Effective Time Management Skills
How do you feel when you are in a meeting and someone asks “What did you do this week?” You scramble to think of anything that looks good, but really it was just one big blur. When was the last time that you didn’t have so much on your plate? It’s not easy to keep up with everything and everyone, but there are ways for improving time management skills. In this tutorial we will discuss best tips to help manage your time better!
Time Management Skills are an example of soft skills
Soft skills are those personality traits, people skills and abilities that are critical to getting ahead in the business world, but aren’t tangibly related to job performance.
It is great for any employee who has strong time management skills as they can handle everything related to his or her job and also work well with other people in the office. Time management skills can be divided into 3 categories: time planning, time utilization and time evaluation.
-Time Planning. It is very important for individuals to plan their work and schedule it properly so they can manage their time well. They must not overbook themselves with tasks or make too many appointments because this will only result to having a lot of unfinished tasks and assignments.
-Time Utilization. This involves managing the time well with regards to job activities, personal life and other things that people must do such as taking care of the family or doing house chores. It is necessary for employees to manage their work schedule so it will not affect them when doing other activities, especially during weekends. It is also necessary to have proper communication with other people, especially those who are close to you. This will only be effective if both parties understand each other and can communicate properly at all times.
-Time Evaluation. Evaluating time means continuously checking one’s performance. You should always ask yourself whether what you did was effective or not. It is also necessary to check the time you wasted so you can be more productive in your work.
Quick Tips to Improve Your Time Management Skills
Prioritize. Figure out what is the most important thing to do and start with that one. If you have a pile of papers on your desk, pick the top one and work down until it’s all done or you’re tired of working on them. If you’re not sure what the most important thing is, ask your boss or a team member.
Get enough sleep! Sleep deprivation can lead to decreased productivity, increased irritability, and more. Make time for sleep and prioritize it as a top priority.
To do this, set a time to go to bed and make sure that you have enough time before then. Shut off devices an hour or two before sleep time so it’s less likely that they will disrupt your sleep patterns. It can be helpful to lay out clothes for the next day (so you don’t put them on in a
Don’t multitask! In time management, multitasking is when you do two or more things at once. This may seem like a good idea on the surface but it actually makes your work take twice as long because of all the time spent switching between tasks and forgetting where you left off in each task. Instead focus on one thing until that’s done before moving on to the next.
Get organized! You can’t manage time if you don’t know where anything is or how long a project will take, so get good at organizing your time and materials with tools like calendars, countdowns, whiteboards/charts for time management charts and other organizational methods that work best for you
Keep a list of everything you need to do in order to get ready for bed at night so that it doesn’t take as long in the morning.
Break big projects into smaller tasks. You will feel more accomplished rather than feeling overwhelmed.
Get organized! This can include setting up a file system for paper documents, assigning areas in your office to specific tasks or projects, and even using what you already have around the house as storage solutions.
Learn how to say no! You don’t want to take on too much because then you will be overwhelmed and won’t have the energy to do your best on any of it.
Make a list of what you are grateful for at the end of every day, this helps with stress levels!
Give yourself five minutes in the morning to tackle anything that was added onto your plate last minute before starting work. It can be five minutes of email, or even just sorting through your inbox.
Take care of yourself! Do something nice for you at least once a day, this can mean going on lunch break and getting out to eat by ourselves, reading some books we are interested in but don’t have time to read during the week while having our coffee, taking a bath, or anything else we enjoy.
Take a deep breath! Forcing yourself to take a break for just five minutes can be very beneficial and help you come back with fresh eyes.
Give yourself breaks throughout the day by taking short walks outside, walking around your office building, stretching in your chair at work – these all can make a difference in how you feel.
Create time for yourself to do something nice, whether it be going out with friends or doing some self care at home, making time for this will help your overall happiness and well being.
Do not multitask! If you are trying to do too many things at once (i.e. watching TV and working on your laptop) you will not be getting the best quality work done in either area.
Take time to meditate – it has been shown that meditation can reduce stress, increase focus, improve self awareness and much more!
Find ways of showing gratitude (i.e., writing down what you are grateful for, making a gratitude board or a gratitude jar), the simple act of showing appreciation is shown to make people happier.
Progressively prioritize – as you get closer to achieving your goal, shift the focus to other tasks that are important but don’t have an urgent deadline.
Get organized! Again, time management is key to being productive and efficient. As you read these tips it’s good to remember that time doesn’t stop for anyone – time will keep moving whether we are working or not so the goal should be to work more efficiently as time goes on. An essential step in time management skills is getting organized.
Get a time management chart to help you manage your time better by creating timelines, goals and deadlines for each task that needs to be done. The next step in time management skills is breaking big projects into smaller tasks.
Avoid time wasters: Be aware of time-wasters that can drag on your day and try to avoid them as much as you can. Time wasters include things like social media, Facebook browsing, watching TV or movies for too long, reading through pointless articles online etc.
How to Use the Pomodoro Method for Better Time Management
In time management, the Pomodoro technique is a time-management method developed in the 1980s by Francesco Cirillo. The Pomodoro Technique relies on time-boxing to break down work into intervals traditionally 25 minutes long (i.e., “Pomodoros”) and uses a timer to track progress. Each interval is time-boxed by a short break time, typically three to five minutes.
The technique uses time boxing with intervals of 25 minutes for single tasks and shorter breaks in between. This time management method is often used when working on programming problems or long research paper assignments that have multiple deadlines throughout the week. It also works well when you are freelancing and need to meet deadlines for different clients.
How to maintain a good level of energy throughout the day?
How to be productive regardless of your energy level? This article will give you a step-by-step guide.
