Lois E. Bone once said: “I am definitely going to take a course on time management… just as soon as I can work it into my schedule.” Do you have the same feeling from time to time? People are overloaded with different tasks and need to organize their days properly to get planned activities done. To manage time properly is very important when coping with the pressures of modern life without feeling too much stress.
Better time management will help to regain control of your day and finish tasks on time. Here are some useful tips:
- Use a daily plan that should be done early in the morning or even better, the night before you sleep. Such a tasks’ overview will help you from getting caught off guard. So try to stick to the plan during the day as much as possible.
- Set up deadlines. For example, finish activity X by 10am, item Y by 3:20pm. This planning will prevent your work from dragging on and taking time reserved for other tasks.
- Don’t be afraid to say “No”. Don’t take more tasks than you can handle. If you're busy doing something important, give a firm “No” to the interruption or schedule the new activity to a later period.
- Finish tasks earlier than required. As a bonus for finishing an activity before the deadline, you get more free time and a satisfaction of task completion.
- Put a clock in a visible area. Sometimes you get so involved in a task that you lose track of time. The clock in front of the office will be a gentle reminder that time does not stay still.
- Focus on one task at a time. Being able to multitask is great, however, it is more productive to concentrate on one thing at a time. So you need to close all your applications and tabs that are not related to what you are focused on. Switch off the phone, chat or other devices that can disturb. The incoming calls can be recorded, so after finishing the task, you can contact people if there was something really important.
- Don’t spend too much time on unimportant details. It happens that sometimes you cannot finish a task as you had planned. But do not waste your time on details, perfection is not always worthy and can reduce productivity.
- Set priorities. Since it is not possible to do everything, focus on the most important things and forget about the rest.
- Leave a buffer between tasks. Do not plan tasks one right after another, have at least 5-10 minutes in-between. This helps you complete the previous task and re-concentrate on the next one.
- Track time. Yaware.TimeTracker is a simple time tracking software that allows to increase productivity counting time spent on online and offline activities and much more.
