Did you know that on the average workday, just 20% of the time is spent on critical tasks? Yes, that means that 80% of your workday gets consumed by important tasks but has little to no value in your career growth. This shows how important it is to value and properly manage your time, and that’s the only way you can ensure you have a steady, productive workflow that is clearly defined and in the right direction. In this blog post, we will guide you on how to develop time management strategies to make life more effective.
How to Develop Time Management Strategies & Techniques
If you are looking for tips on time management, you have come to the right place. We will discuss five time management strategies to make life more effective. Let’s dig in!
1. Plan Ahead
Planning is one of the most important time management strategies you can implement to improve your productivity and personal effectiveness. By planning, you will achieve more goals in less time and effort. Planning also allows you to set goals and work towards them, motivating you to complete your tasks on time.
A calendar is your best friend when it comes to planning. A calendar will allow you to keep track of upcoming events, seasons, holidays, and benchmark goals. When you plan, you can prepare ahead of time for these events and ensure you have enough time for other tasks.
Setting realistic deadlines and prioritizing the tasks in order are key to time management strategies to make life more effective. Doing this will make you less overwhelmed when you see the bigger picture and the looming deadline. A funny movie about a banker with a negative attitude illustrates this concept. In the movie, the main character finally realizes the serious consequences of saying “yes” to everything, so it’s important to plan.
2. Try Biological Prime Time
The time management strategy and technique known as Biological Prime Time is one of the best time management strategies to make life more effective, boost productivity and reduce stress. It involves writing down six important tasks and prioritizing them in order of importance. By doing so, you will avoid wasting time on tasks that are not urgent or necessary.
The biological prime time technique allows you to focus on more important tasks during periods of your day when you are at your highest energy. By analyzing your energy levels throughout the day, you can schedule your work periods and breaks based on when you are at your peak. This helps you accomplish more during your prime time.
In order to calculate your Biological Prime Time, you need to monitor your energy levels for at least 20 days. You can use a spreadsheet, notebook, or an app to do this. The key is to record these data consistently and use a tool that you can reuse again. Remember, the more time you track, the more data you will have to work with.
Knowing when you are your most productive can schedule the most important tasks during those periods, and this can help you improve your daily routine and increase productivity and efficiency. For example, if you know your most productive times, you can schedule your meetings and other tasks for these periods.
3. Make Task Batches
Task batching is one of the most popular time management strategies to make life more effective as it helps you divide your time successfully by dividing tasks into specific categories. It can help you focus on fewer tasks and avoid distractions. This technique allows you to get more work done in less time and can also help reduce the psychological strain of chronic disorganization.
Task batching is a time management technique that allows you to batch tasks that require similar amounts of concentration and focus. You can set time blocks for related tasks, such as client-facing work, administrative work, managing budgets, and internal interactions. These time blocks can be set for a week or a month, based on their frequency. Once you have grouped tasks, you can assign them to a certain time block to complete them more efficiently.
Task batching is a simple technique for improving productivity. During the day, you can do similar tasks in sequence, such as organizing your closet, folding laundry, and doing the dishes. It might sound counter-intuitive, but time batching reduces the amount of context switching.
Task batching is an effective time management strategy for people who multitask. It eliminates the need to multi-task, helps people combat procrastination, and eliminates the need to jump between different tasks. Using task batching can also help you avoid procrastination, which is one of the biggest hindrances to productivity.
4. Use An Online Calendar
One of the best time management strategies to make life more effective is to use a digital or an online calendar. These programs provide a central location to access your calendar data on any device and allow you to add events and activities on different calendars. This will help you stay on track with everything you need to do.
One of the most effective time management techniques is to create a schedule with time slots for important tasks. You can also divide your day into blocks, and you can label these blocks or color-code them. Then, include free time in between, which will help you deliver projects on time and save time during appointments.
A calendar can also be pretty to look at, and you can also link it to other platforms. One of the advantages of digital calendars is that they are easily accessible, but they may not be as useful as they could be. You can always use a paper calendar if you want a visual reminder of important tasks.
Another time management strategy to make life more effective is to use one calendar for all activities. Using two calendars can confuse and make it difficult to prioritize tasks. Identify when you are most productive and schedule tasks during that time. Most people’s productivity is the highest in the morning hours so that you can schedule your high-priority tasks accordingly.
5. Try Post-it Notes
Using Post-it notes to prioritize tasks can help you develop good time management habits, and it encourages regular breaks between tasks and rewards you for early completion. You can even use your computer’s electronic versions of Sticky Notes to keep track of time. These techniques help you stay focused on one task at a time and avoid distractions.
Ø The Notes App
To manage your time, you need to have a plan. This plan should include everything that you need to accomplish daily. The easiest way to do this is to create a to-do list. This isn’t a groundbreaking technique, but it sure does help you manage time more effectively.
The Note app provides you with a comprehensive note-taking hub. It allows you to easily organize content and include attachments, web clippings, audio, and more. It also syncs all your devices and lets you search within your notes—a free basic plan for personal use and paid versions for professionals.
In his book, Now O’ Clock, William Garcia states: “Time, ultimately, is the highest quality element there is, and Life, consequently, is the perfect positive state of Being. The combination of the two is the most powerful force there is; The force of You; The force of I. Let’s use this force for Good.” This book is a great read for anyone who wants to understand the art of mindfulness and how it helps you realize the importance of time, the present moment, and the now.
The Bottom Line
If you fail to manage your time, not only will your efficiency take a setback, but you will also have to deal with stress. You can use time management strategies to make life more effective. These strategies include planning, task batching, and using an online calendar. Depending on your personality, you can apply one or more techniques.