Tips For Time Management: How to Manage Your Day Effectively

Everyone has days when it feels like 24 hours is barely enough to accomplish everything on your to-do list. You have deadlines and deliverables, plus obligations at home. Eventually, things pile up, leaving you drowning in your duties. Sometimes your personal life takes a hit as you try to catch up on your professional obligations. Other times, you overlook some aspects of your job because of personal commitments. Ultimately, in your attempt to accomplish everything, you end up compromising.

This isn't to say you can't choose between your professional and personal life. As an adult with responsibilities, sometimes, you must make concessions, such as taking leave from work to attend your son's graduation. But you can win in both worlds.

Is having more time the answer?

At some point, people thought multitasking was the solution. Do more to achieve more, right? A pretty straightforward concept. All this time, you might have just been underestimating your ability to perform two tasks simultaneously or switch from one to another. However, experience and studies have shown that multitasking damages the human brain and ultimately detracts from productivity.

Instead of cramming 20 tasks in one hour, perhaps you have to learn to spread things out. And time management may be the key to unlocking your efficiency.

What Is Time Management?

Time management is the ability to use your time in an organised, efficient, and productive manner. The process helps you manage and suitably divide your tasks to make the most out of your daily routine.

Why Does Having Time Management Skills Matter?

As a human being, you take on a lot of responsibility – juggling tasks relating to work, family, society, and yourself. With everything that you must accomplish in 24 hours, the absence of time management will take a serious toll on your emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing.

Skipping your skincare routine in the morning, missing out on savouring that warm cup of coffee and carefully prepared breakfast, or leaving out daily exercise may look harmless but may eventually cost you your drive and ability to carry through challenging work days.

Time management skills allow you to ensure all aspects of your life are taken care of, your golden ticket towards work-life balance.

Examples of Time Management Skills

Here are the traits you should master to win at time management.

1. Planning

Planning helps you be more in control. If you know what to expect, it will be easier to navigate your schedule more effectively.

2. Organisation

Maintaining a well-organised environment and work/home system is necessary for time management. Keep an up-to-date calendar and arrange your home and office space so things are easy to use, find, store, or file.

But more than physical layout, you can also establish a routine to help you get through your tasks. For example, you can check your emails first thing in the morning, schedule meetings before lunch, and engage in deep work in the afternoon.

3. Prioritisation And Goal Setting

You can drown in to-do lists if you don't know how to prioritise. Arrange your tasks based on goals. Enumerate them based on time sensitivity, ease, and urgency. Which ones require the entire team to check? Which ones end with you?

Goal-setting helps you get a clearer picture of what you want to achieve in a day, a week, a month, or a year. The clearer your goals are, the easier you can accomplish No. 3.

4. Communicating And Delegating

Strong communication skills and proper delegation are paramount to achieving more as a team. By giving clear instructions and assigning well based on your team’s strengths, you are more likely to achieve goals within your target deadlines.

5. Problem-solving

Problem-solving is the competence to think outside the box, identify problems, analyse answers, and provide the most suitable solutions. To be an effective problem solver, you must also train your emotions and keep your stress in check so you can think clearly.

How to Have Effective Time Management Skills

Create a plan and routine.

As James Clear wrote in his book,Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, “Success is the product of daily habits – not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.”

You can train time-management skills through habit formation. Set aside time to plan your day, week, or month so you are more in control of what you can stretch, move, and accomplish in your schedule. A routine may not be immediately transformative, but with consistency, it evolves into one of your most effective tools in succeeding and living a well-balanced life.

Take care of your body.

You might not believe it, but caring for your body helps you become so much more productive. After all, many people manage to work without regular exercise. You might feel like an hourlong jog or cooking a healthy meal might be counterproductive as you could use the time to work. Taking pauses to work on yourself isn’t procrastinating. Think of it as a pitstop, which allows you to work better and harder.

Moreover, exercise is well-known for enhancing your creative juices, improving focus, and keeping your mind sharp. On the other hand, unhealthy diets reportedly contribute to sluggishness and lower productivity. Squeeze in activities such as journaling or meditation in your daily routine to improve your concentration and ability to deal with stress. Don't neglect the benefits of getting enough sleep, eating well, and choosing the stairs over the elevator.

Feeling energised helps give you a better perspective on managing your tasks and staying motivated.

Mind your mind.

Time management relies heavily on your mental wellbeing. Having a positive mindset can help you see things in a bigger picture and create clearer, attainable, and straightforward goals that ultimately help you manage your time.

Remember what we said about organisation? Create a custom of maintaining orderliness around you by clearing your belongings and protecting your energy from clutter or unnecessary stress. Messy spaces serve as a distraction and might diminish your productivity.

If things are stressing you out at work, lay each problem out and choose your battles. Find out which ones are worth dealing with and which ones you can just let go. Review your goals and see which ones of these issues need fixing for you to accomplish your aims.

Practise gratitude, create boundaries, and take adequate breaks and you’ll observe that you’ll eventually feel more engaged in all aspects of your life. Such practices create clearer life directions and decrease the chances of feeling burnout or unmotivated.

Incorporate Time Management Techniques Into Your Life

Forming healthy habits, and taking care of your body and your mind are foundations of acquiring effective management skills. Once you’ve figured out the basics, you can explore techniques to help you create a routine you’ll thrive in.

Checklisting Your Goals

Many people start their day or week by listing their tasks. Or perhaps inputting deadlines on a calendar. However, this system could get overwhelming – especially if things are happening all at once. Learn to compartmentalise your duties according to priorities. Perhaps you can start by plotting out the projects with the biggest weight. Check the deadlines to see which are time-sensitive or which are part of a long way-of-working chain. Which requires legwork and which just need a sign-off?

You can check off more minor items, such as sending out an invitation for the company Zumba party or RSVPing to an event two months away can, at the start of the day (to get them out of the way) or at the end (when you’re done with your more strenuous responsibilities).

Timeboxing

One effective time management technique is called timeboxing. Timeboxing means cutting your time into boxes and creating limits to complete tasks and reach goals. It’s especially helpful if you have to muscle through several tasks and meetings throughout the day.

Soft timeboxing

Soft timeboxing or open timeboxing is a more flexible and forgiving way to manage your time. Let’s say you aim to limit your team meetings to four times a month, every Friday from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. When the clock strikes 5 and the meeting is still unresolved, you can extend to wrap things up.

Hard timeboxing

Hard timeboxing follows a stricter approach wherein the meeting ends at 5 p.m., whether or not the discussion is finished. You must progress to the next task in your schedule. Although this may come off harder to ease into, this approach can help you and your team improve your efficiency and effectiveness skills because there is more room for discipline than adjustments.

However you choose to do it, the concept of timeboxing can help you do more since you are delegating specific times of the day for particular tasks. By scheduling email replies to definite time boxes in the morning and the afternoon, you avoid distractions from jumping from one task to another in the middle of the day.

Keep in mind that obtaining time management skills does not happen overnight. But if you stick to your habits, techniques, and goals, you will eventually be able to manage your energy and own your time.

Ready to#SEEKBetterconnections and boost your professional life? Visit JobStreet now, update your profile, and read more helpful advice from our Career Resources section. Get the app, available on App Store and Google Play, for easier access to more opportunities.