Time management is a misnomer as everyone gets the same number of hours in a day. You are not really managing time, but rather managing the time you have to accomplish your goals. Effective time management skills will allow you to become more productive in both your professional and personal lives.
There have been numerous studies on effective time management skills and outcomes. If you have been wanting to become more efficient and manage your time better, here are a few ideas to get you started.
- Determine what your time wasters are. Are you surfing social media when you should be working? Try tracking your time over a period of a week and at the end, you should have an idea of what is usurping the time you should be working.
- Implement a time management plan. This works to help you change your behaviors to achieve your goals. Set the goals, then track them over a period of a week or two to see if you are accomplishing them.
- Do you prioritize your daily tasks well? Using a time management tool, such as a calendar, Outlook or other online system, your cell phone planner or other tools, prioritize your tasks and see what MUST be done first or today. Any that can be migrated to another day; do so. This should be completed daily.
- Establishing a routine for completing your tasks will allow you to be more productive.
- Set time limits for tasks. This will prevent you from becoming consumed with doing non-essential tasks, such as reading and responding to emails, and give you more time to work on the more important tasks.
- Delegate – Is everything you are doing essential for getting the work done? Are you doing things that are not your key strengths? Is there someone in your organization who is more suited to those tasks? If so, take advantage of them and delegate the necessary tasks so that they can be done. This will free you up to do other things that are more suited to you.
- Organize your systems. Do you waste time looking for something you need for a meeting or to make an important decision? If you answered yes, then you need to re-organize your systems to find what works best for you. Create a system that is perfect for you so you won’t lose time searching for papers or documents when you need them.
These are just a few of the many ideas that help with effective time management. Implementing these initial 7, or finding others that work for you, could help improve your productivity over time. Take advantage of time management tools that are available via the internet or as apps for your cell phone. These tools could be technology or paper, depending on your preference, or even a combination of both. Stay tuned for ideas of apps and pen/paper tools in the future.