Time management is the act of planning, managing, and organizing how to divide time between specific activities to achieve results. Managing your time effectively helps you work smarter and be more effective. Remember, you do not have to work harder to achieve results, but rather you need to work smarter.
No matter how hard one works or how early an individual turns up for work every day, the fact remains that we have only 24 hours a day and we cannot add or remove anything from that, even with the 24 hours, one cannot exhaust the daily time. This simply means “time is never enough”.
With good time management skills, one stands the chance of getting the following benefits.
1. You can accomplish more with fewer efforts
2. Improved decision-making ability
3. Become more successful in your career
4. Reduce stress
5. Have a clear vision
6. Know your priorities
7. Focus on value
8. Stop struggling
9. Purge the waste
In this piece, I will be sharing some tips on how to manage time effectively and achieve the desired results.
No matter how hard one works or how early an individual turns up for work every day, the fact remains that we have only 24 hours a day and we cannot add or remove anything from that, even with the 24 hours, one cannot exhaust the daily time. This simply means “time is never enough”.
1. ACTIVATE THE D’S
Follow through the “the 4 d’s of time management. While you may be wondering what this is all about, let me help you with the explanation.
a. DELETE
For effective time management, one must learn to delete some tasks from the to-do list. Peruse through your list of tasks, figure out the irrelevant and do away with them. For you to work effectively and make good use of your time, you must be able to say no to some tasks, refuse doing irrelevant things with your time, this way you would create enough time to focus on tasks that matter.
b. DELEGATE
This is very important in time management. Delegating tasks is not running away from responsibilities, never! Rather it is an important function in management and also a way of managing time.
Look into your list of tasks, find out if some can be delegated to people, if there are, look into your crystal ball, and find out those around you with the requisite skills, capacity, time, and experience to handle such task and get it done before the deadline.
Before delegating a task be sure of the person’s ability and availability to deliver as at when due, otherwise, these tactics might boomerang and double your workload should the person leave out some things or do a bad job.
c. DIFFER IT
The fact remains that certain tasks could be deferred to later dates. This is very helpful when one wants to make good use of his time.
Look into your schedule for the day and figure out those tasks that require urgent attention and focus on them. The truth is, no matter the amount of free time you have, you must deal with urgent tasks first.
Finishing the biggest tasks first is like scoring a big win or catching a big fish because you can leverage on it to secure yourself more time to finish the other tasks, but make sure the other tasks do not differ again this time.
d. DO IT
Be diligent in your work, always bear in mind that starting early is the ignition to having a productive day. If the work is urgent, the best thing is to do it immediately, as soon as the task is done and completed, move to the next one. Starting your task early gives you more power, energy, and motivation to do more.
Inculcate the 4 d’s into your time management today and see how effective and smarter you will be in doing your job.
2. FOLLOW THE PARETO PRINCIPLE
The Pareto principle is also known as the 80-20 rule, this rule simply states that 80% of results come from 20% of effort, this also implies that 80% of sales come from 20% of customers. All you have to do to apply this rule is to figure out the 20% effort that yields the results and focus more on those efforts.
3. FOCUS ON MOST IMPORTANT TASKS (MIT’s)
This means you should tackle your biggest tasks of the day first thing in the morning. Finishing these tasks gives you the needed momentum, enthusiasm, and motivation to push through the day’s job.
4. ELIMINATE BAD HABITS
One of the boosters of time wastage is bad habits such as excessive surfing, social media, movies, hanging out frequently with friends having drinks, and playing the game. Reducing these habits drastically or eradicating them will go a long way in giving you enough free time to tackle relevant issues and tasks.
5. MAKE A TO-DO LIST FOR THE NEXT DAY
Every evening before going to bed, take your time, and make a to-do list for the next day. This is more like you setting the goals and targets for the next day. It is easy to achieve daily goals while gradually moving closer to the bigger and long term goals, but the only way to achieve a daily goal is by having a to-do list.
6. TURN OFF SOCIAL MEDIA ALERTS
Social media alerts are usually a source of distraction during work hours, if the alerts keep ringing, the urge to check will keep increase. So for you to have peace of mind at work and focus on your task, you must turn off all social media alerts so you can make good use of your time for the tasks.
7. COMMUNICATION
Having strong communication skills makes it easy for you to make your plans clear to the people you work with on what you want to achieve. It also makes it easy for you to communicate and explain what you want exactly when you want to delegate tasks to other people.
8. MANAGE STRESS
While practicing time management, never forget to prioritize your health, especially your mental health. Remember, there is little or nothing you can do when you are not in a sound state of mind.
You can manage your stress by taking breaks intermittently. It is advisable that you work for 50 minutes and take 17 minutes breaks to clear your head.
Another way of managing stress is by working out regularly and exercising every morning before going to work.
If you can follow through this information and implement them, there is no doubt of how productive your time will become.
