Time Management Tips| All We Need to Know.

Not a motivational talk, but based on a practical day-to-day experience.

Apoorv
Geek Culture
6 min readMay 29, 2021

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We all can’t deny the big shot identities like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates are the ones who make us all believe that with a proper schedule we can achieve greater heights. Not everyone is destined to work that smart, mainly the reason is unawareness of the drill.

Photo by Dollar Gill on Unsplash

One lesson based on my entire work experience till now is that we can either finish an hour-long task, in an entire day just by avoiding the urge to sit and concentrate. The output of the work will remain the same regardless of the time we are spending to finish it. Instead much better, we could have completed the same amount of work in an hour or even less just by focussing properly. So here comes the need of managing our time, since time is running and a second wasted will never come back.

Let us divide our time into the following main categories because on regular basis we generally accommodate our day into these broad categories. Even if some of us are super crazy, still we would be able to relate.

Time Management graph, showcasing different categories we normally spend our time.

Work

With the advancement of technologies in the 21st century, we can proudly say that compared to 10 years ago, currently, we can see varied domains in which people are working.

Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash

But with the available options an individual wants to explore many fields but due to time constraints unable to do so. Overstretching in our day-to-day work routine can lead to overburdening, and sooner or later in the end it will be leading to burnout. Even if we are passionate enough about things we are working upon, we still require some time out and rejuvenate, for the creative flow of our thoughts.

The possible solution that should be followed, regardless of which domain we are working on, like video editing, social media marketing, blogging, coding, etc. Giving a fixed amount of time will save us from the chances of getting burned out. The time shouldn’t always be the same but the number of hours should be fixed. Make sure we cut off from your regular work as soon your time is up and park your pending task for the forthcoming day. By this, we are able to achieve more, since we know in a given time frame we have to finish as much. Overall mindset changes with this strategy.

Exercise

Exercise is a critical part of the mental and physical well-being of humans. We are the craziest creature alive on this planet earth, even after knowing something is good/bad for us we still continue doing that absurd thing.
We all have a complaint that we can’t spare even a single hour in 24 hours long day for any physical activity. It’s totally understandable that some day's schedules might look a little odd that we can’t get a single minute to even breathe. But if anyone says that, this is happening with you on a regular day-to-day basis then there is something we need to change.

Photo by Bruno Nascimento on Unsplash

People tend to forget the fact that even walking can lead to burning those extra calories and keeping us fit.
If our day revolves around a lot of work still there is a huge scope of changes in our key activities. Just for example, instead of calling an Uber directly, in front of our home, to a place that is maybe 10 minutes walk away. By this we would be able to put some steps in the daily steps counter, we have to find our workout routine between the daily activities.
Another small example which most of us can relate to is while we are scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube feed instead of sitting at a place and enjoying the things we can take a stroll and enjoy the one-hour-long binge-watching session. We have to steal our time from the available 24 hours, now with a small trick now we are able to merge some physical activity into our daily routine, even without extracting an hour for it.

Side Hustle

A side hustle is a new buzzword we are striving for but again due to time constraints we are not able to implement that next big idea that is long resting in our brain. Facebook CEO marks Zuckerberg says, which is now Facebook’s motto:

Move fast and break things

So this implies if we are not breaking things that mean we are not doing something that can push us from our current state of leisure. Now how we will get the time for our side hustle, remember we have saved some substantial time after fixing our work schedule. Just to add, a side hustle is not for the people who are in the 9 to 5 club, but even if somebody is doing freelancing work, can also work on other things that are different from our regular routine.
Do things fast, try to accomplish the new task that is striking our minds. Try experimenting with it do not think of the consequences, the result will speak for itself. Always keep in mind the work that is not done will never drive us anywhere.

Me Time

Oh Lord, me-time this is the most underrated thing in the entire universe. With the pressure of achieving and successful career, we tend to ignore the Me time. Generally, the me-time does not mean that we should sit alone in a room and perform some sort of meditation. But it is a rejuvenating time for an individual that could be possible by spending some time with our loved ones, friends, siblings, etc. This will lead to the flow of positive energy inside us and in turn, we will be able to work in a much better way comparatively.

Photo by Kyle Glenn on Unsplash

One thing most of us tend to follow is preserving our weekend for either extra work or side hustle, that is a very optimal thing to do. But surely out of cumulative 48 hours in our weekend, do spends some time in spending on the things which makes us happy. Those who are already doing it already seen the positive impacts this activity gives us but those who can still be planning to open this treasure box put in some extra effort.
So the same rules apply on the weekend as well, since we should be aware of what all we need to finish. Finishing those tasks as soon as possible will only render the result by giving you those extra hours of freedom.

Final Thoughts.

Just to recap my guide to time management is more of trying to do our work much earlier only by focusing more on what needs to be done.
Even before starting our work, we should be very clear about the task and the priority of finishing them. Once we have our list ready first and foremost task would be estimating how soon we can finish them, we call that ETA (Estimate time for arrival).
To maintain the task list we can use any popular apps like Google task, Apple notes, a spreadsheet, or even a pen and paper. Once we have the priorities set, there are high chances that we will be able to finish and take out time for those extracurricular activities, and of course, the side hustles which earlier we are failing to do since the agenda was missing.

Most probably now you will be able to work on our next big idea and make it happen.

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