There’s just something about how the day goes by so quickly when you have a ton of stuff to complete. It may be your work obligations, school assignments or family stuff. They all seem like unmanageable daily tasks and mastering time is the only thing that will help you bridge this loss of time, making a difference in your life. If you find it hard to juggle all the tasks that your day has in store for you, here are tips to help you manage your time more effectively.
Set Daily Goals
How will you know how to spend your time if you don’t even know what you want to spend it on? This means that your goals come first. You need to set your next day’s goals as these will help allocate your time well. What is it that you want to achieve in your day? Whatever it may be, write it down and allocate the time you will use to do it daily. If you aspire to read more, write more, or do a certain activity, set it out, as this allows you to register the activity and make time for it when you are creating a routine.
Have A Routine
We can never emphasize enough the importance of having a daily routine. This creates a chronology in your tasks that helps make sure you perform them while saving you time. Due to the pre-planning, you would have put into organizing your daily tasks, you won’t have to waste time in between tasks, wondering where to start in regards to the next task. By ensuring that you stick to a daily routine, you will be able to effectively, efficiently and timely do your daily tasks thus making you productive.
Get Rid of Distractions
If you think back to the number of times you wasted time because you were distracted, you may as well have written so many books by now. It is so easy to pick up your phone in between tasks and drown in the world of social media while being distracted from the task you may have initially been performing. This not only makes you less productive but makes you reckless with the limited time you have. Whether it’s your phone, your surrounding areas or noise, ensure that you address your distractions and get rid of them so that you manage your time wisely.
Don’t Take Up Too Many Commitments
Please always keep in mind that you are just human. You are not a robot and because of this, you cannot perform several tasks, all at once. In some cases, even a robot wouldn’t be able to juggle the things that you put on your daily plate. You are allowed to push certain obligations to the next day. Don’t just accept irresponsibly by committing to everything you are told to do. Instead, use your logic to assess whether it is realistic and if it is not, don’t commit to it.
Delegate Your Work
If there is too much work that is expected to be finished within that same day, you need to delegate the work. Even though you like doing your tasks on your own to ensure that everything comes out perfectly, it won’t help if you don’t finish the tasks now, does it? Delegate your workload to other people whenever possible, as this will help you manage your time well and meet all your deadlines in perfect time.
Manage Your Health
The body that works needs to be taken care of very well if work is to be completed timely. Your body needs to be fit, healthy and strong so that you can perform your tasks well. A comparison would be the amount of work you get done on a sick day versus the amount of work you get done on a healthy day. You complete more tasks when you are feeling well. Due to this, you need to ensure that you take care of your health by staying fit, eating well and staying hydrated.
Have Boundaries
A funny analogy may be you excusing yourself from home affairs every time you put on your work suit and you excusing yourself from work affairs when you wear your comfy home attire. You need to ensure that your different life aspects do not encroach on each other during the day. This will ensure that you stay focused while performing your mandated tasks at work, yet it will also give you time to spend on social aspects of your life. Ensure that you set boundaries among your work and family so that they keep this in mind and respect it.
Group Similar Tasks Together
I’m sure you can relate to the way that grouping similar tasks can be so easy for you. Instead of not having a system and doing things haphazardly, have a tasking system. This may be you opening your work messages at the same time and replying to all of them first before moving in to write the reports for the messages at once. This will help you save a lot of time and it will also allow you to reduce your cognitive load. Before mindlessly performing tasks, group them first as this will increase your time management.
Break Regularly
Taking breaks in-between work can seem like you’re slacking off but it has the opposite effect as it will help you manage your time even better. Taking breaks regularly helps you to stay energized, increasing your productivity. Instead of tiredly toiling away, take small breaks in between work to rejuvenate yourself and to keep your mind clear.