time for it.
Use Pomodoro for Time Management
One of the most famous time management ideas is to split your working time into blocks. For example, you work for 25 minutes and then take a 5-10 minute break. Then, you repeat and repeat and repeat. This technique helps you cultivate work/rest balance and also increases your mono-focus. While multitasking is often praised, we believe that your attention should always be on one task at a time to ensure a world-class delivery.
Perform Similar Tasks Together
If you have similar tasks waiting for you, don’t spread them out throughout the day. Complete similar tasks one after another because your mind is already focused on a method of work. Doing that will reduce the initial time needed to understand and review the tasks.Now, let’s talk about how others can be part of your journey to be confident.
Eliminate distractions
To reinforce the point above, you cannot be distracted. If your task is to spend 25 minutes on a sales call, then stay away from anything or anyone that could distract you. Put away your computer if you don’t need it. Close your doors so your colleagues won’t disturb you and so on.
Delegate Tasks for Better Time Management
Even more important is to realize you can’t do it all. There are times we need to accept this and ask for help. To excel in time management means to find others that can do the tasks for you just as well as you, or even better. Also, automate repetitive tasks. You may not need to create a new Excel sheet for every single project; instead, you could use the same template and change the details.
Learn to Say 'NO'
Along with the previous point, we emphasize the importance of self-preservation. If we have 24 hours a day, we have to have the right balance to lead a healthy life. That means learning how to say ‘no’ to people and yourself. There will be times that you cannot accomplish everything and that’s okay.
Reward Yourself
One of the final points that we recommend in terms of time management and achieving more in a day is to remember how the kids act when they do something. They expect a reward right away! Well, according to science, adults aren’t that different from the kids. We all love getting rewards after accomplishing something. When you cross of a task from your to-do list, reward yourself. It may be 10 minutes on social media or a piece of chocolate but whatever it is, it should make you happy!
Work/Rest Balance
To reinforce all of the points on how to have good time management skills, we have to repeat one more time. Balance is the key. It’s essential to balance your work and life to be able to live healthy, have energy not only to make money but also spend time by yourself and with your loved ones, while slowly pushing yourself to become more efficient.
All in all, there are many ways to accomplish more in a day. Time management is no longer an elusive but rather a data- and science-driven concept. Some ideas from the above will work well for you; some of them may not, but ultimately, we have gathered them from the top trainers and books. It’s now your own responsibility to find out what works for you and helps you lead an extraordinary life that’s worth living.
The Perception of Time Management: Busy Being Busy
I’ve already talked about how we all have the same amount of time, yet some of us change the world, while others spend their lives on the sofa with an occasional brilliant idea. Why is that?
We could talk about different upbringings and the cultures, which are both valid factors in regard to how we treat time on a day-to-day basis. However, those should only be used as excuses when we are children and definitely not in control of our own time. Once we reach adulthood and earn our own money, support our family and ourselves, we should change whatever we want in our lives, including our ability to save time.
Example
Let’s say a man works full-time, supports his family, and has a reasonable number of hobbies. He is very busy every day, and his time is extremely valuable. No way he could find extra time to help his child with the homework, right? He could hire a tutor, of course. Now, one day, the man comes home and finds that the roof is leaking and the water is dripping down the wall. Do you think he will find time to fix it or get someone else to do it? Absolutely! The man knows that if he doesn’t get it fixed as soon as possible, it will get even worse later. Hence, he finds those 2 hours that week to sort the issue out.
He ends up finding those 2 extra hours in his life, even if a few days ago he would have said he couldn’t find any extra time. Why? Because he had an urgent situation that needed attention. It became his priority.
Embrace Time Elasticity
When some things and/or activities become your priority, you will find time for them. When we consider something a ‘maybe’ or a ‘someday’, then we end up not finding time at all. It doesn’t seem as important or as urgent. On the contrary, if your house is on fire, you would not hesitate to drop everything else and try to put it out, am I right?!
Everyone has the same amount of time, but only a few of us consider self-development, time management, fitness, and a healthy lifestyle a priority. It’s time to make more time for the things that matter to us, whatever that would be.
Define Priorities for Time Management
So, what are your priorities and how to choose them? First of all, decide on your goals and how soon you want to reach them. I, for one, always wanted to learn more about nutrition and healthy foods but only recently have I actually invested the time to do it. Did I suddenly have more time than before? No, not at all! What happened was that I could no longer delay it and have the life I’ve always dreamt about. Learning about health became a MUST.
We would suggest looking at your current goals from the criteria of two factors: urgency and importance. Your top priorities are the goals that you have to do now and not doing them would really impact your life. Then come the things that are important to do but not as urgent. Once you consider these factors and write down a list of things to-do, you start from the top – one by one.
Yearly Performance Review: A Letter to Your Future Self
Another great time management idea is to look at the way your life has gone so far. Now imagine the next year has passed. What are the things you are proud of? Which successes stand out in your journey? Are there areas you’d like to improve or new aspects to add to your life? Looking at the bigger picture is very important here because when we look to the future, we tend to be afraid to dream big. If we look at the past, we are more inclined to feel good about what we have done.
Now it is the perfect time to dream about how your next year will go and how things will change. Write that letter to yourself, imagining that you are at the end of 2024 and reviewing the amazing year you’ve had. How does that feel?
You cannot sell or buy time, but you can surely appreciate it more and use the most of it by following these effective time management ideas!
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