Getting the most from your time
Time management tips to help you improve your productivity
Have you ever wondered how your colleague is able to leave office on time and still meet all his deadlines when you wish there were more hours in a day? No, he does not have a magic wand—he just happens to be good at time management.
Time management is the key to success, especially when it becomes difficult to strike a balance between your personal and professional life.
Determine your goals
To achieve a goal, the first step is to determine it. And here we don't just mean lifetime goals. These are goals for a year, a month, a week, a day, or even for an hour. Set your target as what you want to accomplish in the given frame of time. This is the first step from where the journey of success begins.
Prioritize
After you've determined your goals, prioritize them. We wish to accomplish more than we can. Thus, it helps to be clear about what is absolutely necessary and what can be delayed, if required. While setting up priorities, keep your long-term as well as short-time goals in mind.
Break-up the projects
If the project is huge, in terms of efforts and time involved, break it up into small segments. Then prioritize these segments according to importance and the quantum of work involved.
Fix your deadlines
Fix up your deadlines to help smooth workflow. Be realistic while fixing your deadlines. Take stock of the work required, time in hand and other factors.
If the project involves teamwork, make it a point to discuss deadline with your team. Poor time management is not taking more time to deliver, it's not delivering on the deadline.
Make a to-do list
Make your To-do list for and stick it at some visible place. Pasting on a soft-board, or even making it your screen saver or wallpaper would help to remind you what you have set to accomplish.
Review
Planning is successful only when it is executed. Therefore, it's quite necessary to compare your plans with results. See if you're able to do all that you had planned for. If you've done it all, great. If not, review what you couldn't do and try to find out the reasons for not being able to do it.
If the reasons are unavoidable, like your ill-health or some unexpected holiday, neglect them. Otherwise, when you plan next keep those reasons in mind.
Initially, it would be difficult to do all you planned for. Don't lose heart, but take care every time you accomplish more than the previous time. If you do this, you're not far away from your goal.
So, if you want to get most out of your time, act soon as the earth's rotational speed is not going to change in the near future, resulting in 48 hours a day. The only way to do all you want to do in 24 hours a day is by effective time management.
ŠAnkur Jain 1999