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1. Time Management is a Myth
The first thing you need to do is realize that time management is a myth – no matter how organized we can be, there are always only 24 hours in a day. In other words, time will never change. All a person can do is to actually manage themselves and what they do with the time they have. Internalize this and appreciate it. From there, you can move on to the next tip.
2. Identify Where You’re Wasting Time
Many people fall prey to various time-wasters that steal the time we could be used for more productive things. You might be wondering what your time bandits are. Well, do you spend too much time on the web, reading email, surfing, posting on social media, making phone calls, or texting?
In a survey conducted by salary.com, 89% of the participants admitted to wasting time on a daily basis while at work:
· 31% waste about 30 minutes daily
· 31% waste about 1 hour daily
· 16% waste about 2 hours daily
· 6% waste about 3 hours daily
· 2% waste about 4 hours daily
· 2% waste 5 or more hours daily
If you suspect that you’re a time-waster, tracking daily activities could help you form an accurate picture of how much time you do spend on various activities daily, which is really the first step towards effective time management.
3. Create Time Management Goals
The main goal of time management is actually changing your behavior, not adjusting time. So, a great place to start is by eliminating personal time wasters. For example, for a week, you could set a goal that you won’t respond to any non-work-related text messages or answer personal phone calls while you’re working.
4. Develop and Implement a Time Management Plan
You could think of this as an extension to the third tip. The main goal here is to change your behavior over time in order to help you achieve the general goals you’ve set for yourself, such as decreasing stress and increasing your productivity. You need to not only set a few specific goals but also track them over time to find out whether or not you are accomplishing them.
5. Use Time Management Tools
Whether it’s an app, a planner, or a software program, a key step towards physically managing your time is knowing where it’s going now, and then planning on where it’s going to go in the future. Check out this tool to help you schedule workloads and monitor progress, which helps make time management easier.
6. Ruthless Prioritization
Start every day with a session to prioritize tasks for the day and set a workable performance benchmark. For instance, if you have 20 tasks for the day, figure out how many of them you really need to accomplish.
7. Learn to Outsource or Delegate
Delegation is a difficult thing to learn how to do appropriately for many business owners. However, no matter how small your business is, there’s usually no need for it to be a one-man show – let other people handle some of the load. Delegating will let you share the tasks you would be better off leaving to other people so that you can make the most out of the time you already have.
8. Establish Routines and Stick to Them
Although crises will always arise, you will be a lot more productive if you could follow routines for most of your time. Most people will benefit from creating and following a routine, as it allows them to get right down to the day’s tasks instead of frittering away time while getting started.
9. Form Habits of Setting Time Limits for Tasks
For example, replying to emails may consume a huge chunk of your day if you let it. So, set a time limit, say an hour a day for this task, and try to stick to it. An easy way to do this is assigning a solid time frame for this task instead of replying to email on demand – this reduces stress and hassle
10. Sort your folders out
If you’re wasting a lot of time looking for files on your computer, spend some time organizing a file management system. If filing is slowing you down, redo it such that it’s organized to the point where you are able to easily reach what you need.