Working Smarter and Performing in just half the time
You might have heard that “Time flies like an aircraft and we are the pilot of that aircraft”. Moreover, “If you tire I would not hire” has become a buzzword in Global companies now. We are living in the era of planes, satellites, mobile and rockets – saving time by more than 1100 percent. Time Management is an important factor in our life.
We have more tools, tactics and techniques and more calendars than ever before. We are moving faster than we ever moved in the history.
However, we still seem to be running out of time and that too most of the time.
Here is the good news –you can get better.
Time management replaces our baby steps by athletic speed to get the thing on right time. It acts like a life saver on our daily grind.
All people –whether effective time-managing CEO of a company or lethargic clerks of a Company –have 24 hours to perform their commitments but both of them don’t utilize it in the same way.
At the end of the day, we would find that a CEO possessing time management skills has completed most of the tasks whereas the lethargic clerk found it difficult to perform a few tasks. Although the stress and scarcity in this fast-paced life and lifestyle cannot be underestimated, there are a few miraculous tricks of time management by which one can achieve lifestyle balance –perform all the tasks and achieve balance in professional, social, family, and personal life.
Better time management helps you out in regaining control of your life–lifestyle balance.
1. Categorize the work on the basis of urgency and importance
It is also called the 80/20 rule. It connotes that 80 percent of results come from 20 percent of efforts put into the most crucial tasks. So you can achieve a lot if you infuse more effort into the 20 percent job that really matters in your life. There are countless jobs to perform and the list becomes endless.
However, based on priority in life, we can divide the work into four categories
A. Urgent and Crucial
B. Urgent and non-crucial
C. Non-urgent and Crucial
D. Non-urgent and non-crucial
Dexterous time managers have mainly three categories only. When the third category –nonurgent and crucial jobs is performed, it never transforms to the fourth category –Urgent and crucial jobs
So finally skillful time managers have only three categories
A. Urgent and non-crucial
B. Non-urgent and Crucial
C. Non-urgent and non-crucial
As a result, they never face havoc –the urgent and crucial job is not completed. Moreover, they never face stress in life.
On the contrary, if the person focuses on the Urgent job he would always be busy and feel stressed too always.
2. See the big picture and find a guiding principle
Just stop, relax, and think for a moment. Visualize your ideal picture in the forthcoming future – What you want to be. Prioritize the more important tasks, and divide goals into measurable deliverables.
It helps in pursuing high–quality work rather than high–quantity work
3. Use Daily Planner or Action List evening before
It just takes 30 minutes but can save 30 hours.
Jot down all your commitments and categorize them in the ABC category.
The action list is a game-changer because you know what is forthcoming before it hits. You can know what is ahead and how to deal with it.
It is Synonymous with a computer program that is given instruction about what to do, how to do and when to do. The planner helps in Estimating how many tasks you can perform and the time-period each task will take.
4. Prefer and allot more time to more important tasks
It is for sure that you will not get everything on your to-do list, but it will make sure that the most important job is considered and given priority and consequently and more certainly completed. Divide the entire task in ABC status. Put the most crucial task in A category, the less important task in B the least important task in category C.
5. Appraisal of previous Day Planner or Action list
Feedback about yesterday’s daily planner makes more effective and efficient daily planner for the next day
Make a list of each activity, prioritize them, estimate and allot time to each task
6. Procrastinate for purpose
Procrastination can be for good reason also. The more crucial task is more important to perform and the thus less important task is procrastinating or the job might require a high energy level and you are waiting for the right moment. However, procrastination may be a bad habit also. So, it is important to find out the causes of procrastination to categorize it into good procrastination and bad procrastination.
7. RAC stands for Record, Analyze, and Change Your Activities
In management planning, execution and feedback are given the same importance. The reason is, that sometimes planning is apt but we did not execute the task in the right way. To avoid the same phenomenon in the future, we have to diagnose the past 24 hours to get a realistic view of how you spent your time yesterday and how much time you wasted which you should not have wasted
8. Diagnosing and identifying energy levels at different times of period
Our energy level fluctuates very frequently in a time span of 24 hours. For Instance, in the morning time,e we are more energized, and after having lunch in the afternoon time we have low energy levels. This concept will aid you in scheduling the most crucial and complicated task for the period when your energy level is greatest. Consequently, you should do the least important jobs like reading e-mails and organizing the table after having lunch.
10. Put good systems in place
It has been proved that we spend around one-fourth of our total time finding the things we need if we are not organized. It means that for every 100 minutes, we would save 25 minutes if we were organized.
11. Save time and money both
We always focus on saving money. However, if we save time, it will bring more success and thus more fortune i.e. money