Time Management Tips | Make the Most of Your Day
Everyone can use some time management tips. Have you ever felt like there just aren’t enough hours in the day for you to get everything done that you’re responsible for?
Depending on your position in life, you may be dealing with a full-time job, a marriage, children, friends, and any other number of things. It’s easy to feel like you just don’t have time to give everyone and everything your best.
Everyone is given the same 24 hours each day. If you allow yourself the seven hours of nightly sleep that experts recommend for adults, that leaves you with 17 hours. If that doesn’t seem like enough time, it may be time to consider learning how to manage time better.
Improving time management not only helps you to be the most productive version of yourself that you can be, but it also means that you can cut down on some of the stress that you’re facing.
When you understand how to manage your time more effectively, you can stop feeling like you’re constantly struggling to keep your head above water.
Instead, you’ll be able to get things done effectively and efficiently without dealing with that constant state of panic.
If you’re not sure that you’re managing your time effectively, or you feel like you’re always in a rush, trying to get things done at the last minute, discover some time management tips that can help you overcome your stress and become the most productive version of yourself that you can be.
What is Time Management?
Before we fully dive into how to get better at time management, it’s a good idea to understand what time management really is.
Technically speaking, the phrase time management is a bit of a misnomer. Instead, effective time management is really about managing yourself.
There’s nothing you can do to give yourself more than 24 hours in a given day. No amount of time management can give you more than 60 minutes in any hour.
However, when you learn how to manage yourself, you’ll find that you have enough time to complete most of the tasks that you’ve been stressing about.
With this truth in mind, let’s take a deeper look at some time management tips, even if they’re really about managing yourself.
Evaluate How You’re Spending Your Time
Most of us lose track of time and then feel like we’re scrambling to accomplish certain tasks when we realize what time it is. Productivity is typically the goal when it comes to time management, which means that you need to start by understanding how you’re currently using the time you have.
Take the same approach to time management that you would take to create a financial budget.
Before you can start saving money, you need to understand where you’re spending it. Before you can truly start managing your time more effectively, you need to know how you’re spending it.
A study published by salary.com focused on how much time people waste each day at work.
People who agreed to take part in the study provided some startling data.
31% of participants acknowledged that they waste 30 minutes at work each day. Another 31% said that they waste one hour per day. 16% acknowledge wasting two hours each day, and 2% said that they waste five or more hours daily.
You can find plenty of apps that help you track how you’re spending time each day. However, since most of us waste time on our phones, texting, checking social media, and responding to emails, you may want to cut down on how phone-reliant you are.
If that’s the case, journal how you’re spending your time for a week. Once the week is over, review how you’ve been spending your time so you can start making some changes.
Embrace Time Blocking
Even if you don’t know it, everything you do is already happening on a schedule. Humans are naturally creatures of habit.
Even if your daily schedule isn’t always exactly the same, it’s probably pretty close most of the time. You probably get up around the same time each morning, spend the same amount of time getting ready for work or school, and then arrive at a certain time.
Everything you do revolves around a schedule. People who struggle with time management are just those who don’t maximize the time their schedules allow.
Once you’ve spent a few days understanding the details of your daily routine, start looking for ways to tighten things up.
Time blocking is one of the most effective tips for time management, as it allows you to categorize the things you’re already doing into certain time blocks. If your work day starts with responding to emails, give yourself 30 minutes to get those replies out at the start of your day.
Allow yourself one hour in the evenings to practice your self-care routine. When you start blocking your time, you can get the most out of the time you have without giving up the things you enjoy.
Stop Multitasking
We often think that the more things we’re working on, the more productive we are. Experts agree that this simply isn’t the case. No matter how good you think you are at multitasking, the fact remains that the human brain is actually only able to focus on one thing at a time.
If you’re taking on more than one task at a time, you still have to neglect one to work on another.
What many people consider multitasking is nothing more than starting one task, stopping it to go to another one, and then bouncing between the two. Bouncing between tasks requires your brain to stop and refocus, which actually causes you to waste time instead of saving it.
Additionally, some studies indicate that multitasking leads to a 50% increase in errors in the workplace.
Prioritize Your Tasks
You’ll accomplish more when you prioritize the things that matter most or those that require more focus than others.
Experts agree that starting with the most time-consuming or difficult tasks and then working your way toward things that are easier or take less time is the best route to take.
Ultimately, the way that you prioritize your daily tasks is up to you. Some people feel more accomplished when they can mark things off their to-do list early in the day.
If that’s how you operate, you can start with the fastest, easiest tasks like responding to emails. The important thing is that you go into each day knowing what needs to be done and give yourself ample time to get it done.
Learn to Say No
You can also free up some time during your day by learning to say no to things that you don’t actually have to do.
While there are undoubtedly some tasks that you can’t refuse, we often find ourselves running low on time because we’ve taken on too many tasks, including some that we don’t really need to get done.
Having definitive boundaries is an important part of having healthy relationships and taking care of your mental health.
Every day, many people agree to take part in things that they don’t want or need to do. If you have a lot of things to get done after work, it’s OK to turn down a dinner invitation.
When you free yourself from the heavy weight of saying yes to everything that gets presented to you, you’ll quickly realize that you have more time than you realized.
Be Adaptable
Finally, it’s important that you remain adaptable. While this may seem counterintuitive, especially when discussing the benefits of time-blocking and prioritizing tasks.
However, things do come up that require you to pivot from one task to another, often without warning.
If your boss comes into your office and asks you to compile a report at the last minute, you can’t refuse the task. This means that you’ll need to adapt.
Being adaptable doesn’t mean that you give up on the other strategies, but it does mean that you make adjustments to your personal schedule as you go.
Fortunately, when you have a plan that dictates how you’re going to get everything else done, you can adapt in a way that keeps you on pace.
Managing Time is Managing Stress
The stress that you feel regarding the amount of time that you have available to you is understandable.
However, that stress isn’t helping you get anything done.
By implementing these time management strategies, you can cut down on the amount of stress in your life, become more productive, and still allow yourself to enjoy the things that mean the most to you.