On Tuesday, I introduced the topic "Time Management", explaining my understanding of the concept. You can visit my blog to get acquainted with the topic. Today, in fulfillment to my promise,I'll be listing some tips for effective time management.
I believe we all know how precious time is, but yet, there are never more than 24 hours in a day. Some people respond to this fact with focus and purpose, while others freak out. If you are among the latter group, you need not worry again. With the right approach, you can efficiently, productively, and relatively stress-free.
Here are some tips for effectively managing your time:
(1): Know your goals
Knowing you're goals allows you engage in activities that foster the achievement of set goals, both long and short term. Any other thing is a potential time-waster. Your daily plan should revolve around working on tasks and activities that directly relate to achieving of your goals.
(2): Prioritize Wisely
Looking at what goes into making up your day, where do your activities into these categories?
• Important and urgent-- Tasks that must be done. Do them right away.
• Important but not urgent-- Tasks that appear important, but upon closer examination aren't. Decide when to do them.
• Urgent but not important-- Tasks that makes the most "noise", but when accomplished, have little or no lasting value. Delegate these if possible.
• Not urgent and not important-- Low priority stuffs that offer the illusion of "being busy". Do them later.
(3): Eliminate Distractions: Start paying attention to the number of times someone interrupts you when you're in the midst of an important task. Also, track self-induced interruptions, particularly those of the social media variety. Smartphone is extremely useful, but it's also addictive and among the most insidious time-wasters known to mankind.
(4): Plan Ahead
One of the worst things you can do is jump into the workday with no clear idea about what needs to get done. The time you spend thinking ahead and planning your activities is trivial compared with the time you'll lose jumping from one thing to the next (rarely accomplishing anything).
(5): Take care of yourself
Be sure to get plenty of sleep and exercise. And alert mind is a high-functioning mind and one that's less tolerant of time-wasting activities.
