Time Management Tips for Success
Productivity levels depend on how one manages his time throughout the day. Whereas being busy is different from being productive, it’s important to maximize the hours in a day to accomplish tasks that matter in achieving an effective work-life balance.
Numerous time management tips and systems exist as a result of a global need for more work done in less time. Jason Borrevik, an executive compensation consultant, says that time management has become an important skill that employees must possess in order to succeed in the workplace.
Here are five practical time management tips to help you improve your productivity at work:
1. Sort Tasks
In addition to writing one long to-do list, Jason Borrevik recommends that you sort your tasks to know which ones to prioritize. Consider dividing them into categories that align with short, mid- and longer-term time deadlines and the criticality of the work/project relative to the range of work you are doing. Categories might include:
· Important and urgent — These involve crises and emergencies you need to deal with immediately.
· Important but not urgent — Spend most of your time in this category because they involve planning, prevention, and improvement for your job.
· Less important but urgent — Immediate responsibilities tied to emails, phone calls, and meeting requests.
· Not important and not urgent — These can be timewasters such as mindless surfing and trivial work.
2. Set Deadlines
According to Jason Borrevik, each task should have a deadline for you to work more efficiently. When you set a time limit for a certain project, you are motivated to work hard so you can move on to accomplishing other tasks. Additionally, deadlines help to prioritize your work so that you can ensure that important tasks are done before other projects.
3. Do the Most Important Things First
Your brain is fully awake in the morning, making it the optimum time for you to accomplish the most important jobs in your to-do list. Don’t put off the big tasks for the end of the day as there’s a tendency that you’ll be more stressed because of lack of time. Mark Twain once said, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. If it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”
4. Be Effective with Multi-tasking
While the art of multi-tasking can be considered an essential skill, Jason Borrevik says it may also lead to sacrificing the quality of work done. Multi-tasking can shift your attention to multiple times, which can lead to a dilution of the quality of your work and accomplishing less instead of more. Even if you need to work on different things at once as a necessary part of your job, focus on one task and finishing it before moving on to the next one. This time management practice allows you to engage in deep work and makes you more efficient at producing high quality work.
5. Eliminate Distractions
Interruptions during work greatly affect your productivity. To avoid distractions, establish periods of time during the day where you can set your phone on “do not disturb” mode and turn off notifications. Jason Borrevik states that you can also try implementing the Pomodoro Technique, which involves breaking your work into 25-minute intervals with 5-minute breaks in between to allow yourself some time to relax while still being able to focus on highly-productive work.
