8 Reliable Ways To Manage Time Effectively This Year

8 Reliable Ways To Manage Time Effectively This Year

Reading time 4 and a Half Minutes

Manage time effectively while balancing your professional and personal life with ease this year with few changes to your work style.

[responsivevoice_button voice=”US English Female” buttontext=”Ready to listen to this article!!”]

Do you find yourself working from home for 10 hours or more a day now? Do you end your day wondering why it was still so unproductive? You are not alone. We feel the same. Learning to manage time while balancing a career and home that is starting to co-exist in the same space is challenging. While you work from home, your meetings might be interrupted, or you remember that you forgot to feed your cat before opening your laptop. The list goes on.

My colleague gave me some great advice recently, she said, you can solve any problem if you break it down to manageable pieces. So, while it is imperative to prepare a to-do-list for the day in advance, it is smart to plan out every couple of hours too. For instance, to make the tasks easy to complete.

Now time for some tips that you can apply and stay in control of the proceedings in your life.

Also read: THE LIFESTYLE AND WORK CULTURE OF SILICON VALLEY

Plan your tasks

Manage time better by planning your whole day out in advance. Decide what to tackle today. The crucial part, stick to your plan. You made it, after all, go through each activity on your list as you planned it. My mother would suggest I allot time for each task, so I do not stray away.

9.00 – 9.30 – Check mails

9.30 – 11.00 – Complete the report due Tomorrow

11.15 – 1.00 – Team discussion.

For example, something that suits your schedule, so you know what you need to do and when. This way, I time my tasks and try not to distract myself. I also like to add checkboxes to each activity and tick them when I finish them. It motivates me to finish everything on my list. It might work for you too. Many tools that can help you prepare a “Daily Planner.”

Prioritize tasks

Also, managing time is about prioritizing crucial activities. As President Eisenhower said, “what is important is seldom urgent.” Are you letting small tasks take your attention away from what is important?

Read Emails

Reading emails from the previous day is essential but also takes up a lot of your morning hours. Therefore, you better be through these after your morning routine, but before anyone else is up to start sending you more emails.

Skip Meetings when possible

We also know that meetings take up a lot of your valuable time. So, be assertive on this matter. If you can not be a part of a meeting, then just let go of it and get a report on the outcome of the meeting later.

Be Detailed or Hang out with the ‘Detailed Guy.’

For instance, when you document your tasks in extra detail, you are not in this constant fear of missing out. If you are a detail-oriented person, then this strategy will work in your favor. But if you are more of a Yellow or Red kind of personality. (Yellow represents the creative type and Red represents the bossy type) then try to find or hang out with the Blue guys, who focus on detail and have all the necessary information handy when required. Great team dynamics are essential for a project to run like a ‘well-oiled machine.’

Multitask or give your full attention

Multitasking is also a great way to manage time, but not for everyone and not in all situations. You can not hope to answer emails, messages, and calls while focusing on a single task. Some things require your full attention. If you are giving only half your concentration, you could make mistakes and then have to do them again. It defeats the point of managing time effectively. You could multitask with autonomical activities that don’t need a lot of thought. But some famous personalities love to multitask in a particular fashion. They combine the mechanical tasks with the tasks that require your mind to work at its peak. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are among the few famous personalities who come up with great ideas while doing chores in their household. You could be smart enough to find and come up with a great combination.

Take breaks

Above all, if you want to manage your time better, you need to take breaks. Your brain needs to reset to be able to work effectively. It is probably one of the reasons you get your best ideas in the shower when you are relaxing. Make the most of your breaks too. If you are a nap person and not a coffee person, then go for it, take a nap, take a napEazy! If you are fitness conscious, then you could go for a run during your break. Managing breaks is as important as managing your work.

Use apps or technology to make things simple.

There are apps to help you keep track of tasks, stay motivated, and work efficiently.

For example, Trello, Toggle, Remember The Milk, Todoist, and more. They can help you organize and save time.

Learn from the best

That said, remember you need to –

“Manage the BlackBerry, do not let it manage you. The key is to do it in bursts and not to let it dominate your day. Speak to people.” – Richard Branson

While sharing how he manages his time, Richard Branson said this.

“I learned to delegate from a young age. Removing myself from the office has helped me look for the next big venture. I try to exercise every day–whether it is a swim, a game of tennis, or a kite-surf when on Necker island. Manage the BlackBerry do, not let it manage you. The key is to do it in bursts and not to let it dominate your day. Speak to people–I do get a lot of emails every day and try to answer as many as I can, but I also believe that you need to speak to people. It can save you and them a lot of time. And write it down–I carry notebooks wherever I go to jot down thoughts and notes. You can not beat a pen and paper.”

In conclusion, he believes in running the day, taking charge of activities, and managing tasks instead of letting them drive him. Notebooks are great for staying organized. You can have a to-do list and write down ideas, or keep track of things. *

Let’s keep it simple.

Apple Founder and CEO Steve Jobs, “Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”

Steve Jobs liked to keep things simple when he joined Apple again in 1997 he cut off the 300 products they were working on, bringing them down to 10. It proved to help the company out of bankruptcy.

Part of managing time effectively comes from learning to say no to the things you can’t do. Managing time is about balance in the end. What is most important to us? When we need to say no, and how necessary breaks and time away from work can be. Managing time means different things for all of us, but with balance, we can focus on what’s important.

Pro-Tip – Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle

Finally, whatever you do, unless your body and mind is not in the right condition, any strategy will fall flat. The 3 natural ways to strengthening your immunity are the same three ways that can keep you healthy and available for any challenge in life.