Time is money. You always work hard to achieve goals, but when you struggle to control the amount of time spent on specific tasks, your work and well-being suffers. You miss deadlines. You lack a work-life balance. Most importantly, you produce poor quality work.
Better time management helps to achieve goals faster, with less stress and more sleep. We can say that great time management is key to meeting our goals. It helps us prioritize better and increase productivity. That’s how you can work smarter, not harder.
Here are five handy ways to improve your time management skills so you can achieve your goals much more efficiently.
1. Set SMART Goals
Your goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and anchored within a Time Frame. For instance, if you’re a marketer and want to boost your business online presence, set more defined goals. Examples include increasing explainer video views up to 5% within a week, or getting at least 10 new followers on Instagram per day.
Be specific with your outcomes and focus on how you should achieve them.
2. Pen Down a Schedule and Deadline
Write down everything you need to accomplish and how long each task should take to complete. This way, it will be much easier for you to see how you should spend your time.
The detailed schedule will help you get a better sense of which tasks deserve your attention and which don’t. In other words, you can prioritize better and avoid procrastination.
3. Learn Your Productivity Patterns
Everyone has different patterns of how productive they are throughout their day. Some of us feel refreshed and hit their productivity peak in the morning, while others feel highly motivated after lunch.
Finding your own pattern of productivity can help you achieve your goals more efficiently. Use your less-productive hours to tackle easy, quick-to-complete tasks. Meanwhile, you can use your productive hours for more high priority tasks.
4. Avoid Multitasking
You might be thinking, “if I work on multiple projects simultaneously, it means I get extra work done faster.” The truth is that multitasking actually decreases your productivity. It drains your energy and ruins your focus faster.
It’s always better to focus only on a single task at a time and give it full attention so you can avoid any mistakes and increase your quality of work.
5. Use Apps
You can also use apps such as time-tracking, project management, and to-do list software to keep you accountable. With new technology, tools to improve your time management skills are at your fingertips. They also provide you with reports so you can monitor your time management efforts.
By implementing the handy time management tips mentioned above, there will be no such thing as, “ah, there just aren’t enough hours in the day”.
Remember that time management is a mental game that everyone can master if they want to. Using your hours to work efficiently for the outcomes you value the most will bring you success and sustain the feeling of fulfillment that comes from accomplishing them.
Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash
Totally agree!
The time wasted because of an interruption is longer than the time span of the actual interruption. For instance, you are concentrating on writing a report, business plan, or important letter when your concentration is broken by the ringing of your phone. Not only do you lose the time you actually talk on the phone, but it will normally take you several additional minutes to regain your focus and get back up to speed with what you were doing. Switching gears takes time.
I agree that time management is vital for any person. No matter what your occupation is, such a skill will bring you more productivity, comfort, and success.