Work Smarter to Enhance Productivity — Time Management
Learn how to get the most from your day using prioritization, scheduling, goal setting, and other key time-management skills, tools, and techniques.
Do you ever feel like there’s not enough time in the day?
Despite having 24 hours in a day, some people are able to use their time so effectively while others cannot. Most of us get up every morning with at least 10 tasks on our minds that have to be accomplished by EOD, but how?
The convenience of everything being just a click away has undoubtedly made our lives easier, but it has also led to many distractions. Managing our time is the only way for us to accomplish all our work efficiently and on time.
Time management is the ability to get things done by prioritizing the tasks and dedicating the right amount of effort to each task. It has now become an essential skill for everyone to possess. Here are a few points that I have learned and have worked for me.
Getting to Know Your Time
Instead of making plans, road maps, and timetables right away, take a step back and track your time.
Document it for a week and then review it. Be aware of how much time you spend on value-adding tasks like office work and how much time you spend on non-value-adding tasks
Understand What You Need To Do
As we do so, we will use Eisenhower’s Principle. List all of the activities and projects that you feel you have to do. Try to include everything that takes up your time at work, however unimportant. Next, think about each activity and put it into one of four categories, as shown in the figure, below.
This helps you to prioritize your tasks.
The concept of multitasking is a myth. People may be good at it, but when it comes to finishing off work seriously, you cannot afford to switch contexts from one task to another.
Studies have shown that you can’t do two things at once effectively. Context switching is an overhead that costs up to 40% of productivity. This increases stress and adds distractions
Thus, memory suffers and results are poor, and reduces creativity.
Follow OHIO — Only handle it once
To get any task done self-discipline is paramount. You will have to develop a system that works for you.
Commit to getting things done → Focus on results → Prioritize tasks → Consistently do the work
Control whatever you can, like
- Know where you can work effectively.
- Clean your desk and get organized.
- Get comfortable in doing the work.
- Close down the distractions.
- Schedule work.
- Decide when to take a break.
Steps to follow
- Define your work
Start creating a list of tasks for tomorrow. Add tasks with one day limit. Break big tasks into smaller tasks. Be aware of interruptions.
Don’t confuse quantity over quality and limit to only 3- 5 items per day(create sub-tasks if needed). Plan First things first and tackle procrastination things. Do one big thing before lunch. One big thing that adds value, it will give you the feeling of accomplishment then 3 medium and then 5 tinies. Highlight or cross whatever is done.
2. Analyze tasks based on Urgent and Important framework
3. Prioritize by required effort
- Add efforts and balance with urgency and importance
4. Review the results
- Will you be able to finish? Why or Why not? What worked?
- What would you do differently?
- Estimate the work
5. Balance to forward → Re-prioritize
Points to remember
- Defend your time, assign deadlines, and get clarity upfront before sitting down to do it.
- Work expands to fill the time allocated to it. So allocate time accordingly.
- Waiting until the last moment leads to sloppy work and quality suffers.
- Beating procrastination → Focus on results and keep in mind that no time is better than now → Remove obstacles that can lead you to procrastinate → Understand why you procrastinate? Is it fear of failure, Dread (Competency issue), Boredom → Work on the reason
- Follow the Pomodoro technique: Select one task for 25 mins take 3–4 mins and check the mark — after 4 check marks take 15- 30 mins of break and reset the check mark count to zero and repeat.
