Time management is a cornerstone of effective productivity. It allows people to make the most out of their own time and helps reduce the stress of an unplanned day. By managing your time effectively, you can avoid time which you find yourself doing nothing, this allows you to complete tasks more efficiently and thus maximize free time.
How Do I Manage My Time?
If you are currently reading this then you are on your way in learning how to manage your time. Time Management starts with believing in yourself, once you have a belief that you can manage your time you begin your road in learning how to manage time. However, this cannot be accomplished without making a commitment to yourself and sticking to it no matter the circumstances.
There are various ways to manage your time and here are some tips:
8 Time Management Tips
Create a Schedule and Stick to It
The first step to time management is to organize your time. This is done by creating a schedule either physical or digital. One of the simplest ways to create a schedule is by downloading an application which allows you to create a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule with ease. Another method would be to write your schedule in an agenda or notebook, this would allow you to have a physical schedule to use. Having a physical schedule which you can look at and revise forces you to stick to your plans rather than just planning things in your head and saying that you will remember to complete them.
Understand What Is and Is Not Important
One of the main advantages of time management is understanding what’s truly important. Overextending yourself by multitasking should be done as it creates stress and can lower your quality of life. By prioritizing your tasks in an efficient manner, you can accomplish your set goals with ease. Completing tasks in order of difficulty allows you to follow through with your schedule more efficiently as once you get the harder tasks out of the way you the rest of the day will be a breeze.
Just Say “No”
Attending unplanned events or getting together with friends can ruin your scheduling, if you need that time put it into your schedule if not stick to your schedule. As unplanned activities/plans will delay the completion of other tasks which you had already had planned to be completed by a certain time.
Avoid Multitasking
Multitasking is huge reason why your time is not spent efficiently. The human brain is not designed to multitask, and by doing this your total output is reduced. This causes you to spend more time finish tasks which could have been done seperately. By focusing on one task at a time you finish tasks faster and more effectively which will allow you to manage your time better.
Schedule Breaks During Long Tasks
Spending a long duration performing one task will burn you out. Take breaks during tasks to recalibrate, take a walk, or have a beverage. As long as you let your mind relax for a few minutes you should find a break to be very effective.
Don’t Shy Away From Difficult Tasks
Leaving difficult tasks for last will make you lose motivation as your day will be near it’s end when you are working on the tasks. Spread out the difficult tasks between the easier tasks in order to balance your day and keep motivated.
Transition Between Tasks Efficiently
A large amount of wasted time occurs when transitioning between tasks. Limit this in order to maximize your time on each task, which as a result will minimize time needed to complete said tasks, where usually this time would be wasted on meaningless actions.
Don’t Hesitate to Use External Helpers
Using the calendar at home or on your device is quite useful to help manage your time. There are also various mobile apps – like the 80/20 Power Grid™ – which help users keep on task and help by alerting you about what and when something is coming.
The 80/20 Power Grid™
Now it’s understandable to not know where to start when it comes to knowing how to manage your time, because of this we created an app called the 80/20 Power Grid.
This free application brings the widely used Pareto Principle into the mobile world.
This has allowed us to bring you quick and intuitive schedule building while helping keep you on track in your journey to improve your time management skills.
The application helps you set eight goals which you can aim for within your set time period.
There are many ways to organize yourself, but one way we found effective is the use of Pareto’s principle.
This principle suggests that 80% of outputs are created from 20% of the inputs.
Using Pareto’s principle in our daily lives results in 20% of your day being devoted to a task which requires 80% of the output.
The remaining 80% of your time should be split into seven sections allowing you to establish a hierarchy for your daily tasks.
Using the 80/20 Power Grid you can set daily, weekly, and monthly goals allowing you to understand whats truly important, while also allowing you to rank your remaining tasks in order to manage your time effectively.
Learn More About Us!
To learn more about how this app can benefit your time management skills and the other benefits of using the 80/20 Power Grid click here.