Seriously, how do some people have massive amounts of energy and they can get things done effectively regardless of their surroundings? It’s always the ballerina dancers in the ballet that seem to glide across the dance hall effortlessly.
But then again, these are the questions that everyone seems to ask. It’s not just you and me – but from university students to high personell in fields such as technology (yes folks, nerds need their sleep too) it always seemed that most of us have a problem with our energy levels throughout the day. In fact I’m willing to bet that if you were to take a survey of everyone you know, they would say the same thing – that they usually have a hard time maintaining their levels of energy.
It isn’t easy but I can honestly tell you that it’s possible to consistently maintain high energy levels throughout your work day. To be productive regardless of what kind of mood you’re in, regardless of what kind of weather it is outside and regardless of how much work or stress you have in your life. In this article, I’ll try to share my own personal tips with you so that hopefully, they may help you out as well.
If you really want to maintain a high level of energy throughout the day, you will need to find your personal limits.
In order to do so, I would suggest the following:
1) Keep a log of how much energy you have throughout the day each week. This way, you can see if there is a pattern to your mood swings – and then on top of that make an effort to maintain a good level of energy throughout the day. It’s important to do this for at least 1 month – then you will have some data points and you can start working from there. The best way is to be honest with yourself (I know, easier said than done) and cross out each time that your energy levels drop, until you see a pattern – then you can work on improving your energy levels.
2) Maintain a good sleep cycle . Contrary to popular belief, 7-9 hours is usually not enough time for most people (I believe 6 hours is ideal for beginners though). If you want to maintain a high level of energy throughout the day and still get things done, you will need to make sure that you get enough sleep each night. This is the number one thing that some people tend to ignore, and eventually it will catch up to them.
3) Avoid caffeine . If you already drink coffee or use any type of caffeine during a normal work day – STOP. I know there are tons of people out there that get their fix from coffee or whatever other energy drinks, but the thing is this – while caffeine does give you an initial boost in energy it tends to wear off really quickly and then you’ll be left without any energy. In fact I’d say that it usually makes people more tired than before they took the caffeine.
4) Eating healthy does help you maintain a good level of energy throughout the day. It’s important to get plenty of proteins and iron in your diet, as well as vitamins such as: A, C and E. So if you’re a vegetarian or just not into meat for whatever reason – these vitamins can be found in milk products (e.g yogurt) and fruit.
5) If it is possible, take a break every 90 minutes. This way you get some time to relax, recoup your energy levels – and continue working on the task at hand afterwards. In fact everyone should take breaks throughout the day regardless of how much energy they have – so there is no need to worry about this being a problem.
6) Get enough exercise throughout the day . This is only applicable if it makes sense of course, but taking a cold shower for example can help you boost your energy levels – and then afterwards you’ll come back to work with fresh ideas. In addition to that doing afternoon sports (or some type of physical activity) is usually a great way of winding down your work day.
7) Relaxing helps maintain high energy levels throughout the day and this goes double if you decide to meditate or do some kind of deep breathing exercises. Personally I like to do something similar to what JK Rowling did in order to help her finish writing Harry Potter – where she would clear her head by walking around and thinking about completely different things, until she found herself back at the computer working on whatever book that she was currently writing. So if you have a stressful job or an important project to finish – trying some deep breathing exercises or meditation can help you find your focus again.
The most important thing is to be honest with yourself and realize your own patterns. Do you tend to have more energy in the morning or afternoon – what time do you usually feel most tired, etc?
Creating a Change of Habit
Now this is something that applies to those who want to change their behavior for the better but cannot seem to start doing it. I’ve noticed this problem with most of the people that are around me, and I know that it’s something that applies to myself as well – but luckily I’ve been able to change my behavior over time.
Here is an example: Say you want to start running every single day after work – but when you finally manage to make a plan for yourself (to run after work) you end up not doing it. So your mind will automatically assume that running is something that does not fit in your schedule and then it will start believing this behavior to be a truth.
However there is an easy fix for this: Simply change the way you go about things. Instead of doing what you’ve always done (in this case, running at the end of your day) – take a break in between and decide to do something different. In this example you could either go for a walk or just simply eat dinner (instead of all that sitting after work).
Afterwards you can always start doing what you’ve planned on doing before. And because it’s your mind that will tell you what’s realistic or not – giving it a break before continuing on will make things a lot easier.
What I’m trying to say is – don’t go by routine all the time, because after doing the same thing for some time, your mind will automatically assume that this behavior is how life works and then it will stop trying to do anything out of the ordinary. So at least try and mix it up a little bit, so that you don’t have such solidified behaviors.
Without sufficient energy life can be very hard to live – especially when you do things for yourself (like writing blog posts) or need to focus on finishing tasks that require a lot of attention and energy. The way I see it there is really no need to complain about not having enough energy – because you can easily take the steps necessary in order to improve your health, brain, and behavior.
Simply start by paying more attention to what happens each day – and then notice how certain things are affecting your energy levels. Once you know what works best for you – it will be a lot easier to maintain high amounts of energy throughout the day and improve your lifestyle overall.
Conclusion
No matter what area you are trying to improve in like time management, organization, self-care or your customer service skills there is no secret fix – it takes building habits that sticks with you over time. The only way to do this is to work on it daily!
A quick tip to help remember important tasks: create an action plan for yourself. For example, if you want to improve your time management skills create a list of tasks you would like to accomplish in the next week or month and cross them off as they are completed – simply getting this stuff out of your head and onto paper will help relieve stress and encourage productive behavior.
Work hard every day on improving these habits that stick with you will improve your productivity and help you gain more confidence in your work.
