Better time management

Introduction

Do you wish to have a better work/life balance or get more things done during the day? With the strategies/tips explained in this essay, you will be able to increase productivity, reduce stress, have better control over your workflow, and have a better ability to meet deadlines by time managing. Time management is the skill of planning your day based on the time that you have and the importance and deadline of the tasks that you currently have, these skills can help you prioritize items in your daily schedule allowing you to finish them on time. (Herrity, 2021)

Strategies for better time management

Start your day with a plan- Falling to plan, is planning to fail. It all starts with having a daily, it can start by being a to-do list, and remember to cross of the task fiscally each time when you realized it from the list so you get that satisfaction and get the motivation to keep on doing it.

Prioritize the most important tasks- After having done your to-do list, pick out the three most important tasks and get started on them. Sort all of the tasks by three levels of importance, low, medium or high and then rank each one of them on a scale from 1 to 10 in the accordingly order.

Divide larger projects into smaller tasks- A lot of people have the problem of feeling underwhelmed by the size of the project, and that leads them to procrastinate and work on other things before the big project. To overcome this, you can divide the large project into more manageable tasks. By not leaving the whole project for the end of the deadline, you have more time to work on each of the smaller task inside of it, improving your overall time management.

Limit distractions- Everyone gets distracted, while you can’t control all of your distractions, you can try to limit the number of different distractions that you may have. For example, you can take your phone into another room or block the social media on your work computer for a limited time

Leave the emails for later- Checking your emails during a task can derail your productivity, as you never just check the email, even if you don’t go to work on it right away, your mind starts to think about it and interrupts the previous task you were doing. A good way to avoid having this problem is by scheduling a time for reading and answering emails or only checking your email once the task is finished, if you are going to set and time for checking your email it may be wise to communicate it to your coworkers to set clear expectations.

Reduce multitasking- You may think that by tackling more than one task of your to-do list at once you are saving time, but it is proven that multitasking makes you less productive, also the mental energy required to jump from task to task could be avoided by focusing on one task at the time and once you have finished switching to another one.

Block time off your calendar- Having a platform that allows you to check your calendar across different devices for meetings, deadlines, tasks, events, and reminders can help you save time, helping you to be more productive with your time.

Know when to say no to a meeting- You have to prioritize, if the number of meeting that you have on a day is reaching its limit, maybe think before accepting another meeting, if that meeting can be replaced by an email, while expressing these thoughts to your coworker mention the other tasks than to have on hand and how this meeting will affect tour workload and deadlines.

Summarize and review your day- After the day has gone by, you can look back and reflect on your achievements, reviewing your to-do list to see what is still left for tomorrow and what has been done today. Also, this reflection is great to think about how you managed your time, seeing what is working and what can be improved.

Look ahead- Take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Looking at how your schedule is looking in the future like 2weeks or 2months ahead is good to not overbook yourself with future projects. It is easy to lose sight of the big picture when there are a lot of things on the to-do list daily.

Take time to recharge- It is important to be well-rested so that you can continue productively. So don’t forget to have time to rest, relax and sleep, because at the end of the day we are humans and we need to decompress after a long productive day of work. (Cope, 2021)

Conclusion

I hope that these strategies/tips are helpful for you and help you to alleviate the stress of deadlines, making you a more productive person with more time to get more things done at work and more time to relax off work.

References

Cope, S. (2021) 18 Effective Time Management Strategies & Techniques | Upwork, upwork. upwork. Available at: https://www.upwork.com/resources/time-management-strategies (Accessed: December 6, 2022).

Herrity, J. (2021) 12 benefits of effective time management | indeed.com – indeed career guide,indeed. indeed. Available at: https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/benefits-of-time-management (Accessed: December 6, 2022).