In simple words, time management is defined as the process of planning and organizing tasks so that you can efficiently use the time to make the most of it.
The objective of time management is to work smarter and not harder. It is crucial to have good time management skills because time can make you very productive when used adequately.
Understanding that multitasking is not productive is very important. In fact, it can be the worst form of activity that you can do to feel busy. Being busy is not being productive, and therefore multitasking cannot be in any definition termed as effective or helpful for time management.
Time management tools
There could be several time management tools which are work for various people. However, every tool has the same objective: to make the best use of the time available. Following are a few of the tools that can help you manage your time efficiently and make it more productive.
- Scheduling
Time management is not just about multitasking or opening up multiple tabs simultaneously and doing everything else but the planned work. Planning and having time for everything, or in other words, scheduling, is the key and essential tool of time management.
Scheduling your activities at the right time will make all the difference whether those activities will be productive or not. For example, 10:30 am wouldn’t be the right breakfast time – instead, a breakfast before 8:30 am will be helpful for you to get your day started. (See: 5 Things to do in the morning). Use your planning skills to schedule the activities and instill discipline to complete them. Time management is a perfect combination of planning and execution at the right time.
- Prioritizing
There may be ten important activities at hand for you – all requiring a lot of your time – how do you work them out? You sort them by importance – or in other words, prioritize them. Task Prioritization can be done by either sorting them up by the time required for completion or by the one which is immediately due or the one which requires a very long time. Prioritizing is also essential in cases where one task clashes with other tasks.
Many productivity gurus also use professional tools like The Eisenhower method, which uses the principle of importance and urgency to categorize and prioritize the tasks, or you can also refer to the action priority matrix for time management.
- Focus
Scheduling and prioritizing are critical steps, but a focused implementation completes it. Scheduling helps to make the time for an activity, and prioritizing helps allocate importance to those tasks, but an undeterred focus is what completes tasks. A focused approach helps concentrate your attention on a single task and enables you to fulfil it. Focusing on one priority at a time helps to finish it on time. To focus, you have to minimize the distractions like phone notifications. Many third-party apps can help you reduce distractions and focus on the task at hand.
Improving time management skills
Now that you have all the time management tools using them correctly and implementing them accurately will ensure that you follow efficient time management.
There are three essential steps that you can take to improve your time management efforts.
- Self-awareness
It would be best to build an accurate estimate of your time management skills. You can use your friends, peers or bosses to seek feedback and establish a baseline against which you can measure the behavior’s. You have to be self-aware of your time management skills and their accuracy to know precisely where you are and take the necessary steps to go where you want to be.
- Recognition to preferences
You have to understand that preferences matter but not in the way you think. You have to be self-aware of your choices or personality so that you can be proactive and you can understand your preferences. You might be the sort of a person who likes to multitask (although this is not a good habit), or you might be a person who would like to focus on only one task at hand. (which is an excellent behaviour)
It is crucial to understand that skills can be changed and not personality, not as quickly as you think. Therefore find out a perfect combination of your personality and skills which complement it.
- Skills improvement
Once you know the skills that complement your personality and know that you could work well with them, start prioritizing them. Make a list of all the skills you need to improve and sort them by importance.
Time management is an essential aspect of productivity. There are many different tools you can use, right from apps on your phone to sticky notes but a core aspect of achieving your goals will always be self-discipline. The inner urge to do things right or get things done is what completes those tasks. No app or tool can give you that internal push, but you can continually develop it over time.