Do you reach your office on time or are you usually late? Do you complete your tasks within the assigned date? Are you able to complete your projects before your deadline? Do you consider yourself a good time manager?
If the answer is NO, then you are not managing your time well. Lacking the skill to manage time effectively can act as a major deficiency in your personality traits. Time management skills are considered to be one of the major personality traits demanded by employers today. In today’s competitive world, everyone has to work within a certain deadline. Not being able to complete the work on time will give your competitors an advantage to prove themselves.
Realizing the importance of time management skill, we came up with some time management strategies that will be very useful to you.
Set Goals
Set a definite destination to move forward in your career path. This will help you to remain focused and have a clear vision. Having a mindset will help you to manage time and find out the sources. Make sure that you are engaging in activities that support your goals. Your daily plans should revolve around the tasks and activities that lead towards goal completion. Consequently, you will have less time for distractions and more time for learning further steps to go ahead.
Schedule Tasks
Plan your schedule. Note what you will be doing the whole day. Make lists of things you should be doing and divide certain time period for each work according to their importance. For example, make your daily plans like, you need to finish an X task by 10am, my task by 3pm, and Z item by 5:30pm. It helps to reduce confusions regarding the tasks needed to be done.
Prioritize Tasks
Prioritizing tasks help to simplify work. It really works as a savior when you have tons of works to complete. While you schedule your tasks, know what is the most important and urgent job to be completed. So, you should have the skill to prioritize task and do it accordingly. You can follow the given guidelines to prioritize your works;
- Important and urgent — Tasks that must be done. Do them right away.
- Important but not urgent — Tasks that appear important, but upon closer examination aren’t. Decide when to do them.
- Urgent but not important — Tasks that make the most “noise,” but when accomplished, have little or no lasting value. Delegate these if possible.
- Not urgent and not important — Low-priority stuff that offer the illusion of “being busy.” Do them later.
To-do List
To-do list is similar to making a work schedule, but in a broader sense. It’s a reminder about what you need to do. It is essential if you are going to beat work overload. If used effectively, it helps you to be organized and break works for time management.
Say “NO”
“NO” is a difficult word to say, especially if it is associated with your work, but sometimes it is just necessary to say “No”. If you keep on saying yes every time, you will never complete your intended task. Saying no helps you to do your work in a relaxed manner.
Carry Out One Work at a Time
Don’t try to do multi-tasking at the same time, until and unless it is very important. It will consume more time and also create confusion. Even if you try it, you will never be able to bring effective output. Therefore, do one work at a time, so that you can focus on what you are doing.
Take Some Break
Taking a break for some time is good for your work and mind. Taking a break helps you to be relaxed for a while and gear up again. At workplace, go out for a while and have some coffee or chat with some colleagues for some while. When you continuously keep on working, you will feel stressed and so cannot perform the tasks effectively. That will hamper your productivity and make your tasks even more time consuming.
Following these easy, time management strategies will help you get the most out of your limited time. Working hard is just not enough to compete in today’s world. You need to carry out your tasks in a smart and efficient manner. Get some more career tips here.
