Everyone has only 24 hours in one day – and no exceptions. If that’s the case, then why do some people get more tasks done during that one full rotation of our planet?
That’s because they’re skilled at time management.
Note that management of time really doesn’t really exist; because time merely passes. You can’t stop time or bend it to your will. What you actually have to do when “managing your time” is to manage yourself and how you approach everything you do.
So here are 12 tips to better manage yourself as time passes.
Schedule your day ahead of time
Waking up in the morning without having a written plan on what you need to do during that day will likely result in forgetting critical goals or handling more tasks than you can manage.
An easy way to avoid this is by planning your day and every week ahead of time.
Allot 30 minutes to organise the following week’s schedule at the end of each week, and take as little as 5 minutes in the evening to look at the next day’s schedule. This will help you become better organised.
And while you’ll spend some time planning, you’ll save so much time while not having to eventually fix mistakes.
Set goals and rewards
Setting your goals is key to planning your day because it helps help you stay on schedule. Before deciding your goals, do some introspection and ask yourself if you really want to achieve them.
Knowing your objectives can help you maximise your productivity, see the bigger picture, and do as many tasks as possible in the time you have available.
After achieving each goal, reward yourself to keep yourself motivated. These can range from sweet treats or good meals, to short periods of watching videos or simply not doing anything.
Prioritise your tasks
Sometimes, you can’t do everything (maybe you lack time). Thus, it’s necessary to set your priorities right. An effective way to do this is to manage your priorities by dividing them into four categories:
- Important and urgent – Tasks that need to be done right away.
- Important but not urgent – Tasks that appear important where you can decide when to do them, but not before the “important and urgent” category.
- Urgent but not important – Tasks that need to be done right away but when completed don’t have any lasting value.
- Not important and not urgent – These are usually leisure activities or things you don’t need to do (but probably want to do).
Categorising your tasks will give you a better view on which to deal with first.
Start with small tweaks in your schedule
You don’t need to overhaul everything in your life immediately to better manage your time. Instead, take baby steps, like waking up 15 minutes earlier every morning and reducing your social media time by 15 minutes per day.
Doing these two small tweaks will result in an extra 30 minutes, which you can devote to:
- Practicing a new skill.
- Reading a book.
- Exercising for better health and focus.
It might not sound like much, but using this new-found 30 minutes per day will result in 2 hours and 10 minutes per week where you’re working on getting better.
Establish clear deadlines
How much time do you have to finish your responsibilities? When do you need to complete your tasks? If you don’t know the answer to these questions, you may encounter difficulty keeping track of your time.
It’s easier to stay on schedule and do everything promptly if you set clear deadlines for each assignment. If you set your time limit for each task, you’ll find them easier to monitor and complete.
For best results, indicate your deadlines on your calendar. A calendar is useful and valuable if you’re trying to manage your time better. Whether you use a regular paper calendar or app, it’ll help remind you what you have to do and when.
Plan your meals ahead
Eating takes up a lot of your time. You have to choose what you want to eat, then you’d either a) order out or b) buy your ingredients then cook your food. But if you schedule your meals in advance, you can save up to 1 hour a day. Here’s how:
- If you like home-cooked meals, allot 2 to 3 hours every Sunday to cook or prepare meals ahead of time (writing them down helps).
- If you prefer takeout, write down a list with the restaurants you’re going to order from in advance. Also try choosing what you’re going to eat in advance.
One way to quickly narrow down your options is by having food-themed days. For instance, Mondays can be dedicated to eating chicken and Wednesday for fish.
The effort will initially consume a bit of time while you’re setting everything up, but the time savings are completely worth it.
Don’t multitask
Multitasking is defined as performing more than one task or activity at the same time.
But multitasking is a myth. Doing two or more tasks simultaneously slows you down because your attention is divided between two or more tasks, forcing your brain to switch from one task to another rather than focusing on just one.
It takes you several minutes to switch between tasks and start concentrating again, resulting in a productivity decrease of up to 40%.
Furthermore, multitasking can take away your ability to think creatively because your brain becomes so used to changing tasks that it can’t concentrate anymore on one task.
Link your actions to your goals
One effective way to start managing your time better is to study how your actions are related to what you’re trying to achieve. It’s simple enough to do:
- Make two lists: one with the goals you’re aiming for (e.g. love, career) and the things you’re spending time doing.
- If the lists don’t align with each other, you’re likely wasting time in the wrong direction.
What’s important here is that your actions are pointing towards your goals.
Avoid distractions
Many struggle with distractions and procrastination. These two issues can keep you from carrying out your tasks and waste your limited time.
To avoid this, block out all distractions. You can use an app that controls website access, disable your social media notifications, or better yet, place your phone on silent and put it in another room.
Furthermore, dedicate an area that’s meant only for work. By doing this, your brain can associate that space with work and productivity.
This is crucial because distractions can trap you into a headspace of low productivity and dissatisfaction. Avoiding distractions will make a tremendous difference.
Take frequent breaks
To complete all your tasks and be more productive overall, you need to have several breaks. These rest periods don’t have to be that long; 10 to 15 minutes is usually enough for you to take a load off.
It’s necessary because according to studies like this one, people who took frequent breaks were more productive than their peers who hunker down for work during long periods.
Relax before sleeping
It’s common for people to go to bed with concerns running through their heads. While it’s useful to think about what you’re going to do the next day, unwinding is the solution to getting better-quality sleep.
As for the relaxation activity, that’s entirely up to you. You can read a book, listen to chill music, or meditate before getting into bed. What’s vital is that you avoid watching TV or reading from a device while you’re in bed.
Why? Because blue light can affect your sleep cycle and make it less restful.
Learn to delegate
Because your goal is to do more in less time – but can’t get more hours in a day – you can delegate tasks to others. Depending on the responsibilities you’re dealing with, you can delegate small tasks like:
- Scheduling your daily appointments.
- Managing your email inbox.
- Updating your social media accounts.
Delegation involves a bit of setup on your end. You’ll have to invest time in finding the right person you can trust. The effort is worth it, however.
Hire the right specialists
To maximise your time and make delegation easier, you need to hire offshore virtual assistants (or VAs) who specialise in the tasks you need to be done. VAs are reliable, cost-effective, and more productive.
If you want to hire the top VAs for your organisation, team up with Remote Workmate. We do all the heavy lifting for you, including payroll and onboarding. This means finding the ideal virtual specialist becomes so much easier.
You can actually choose from our pool of top candidates right away. Simply click the button below to browse a wide range of profiles on our Hotlist page.
