Time-management: Finding time when there’s no time
“The key is not spending time but investing in it” — this famous quote of Stephen R. Covey seems to be extremely relevant in the era of flexible working. Why? Because when we truly want to work our way, designing the workday becomes our own responsibility. It’s a completely different experience than the one we know from in-office times. There are no fixed rules such as starting to work at a certain hour or leaving the workplace when “work” is done. That’s why we must become conscious designers of our time if we really want to master the luxury of smart working.
Defining importance
Defining urgency and and importance isn’t such an easy task as we are being bombarded with information every minute — from random popups (that keep distracting us) to ASAP requests from other co-workers. How should we possibly prioritise if the ocean of tasks that we are expected to complete becomes deeper and deeper?👀 Luckily, there are many tips and techniques that will facilitate our journey to top-notch time-management. Let’s check out some of them below.
- The Eisenhower Matrix
It will help you distinguish tasks that are important, not important, urgent and not urgent. Thanks to it, you’ll be able to assign tasks into four categories and decide which you should take care of first, delete or delegate. Obviously, using this matrix on an everyday basis may be a little bit too time-consuming. The recommendation is to rather reflect on our week or even entire month to find out where we can improve our practices. If it turns out that most of our time falls into completing the “urgent and not important” category, then something is probably wrong. Also, if “urgent and important” actions (such as running around putting out fires) rule our workday, we may want to rethink how long-term planning can bring us closer to the bigger picture. With this tool, we’re aiming to stop being constantly busy, focus on creating impact, stop procrastinating and start delegating tasks.
- The Kanban board
It’s sometimes hard to remember all the things we have to complete and that’s where this simple tool comes handy. Kanban is a workflow management method and thanks to it, we no longer have to remember each and every little task but it will all be part of a logical flow of action steps. We can start with the simplest Kanban board possible — grouping everything based on progress “to do”, “doing” and “done”. Obviously there can be many more combinations and we can also add other team members into the picture. The good news is that we don’t even need a special application to start as it can all be done in Notion.
- The MoSCoW Prioritization Method
No, this one has nothing to do with the capital of Russia. MoSCoW is an acronym that was first introduced in 1994 by Dai Clegg. It stands for “must, should, could, would” and the “o” was added for easier pronunciation. This method helps to classify items that are necessary to reach the end goal, focusing on priorities and it’s quite popular among agile teams. However, we can also use it to plan our workday by making sure that we dedicate the most time to tasks that bring us closer to success. We should keep in mind that defining the output first is crucial.
Procrastination vs. action
If you’ve never ever procrastinated make sure to raise your hand!✋ You must know that 15–20% of adults are chronically affected by procrastination. We keep pushing things off until last minute rather than taking care of them right away for many reasons. It may be because we perceive some tasks to be boring, we think that they will be more difficult, we are distracted by other things or we are simply too tired to focus. Because of so many possible procrastination factors, t’s extremely important to identify why we actually do it.
Almost needless to say, we can stop this vicious circle if we analyse several factors that may be the culprit:
- Pay attention to your workload. Are you feeling overwhelmed with the number of tasks? Are you constantly working under pressure? Maybe you’re just too tired? Don’t push it too hard. Remember that your well-being is important for productivity.
- Tackle deadlines proactively. You can split a bigger deadline into smaller ones that will help you finalise challenging tasks step by step. Are you willing to complete the whole project at once? Such an approach will be very time-consuming, putting you under pressure and having to leave other priorities behind.
- Do you use time-management techniques? There are so many out there! If you’re willing to start, it’s worth checking out the simplest ones such as Pomodoro, ALPEN and GTD. Combining them with the above mentioned tips will surely drive change.
Being a time master isn’t easy. It’s sometimes hard to dedicate our precious time (that we don’t have!) towards something that won’t show immediate results. But hey — instead of pushing a wagon with square wheels, don’t be too busy to improve… and break this cycle.
