Time Management is one of the most important skill that everyone should have to get success in their career. Person who manages their time well are comparatively more productive and they often achieve their goal. When we are more concerned on time management then we surprisingly focus on the most important and time-sensitive tasks by limiting the amount of time wasted. Behind every success, there is a human being struggling and doing their best, day after day. Whenever you stuck in your logic exploration and lost the path then say pause and rewind it to check why you are looking into this piece of work instead of wasting more time. Time management helps you to reduce stress.
Some Time Management Skills
1. Prioritizing
Sometimes you Things that matter the most should be done prior to other work. Prioritization doesn’t mean getting more work done. Prioritizing the work is one of the key time management skill when you must work on too much ideas. Sometimes you cannot do everything that’s why you need to prioritize your work.
- Important and Urgent (Quadrant 1): task that need to be done right away (crisis, Deadline projects, meetings)
- Important but not Urgent (Quadrant 2): Task those are important, but you can decide when to work on them but not before the urgent ones. (Preparation, planning, relationship Building, re-creation, Empowerment)
- Urgent but not important (Quadrant 3): Task that need to be done as soon as possible but when completed, they don’t have any lasting value (interruptions, mail, reports, meetings)
- Not Important and Not Urgent (Quadrant 4): Such tasks are usually task you can do in your leisure time because these tasks are not important and have to do but you want to do. (Junk mail, phone calls, time wasters, Busywork)
To manage your task properly try to focus on quadrant 2 and 3.
2. Setting Goal
‘Set your goal high and don’t stop till you get there’ said by anonymous. How you use your time is derived by your goal setting techniques. Don’t fool yourself by setting easy goal for yourself or by achieving most common areas. Think about your vision for life, what values you want to live by. Knowing your ambitions can help you to maximize your productivity. Set goal to achieve more in less time. Evaluate what you are doing and what you intend to achieve.
3. Scheduling
You can start scheduling your regular days with small tweaks, like waking up 15 minutes earlier and you can do yoga or stretching. Cut down your social media engagement time. By setting clear deadlines for each story, tasks you can track your time and manage much time for lot other works like R&D and skill enhancement. By marking deadline for your assignment on your organizer, sticky or calendar, you will be aware of or get notified about your planned work. By Time-boxing’ every meetings you can have effective discussion on every agenda. which means fixing a certain amount of time for each process and activity, maximum time limit is defined for each meetings.
4. Making To-Do list
Plan your day/week ahead of time and take some time to look your to-do list. Allow 10 to 15 minute to think and write down and prioritize the task before day start and don’t forget to review at the end of time. Do not write a goal and leave it, more you read your to do list more it will stick to your mind.
5. Delegating
Letting someone else to take lead on responsibility for your tiny tasks i.e. by delegating you are distributing your small tasks within team with proper communication and follow-up.
6. Resting/Eating
Eating takes a lot of your time and deciding what to eat takes even more. For instance, if you are going to restaurant for team lunch then decide in advance where to go and what to eat, it will save your time. In order to be more productive and complete all your assignments you must take few breaks, but those breaks don’t have to be long, 10 to 15-minute break is enough to decompress your brain. Take good sleep, read books and listen good music 😊. Try to avoid watching TV or reading from device since that makes more restless.
7. Multitasking
Say no to multitasking. It is not that efficient as person is dealing with multiple things. Multitasking will make you complete task in low quality. In multitasking your tension is divided into multiple works and your brain switch fasts between assignments, there is high chance you might miss requirement. Block out things that can distract you when working on critical issues like block the social media or notifications. If you are continuously thinking of everything you have to do or the long list that is in your bucket, you will be absorbed by overwhelming feeling and that feeling comes with side effects.
8. Don’t get lost in Detail
Trying to make everything perfect can drag you backwards, if anything is bothering you communicate within a team and try to resolve if possible or sometimes small things can be ignored but don’t assume by yourself, always escalate the doubts. Read details, acceptance criteria clearly and then start working on it so that you are aligned with the requirements.
9. Inspiration and Motivation
If you are working continuous for long time like in weekends or on a same feature for very long time, you may feel down that’s normal, but it will slow you down. To overcome this lousiness, talk to your colleague, admirer to re-gain your motivation. You can read or watch inspirational videos even change your desktop’s wallpaper to some energetic inspiration or your idol.
<<Have a vision and mission in life. Be on time use your time wisely because time is better teacher>>
Inspirational Quotes:
‘Better three hours too soon, than one minute late.’
William Shakespeare
‘Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.’
William Penn
‘Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever.’
Samuel Smiles
‘Money, I can only gain or lose. But time I can only lose. So, I must spend it carefully.’
Author Unknown
