6 Brilliant Ways To Improve Time Management Skills
Got Stuck? Try These Tips To Streamline Your Time at Workplace and Follow Your Passion.
“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” — Henry David Thoreau.
Spending quality time with family and friends, completing all work on time, understanding yourself and your passion requires an effective time management skill. If you can manage yourself according to the time in advance, you can enjoy life and accomplish personal and professional excellence.
Everyone has equal time but everyone has not equal volume of work to do. Therefore, you need your personalized time management techniques. You know it is easier to say than to implement the same. You often find time management exhausting and you get stuck. What is the solution then?
Here you will learn the six brilliant ways to improve your time management skills that will give you a competitive advantage.
How do employees spend their time?
Do you track your time?
If you are an employee, you spend your large portion of time in two activities:
- A job of 9 to 5: It takes a minimum of 8 hours.
- Average sleeping time of 6–8 hours.
Both activities are so crucial that you cannot reduce the time for them. If you try, it will damage your wealth and health. Hence, you block your 14–16 hours out of 24 hours there.
Other time allocation may be like this:
- 2 hours for daily rituals,
- 2 hours for travels,
- 2 hours for family needs,
- 2–4 hours for social media platforms, mobile callings, watching TV, etc.
If you track your time, you find you spent your 24 hours doing such routine activities. You get minimum chances of productive work and following your passion.
How will you find time for your passion?
You are passionate about one or more things. Your passion makes your life worthy of living. If you follow your passion, you will live your life without complaining about it.
Stephen R. Covey has rightly said, “The key is in not spending time, but in investing it.”
Spending time and investing time are two distinct things. If you spend time, you gain nothing. If you invest time, you will get returns.
When I got promoted to the Senior Manager category, I found time management skills an indispensable one. My office work made me busy with many activities.
Business targets, customer services, several meetings, learning new skills etc demanded much time. I had to spend less time with my family and friends.
My passion for writing seemed to be things of the past. I tried several methods for managing myself and using time slots. I experimented with them. Eventually, I succeeded to follow my heart and my passion.
How will you invest your time in place of spending it?
Here is my time investment formula:
- Plan your to-do list daily with a purpose
To create a to-do list is easy, but to implement it is difficult. I used to prepare a to-do list daily, but that used to turn into a list of incomplete work. After a week or a month, the list got longer and was almost difficult to complete.
I learn that creating a to-do list is not a process of making a list of work, but it must have two essential ingredients:
One priority to do assigned work and
Two, a purpose behind each work.
If you complete your work as per its priority and purpose, you remain focused and increase your chances to have done it with a sense of satisfaction.
You incorporate those two things while preparing any to-do list.
2. Review what works for you
You are unique. Your situations and your working styles are different. It is not always necessary that what works for me will work for you too. My recommendation is to review what methods or tools or techniques work for you. Learn a new time management skill and implement it. Review it after a month. If it works for you, follow it otherwise discard and try another one. Review your progress against your efforts.
3. Automate or delegate your work
How is a car manufactured? An independent unit produces separately each part of the car, and then engineers assemble those parts. This is the way to build a car.
Similarly, different hardware parts and software components assemble to make a computer.
Delegation and automatation are sharing the big work in smaller unit. Your focus should be on doing work in its small chunks or unit. Whenever it is possible to delegate your work, delegate that. You will save your time doing that.
You have different automate systems, know and use them depending on your necessities.
I have automated my social media platforms, blogs and meeting and work schedules. Try them and you will find them very useful.
4. Build Good Habits
Do not think that you have bad habits and you need to build good habits. To build good habits means to identify those habits that hinder your progress. Let me share some situations:
- If you procrastinate, you change it.
- If you spend more time watching television or on the internet more time than required, stop doing them.
- If you don’t rise early in the morning, start getting up early and go to bed early.
- If you don’t involve yourself other than your work activities, find time to do household chores or play with children.
- If you don’t find time to read books, start reading at least a single page either in the morning or at night.
If you build such good habits, you will manage yourself and time and transform your life.
5. Invest time and money in learnings
Knowledge is power. In today’s world, everyday knowledge is getting updated. Do not limit yourself to academic qualifications and work experiences. Learn what you need today and for tomorrow. Investing time and money in learning will make you more efficient.
I am a postgraduate in Science, working in management and love literature. How am I performing well? Because I invest in my learning. Learning makes things easier.
6. Nullify distractions and stress
Distractions and stress are major causes of mismatch of time management. Checking regular emails, social media status, watching television, Internets, etc, are some examples of distractions. Those distractions along with other factors like work-pressure, overtimes, hectic schedules, unrealistic business goals etc, cause stress. Stress and distractions kill your time.
If you nullify distractions and stress, you can use time effectively.
Remember the following six steps once again:
- Plan your to-do list daily with a purpose
- Review what works for you
- Automate or delegate your work
- Build good habits
- Invest time and money in learnings
- Nullify distractions and stress
Following the above six steps, you can find time for your passion and can streamline your time at the workplace.
Share your insights by writing a response!
Hope you liked this article!
Would you give me a clap or two?
Also, if you liked the above article, check and support my other blog posts. (click below links)
