8 Activities for Better Time Management
We all know there are only 24 hours in a day and chances are this number won’t increase anytime soon. We’ll have to learn how to squish everything into those 24 hours. This is where time management activities are needed:
1. Keep a task-time log. First, to see where you need to better manage your time, keep a log of everything you do for a few days. Then, go through and see how much time you spend on each activity, and when you do it. You may find you spend lots of time commuting or cleaning the house, or not a lot of time doing family activities or things just for yourself.
2. Overcome procrastination. Based on what your time log indicated, you may see that you distract yourself from completing work by doing chores around your home. Being aware of distractions like these is the first step to finding out how you need to beat them.
3. When are you most productive? Look at your time log and see what hours of the day you are most productive. Plan to get your most important stuff done during this time. Try doing smaller easier tasks first in your day to ‘warm-up’ then get to the tasks that require the most focus.
4. Manage your To-Do List. At the beginning of each week or day (depending on your needs) write down everything you want to accomplish. Prioritize these items or create several lists.
5. Save some wiggle room. When planning your schedule, leave some wiggle room. This does two things. First, no matter how well you plan, sometimes things take longer than expected, so with that wiggle room, you can go over your time limit without it affecting other tasks. Secondly, with that wiggle room, you’ll be able to get more things done and get that feeling of accomplishment which may even help motivate you.
6. Use the 80-20 Rule: This principle, also known as the Pareto principle, says that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In other words, 80% of your results will come from 20% of your time. Make that 20% count!
7. Not everything can get done. Let go and learn to prioritize the most important things and get them done first. Sometimes you’ll have t put off, or not complete something in order to get the most important ones done.
8. Seek help. Maybe you need to hire someone to come clean your house a few days a week, or a personal assistant to get some of your errands done for you. Depending on what you need, there is someone out there who can help.
Try these simple 8 activities to increase your productivity and time management. What other time management activities do you practice?
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Tags: time management, to do list
