At work, we have all encountered the difficulties of managing time. When you wake up, you feel confident and positive, believing that you will not only fulfill all your deadlines but also find time for exercise and prepare a nutritious meal at home.
As you proceed with your thoughts, life inevitably unfolds. You depart later than planned, encounter heavy traffic, and ultimately reach your desk filled with frustration towards the world.
You decide to begin working on the project you’ve been procrastinating for weeks. However, you realize that you have a series of consecutive meetings until noon, and you are already late for the first one. After the last meeting, you start going through your emails, but you get interrupted by a meeting with the VP. He has a sudden request for you, which he claims will only take an hour. However, you estimate that it will actually take three hours.
There are methods available to regain those seemingly difficult to find hours of the day. It revolves around managing your own time instead of allowing it to control you. To begin, we have ten work-related tips for time management.
1. Figure out how you’re currently spending your time
In order to enhance your personal time management, the initial step you should take is to determine the whereabouts of your time. Make an effort to meticulously record your time for a week by monitoring your activities each day. This assessment will assist you in:
- Determine how much you can feasibly accomplish in a day.
- Identify time sucks.
- Focus on activities that provide the greatest returns.
When you perform a time audit, it will become evident how much of your time is dedicated to thoughts, conversations, and activities that are unproductive.
By thinking step by step, you will develop a better understanding of the duration it takes you to complete specific tasks (which will be advantageous for implementing a later suggestion). Additionally, this exercise can assist you in identifying the time of day when you are most productive, enabling you to allocate that time to work on projects that demand high levels of focus and creativity.
When assessing your time, it is advisable to realistically estimate it. After conducting an audit, compare the actual time taken to complete certain tasks or projects with your initial expectations. We tend to overestimate our ability to finish things quickly. If there is a significant disparity, consider this when planning your future schedule. This will allow you to better allocate your time and prevent delays and missed deadlines.
2. Create a daily schedule—and stick with it
Without organizing a to-do list, it is crucial to create a list of the most important tasks for the next day before leaving work. This step is essential in effectively managing time at work and enables you to start working promptly upon arrival at the office.
By putting everything on paper, you can avoid lying awake at night, tossing and turning as you try to remember all the tasks that are on your mind. Instead, your subconscious mind can process your plans while you sleep, allowing you to wake up in the morning with fresh insights for the upcoming workday.
If you are unable to do it the day before, ensure that you create a list as soon as you wake up in the morning. You will realize that the amount of time you spend devising a clear plan is minimal compared to the time you waste switching between tasks without a plan.
3. Prioritize wisely
When you are organizing your to-do list, it is important to prioritize in order to manage your time effectively at work. Begin by getting rid of tasks that should not be done initially. Next, pinpoint the three or four tasks that are the most crucial and complete them first. By doing this, you ensure that you finish the essential tasks.
Take a moment to assess your to-do list and ensure that you have arranged it according to the significance of each task, rather than their immediate deadlines.
The achievement of your goals is supported by important responsibilities, while immediate attention is required by urgent responsibilities, which are associated with the achievement of someone else’s goals. Instead of focusing on activities that support our business goals, we often allow the urgent tasks to dominate our attention.
Stephen Covey’s book First Things First provides a time management tip for work to prevent falling into this trap. This tip is the Eisenhower matrix, which is an organizational tool used to prioritize tasks based on their level of importance and urgency.
- Important and urgent: These tasks have important deadlines with high urgency—complete them right away.
- Important but not urgent: These items are important but don’t require immediate action and should involve long-term development strategizing. Strive to spend most of your time in this quadrant.
- Urgent but not important: These tasks are urgent but not important. Minimize, delegate, or eliminate them because they don’t contribute to your output. They are generally distractions that may result from the poor planning of others.
- Not urgent and not important: These activities hold little if any value and should be eliminated as much as possible.
4. Group similar tasks together
To save time and mental energy, it is advisable to complete all tasks of one type before moving on to the next.
One way to rephrase the text while maintaining the same meaning is: Instead of responding to emails and messages as they arrive, it is better to allocate specific time periods for tasks such as answering emails, making phone calls, and filing. To avoid distractions, it is recommended to turn off phone and email notifications completely, eliminating any temptation to check them at unscheduled times.
5. Tackle the most difficult task first
We all experience distractions, such as phone calls, favors from colleagues, or a pile of dirty dishes, which can cause us to lose track of time. Therefore, it is time to take action and “eat that frog.”
For individuals who struggle with procrastination or getting easily distracted, the Eat That Frog productivity method, originated by leadership guru Brian Tracy, is highly effective. It advises prioritizing the most significant, challenging, and crucial task initially, the one that you would probably postpone for the future. Only proceed to other tasks after you have successfully completed the main one.
6. Batch-process similar tasks
Batching, also referred to as batch processing, involves the act of grouping similar tasks together to facilitate concurrent work. The grouping can be based on either objective or function. A practical example of this would be to assemble tasks with similar objectives or functions for simultaneous completion.
- Client meetings on Wednesdays and Thursdays
- Respond to emails from 10 to 11 a.m. only
- Generate reports first thing in the morning, and distribute
7. Set reasonable time limits
Parkinson’s law states that, “Work expands to fill the time allotted to complete it.”
Even if you have a full day to complete two tasks that should only take three hours, it is likely that you will still use the entire day to finish those two tasks. However, if you give yourself a shorter amount of time, it is probable that you will still be able to meet the initial deadline.
8. Avoid multitasking
The science is conclusive when it comes to multitasking: It reduces efficiency and can potentially pose a risk. According to the American Psychological Association, engaging in mental juggling incurs “switching costs” that diminish productivity. Even though each task switch may only take a few seconds, the cumulative effect of frequent multitasking is significant. Additionally, the likelihood of making errors also increases.
9. Keep things organized
If any of these things have occurred, you may be in need of an organizational makeover.
- Late to a meeting you’re leading
- Forgot to print out a report your boss needed for a presentation
- Had to ask IT for your username or password more than once
First of all, the good news is that starting with the basics, organization is a skill that can be learned.
- Maintain a clean work desk. National Geographic reports that psychologists and neuroscientists link the effects of clutter on cognition, mental health and behavior. Visual clutter can increase stress levels and anxiety, triggering a fight-or-flight response. For better decision-making, toss any papers that can be shredded or recycled. Clear out nonessentials and put daily tools within easy reach.
- Coordinate your computer files and shared drives. File naming is key to organizing digital files. Create a system that allows you and your colleagues to locate items quickly and easily.
- Use a calendar. Organize your calendar by life buckets, such as “personal,” “professional” and “commitment.” Try color-coding to quickly differentiate categories or by urgent versus non-urgent.
10. Use time management tools
Take advantage of these productivity and automation tools that are specifically designed to enhance productivity.
- Slack for keeping team communications in one central space organized by channel. No more slogging through endless email threads for project details.
- Dropbox or OneDrive for storing, sharing and backing up files. Authorized team members can access cloud-based files 24/7.
- Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar for staying on top of daily, weekly and monthly schedules. Integrate them with Slack to get automatic alerts and reminders directly in related channels.
- Canva and Lucidchart for designs and diagrams. They help even the design-challenged create professional-looking templates.
