We live in dynamic times with all of us constantly hurrying, having things to do, little time to think over important decisions and important things. Being hostages of extremely fast life, trying to keep our jobs and the respect of our colleagues, we have to juggle multiple things at once like some Julius Caesar. In a nutshell, he relied on effective time management. Caesar often had to attend gladiator fights for political gain. When a fight wasn’t particularly interesting, he didn’t waste his time and spend those hours issuing orders and replying to official letters.
It is important to properly segment time, set priorities and meet deadlines. What if someone hasn’t yet learned how to rationally use their time, deal with professional tasks and be on time with everything? The answer is simple: read our advice, learn what you need and master your time!
Many people think that daily planning is a waste of time, but each of us will in time learn that daily planning is one of the most effective time management tools. A carefully made step-by-step work plan can serve as a reference point for the rest of your day. You can stray from the plan, but it will still make your day more productive. Early morning is the best time for laying out the day. Wake up, make yourself some coffee, grab a piece of paper and outline your plan for today. Start with the most important tasks, end with things that can be delayed until the later in the afternoon. You may find carrying out this task a little too hard at first, but eventually planning will become a habit you won’t imagine your mornings without.
The ability to set priorities is another important time management tool. At the beginning of each workday try to objectively and adequately assess the workload and the number of things that have to be done by the end of that day. Set priorities based on a task’s importance, significance, deadline, the amount of time required to complete it, etc. First deal with important tasks that are not very time-consuming. By the middle of the day, you will feel as if you have already finished many important tasks. This effective time management trick will greatly improve your mood and motivate you for new victories and accomplishments.
One of the most effective but the hardest time management tip to achieve has to be getting rid of bad habits, constant social network, and mail surfing. Stop going out for a smoke or brewing coffee every 15-20 minutes. These short breaks seem harmless at first, but in reality, they can take up to an hour and a half of your daily work time. Social networks and mail kill even more of your time. In order to regain control over your time, you must delete all social network, mail and news feed tabs from the browser, wipe logins and passwords. Replace those links with content related to your work. You will soon discover that you check mail and social networks less frequently than you used to. This can improve the quality of your work.
If you really want to manage your time effectively and rationally, you will have to learn how to say “no”. We don’t say that you have to give up on your duties and ignore tasks from the management. You need to understand that you have no obligation to do any given job that mostly does not correspond to your direct responsibilities. You also shouldn’t work for your colleagues, even if you want to help. Try to calmly tell your higher-ups why you can’t do everything they ask due to current circumstances. If you don’t learn to say “no” in time, your coworkers will exploit you to no end, while you will have to stay in office till late in the evening, work from home during the weekend or rush to the office whenever called.
Whatever your job is, there is a single universal effective time management tool you can’t get around - notes. You should always have a notebook, a calendar, a piece of paper or a smartphone organizer. It is important to write down data, phone numbers, ideas or notes, as we aren’t able to keep huge volumes of daily processed information in our heads. If you want to arrive at meetings on time, remember to make important calls and meet project deadlines - write down everything you deem important! Trust us, it's one of the easiest and efficient tools that will allow to keep things under control and be effective with your time.
Try summarizing your daily, weekly and monthly results. When the time period you chose to analyze ended, its time to grab a pen, a piece of paper and write down all the tasks you managed to complete in time. Then make a list of all the things you found complicated and finally what tasks weren’t done at all. This time management technique allows to properly evaluate your priorities, the efficiency of using the time on your hands and what areas could use some improvement. It also motivates you, makes you better and stronger in your own eyes.
Lastly, we would like to share another good time management tool - the ability to work at the right time. In order to fully master this technique, you will have to pay close attention to your body for a couple of days. All of us can easily determine our own biorhythms and what our peak productivity hours are. It's the time when a person can do the most. This way you will be able to get many things done in a short time. We are all different. Some of us are more productive in the morning, while others – in the afternoon or even late at night. Your task is to understand when you are most productive and try to find the best job possible based on that knowledge.
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