Our modern lives are all hustle and bustle with less time to complete our ever-increasing workloads; but have you ever considered better managing your time rather than reducing your tasks or complaining about increasing workloads? The truth is, for most of us, our tasks are more than manageable, and we just need to learn how to manage it better. The higher up a business hierarchy you find yourself, the more challenging time management becomes, but it is far from impossible like some may people may lead you to believe. While you have to consider your own needs as well as your teams, there are resources and techniques to help.
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NEVER procrastinate
Everyone knows that feeling of putting off tasks just because we feel lazy and we can. CUT IT OUT! Your motto should be “If it can be done today, do it today”. Your temporary escape will catch up to you sooner or later and you’ll be left with a pile of work you’ll struggle to complete.
Make use of whatever tools you have at your disposal to get rid of these bad habits and improve your time management. If your workplace has software such as Pronestor’s room scheduler, use it to quickly organize and book meeting rooms in a convenient manner. Time saved on any task without compromising quality is beneficial and any way of doing so should be considered.
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Follow and stick to a schedule
It’s a small step creating a schedule, but the bigger step comes in following it and sticking through with it. Much like diets and exercise programmes, schedules can quickly fall by the wayside especially if not managed correctly.
Start by organising your days and weeks as far in advance as possible. While there will always be unexpected surprises, having a schedule with ideas and responsibilities laid out can help deal with these. It is understandable that it may be difficult to create a schedule if your work constantly changes and is flexible, so begin by tracking everything you do in a day and identify patterns and tasks that appear often. This should give you a solid foundation to begin improving your time management.
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Avoid unnecessary distractions
This is pretty much common sense if you want to improve upon most things, not just your time management, but it seems to be one of the hardest things most people struggle to overcome. While it is important to note there are welcome (good) distractions, such as short breaks to exercise or relax, unnecessary, avoidable distractions are what you need to be cutting down on. Distractions can be unavoidable but they can almost always be reduced, and therefore give you back time that would have been wasted.
A common distraction in this day and age is social media. Unless it is crucial to your work, consider logging off when your day starts and you could notice you suddenly have more time to complete tasks than you previously thought.
If emails seem to be more of a distraction than conducive to being productive, try putting them on silent until you have the time to give them your full attention. Multi-tasking can cause you to lose focus and you may end up spending more time on your tasks than needed.
By following these tips you should immediately see improvements in your time-management skills. Everyone is different so some things may work better than others for certain people, but give these a go and you are sure to see results, fast!
