A good time management system can boost productivity and work performance, while creating a better work-life balance and improving psychological wellbeing.
The methodology, popularized by Elon Musk, is the idea of dividing your tasks in the day into little chunks of time called time blocks and assigning them first to the most important ones. At the end, start the next item on your list.
Plan Ahead
Planning ahead is one of the most common time management strategies that can help people pinpoint and prioritize tasks that can be achieved within the time and on the timeline.
Prioritizing is a great technique for breaking big things down into smaller pieces and preventing the procrastination or side-projecting of larger ones so they can be completed within deadline with high quality results.
Software and devices are also great solutions for securing efficient processes and productivity. – Take advantage of scheduling software or calendar apps to facilitate open lines of communication between team members or clients.
Decline is another skill professionals need to be able to focus on what’s truly critical, enhance work quality, and prevent overwhelm and stress due to attempting too much in an inadequate time frame – leading to better work-life balance and well-being.
Set Boundaries
People also find it hard to say no when given new requests and responsibilities, and so they get overwhelmed and stretched too thin, which reduces productivity and outcomes.
Boundaries are the key to effective time management practices whether it is a manager or working solo to prevent distractions, stay focused, and maintain the optimal work-life balance.
Boundaries can be established in different ways, for example with time blocking programs like Memtime to schedule your day and be more focused on working hours or the Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize activities based on priority and importance so there are not as many distracting activities.
The first is to identify boundaries that need to be drawn and be aggressive about this. For instance, if someone continues to book meetings earlier in the morning because you have family commitments before 8am, then your position might be that you will not be able to attend them anymore.
Only Work One Thing at a Time.
Time management principles are about efficiency – by teaching workers to work on one project at a time. Most multitasking users think they’re doing more when actually they’re not, by degrading performance, reducing speed of completion, and creating incomplete or subpar work.
Time-management practitioners often use prioritization strategies – that is, discovering and prioritizing activities by priority and importance. So that you can deal with the first things that come up and get less stressed and increase your chances of success.
Another strategy is Getting Things Done (GTD), which is when you make a list of the tasks you need to accomplish and separate them by categories. When the list is made, you can follow up on your list with calendars, project management software or whiteboards – which are handy if you get distracted by the number of things that they want to accomplish! But if procrastination is an internal, psychosocial habit that needs professional help to undo.
Delegate
Delegating is part of being a great manager or leader, which means you can prioritize higher-level work, and will increase the morale of your workers so they perform better. While giving employees ownership and responsibility of work, delegation also helps employees feel ownership and hence, more successful overall.
Procrastination (If you’re a procraztiner, use the Eat the Frog method which is doing your hardest thing first thing in the morning and prioritizing it for maximum productivity throughout the day. This method works particularly well if you find it hard to prioritize or keep track of more than one project.
Kanban boards are another time management approach that promotes teamwork and openness. Your work is separated into 3 piles: backlog, in progress and done. Backlog tasks: These are those you have scheduled and aren’t done; in progress tasks: The tasks you and team members are doing, and done tasks: The tasks that are done.