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Beat the Time-10 Tips on Time Management

Beat the Time-10 Tips on Time Management

Let’s stop making life a competition. Instead of competing with each other, let's all inspire each other so we can all reach our full potential. Time doesn’t stop and rest. Every second is precious. Time is moving forward continuously. We do, however, can have control over time by planning how to use it as a resource and to conserve time as a commodity. This way we’ll never miss out on opportunities.

Who can really beat the time? Who can really manage time? Better we must consider managing our selves by effectively managing the resources we already have. If you are looking for ways to keep time under control, make it a discipline to write down everything you do and how long it has taken. Analyze your biggest time wasters and strategize to eliminate them.

While on work or in-office you may find easily the major reasons for time killers and wasters. The three all-time popular digital time wasters and killers can be identified as- Internet, Social media, and cell phones.  Not to forget the fourth killer which brings most of the time negativity is Gossip. Who can really beat the time?

As a professional or as a person, we should be well aware of the time value and treat every minute and second of our day like a currency/money earned, this way we will become truly enamored with self-interest. Let us understand in this way, if we convert our monthly salary into daily/hourly/per minute or per second earnings, we will be able to quickly understand what we lose by wasting our time. Can we beat the time?

The best way to boost our productivity is to use the right time management /tips techniques: Time management revolves around certain choices. There are generally three choices to decide from to fulfill your purpose:

1. what you need to do?

2. When you need to finish? And,

3. How you are going to do it?

 

Beat the Time. If you choose to make goal-oriented, high-value tasks a priority, try to finish the task before time, and make sure to have sufficient time to lead a healthy lifestyle. By doing this, you will be able to tell yourself that you’ve managed your time well and successfully. How you’re going to do that? You’re going to do that by using appropriate time management techniques.

Before we elaborate on the time management tips/techniques, we must also make sure to follow and develop certain time management skills which are effective and time tested. We’ll need to practice these skills to improve our time management efforts.

Beat the time with effective skills to manage time:

Plan effectively and set SMART goals and targets:

Make sure to have clear well-defined goals, objectives, and resources to make a well-thought plan that will lead us to fulfill our objective. We have to make sure also that the objective and goals must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound.

Managing Stress by avoiding distractions:

Distractions always detrimental to your productivity. Distractions take away from your time you should be relaxing or working. We must learn how to avoid distractions effectively. This is also important to manage your stress. You may use different stress-relieving strategies and methods to destress yourself and feel relaxed while working. Good for your personal life too.

Delegation of certain tasks properly and focus on one the task at a time:

Delegating some of the tasks help you to relax and ease your workload. Make sure to delegate the work to competent and skilled team members. If you maintain your focus on one task at a time, you will be able to deliver quality results much better than when you multitasking. In my opinion, multitasking is not only overrated but is being used wrongly to show as if the person is doing something great as a multitasker. As per the cognitive abilities, you can perform one task at a time exceptionally well and will not make mistakes. Can you eat and sing at the same time very well? The answer is NO. Chewing food and singing song at the same time not possible.

Saying ‘NO’ and Procrastination:

Learn to say-NO. it will help you to save more time for your own priorities. Avoid delaying work and postponing it. Identify the causes of your procrastination and tackle them. It will save so much of your time and you will be able to perform better without stress.

Always follow the Pareto Principle:

Pareto the principle is also known as 80/20 rule. 80% of the time must be spent on 20% of the tasks which gives you 80% of the results. In other words, investing time into the right tasks will ask for fewer efforts but will give you better results.

Beat the time: 10 Tips on Time Management

1.    First thing first. If you are a time killer/waster, you will look at the clock many times a day (you can’t even remember how many times a day?) The clock will stare you back, taunting and unsympathetic. Get rid of the clock/clocks in your office. Leave only one on your computer.

2.    Planning Smartly- Start time and Stop time: Start your day with at least 15 minutes of settling in time- that means, no phone calls, no emails, and no meetings. Spend your time planning for the day and the week and organizing everything you need. At the end of the day, use the same thing, wrap up time of 15 minutes, to ensure tomorrow you start without panic.

3.    A cluttered work station or workplace can result in distraction and unnecessary stress. Make sure to spend at least 10 minutes every day to organize your office or workstation.

4.    We cannot operate without emails but it is a serious distraction. Turnoff you pop-up and sound notifications. Fix time each day to deal with emails. It is much more effective to reply 15-20 emails of 2-minute duration in a 30-40 minutes chunk that to interrupt your work and send these emails at disparate times of the day. Take a break from your inbox and emails.

5.    Avoid multitasking as explained in the time management skill section. Multitasking can lead to mistakes that cost you more time than you saved, to begin with. As per cognitive abilities, it is not possible to justify it.

6.    Major source of wasted time is Procrastination. You may give endless reasons for justification like fear of failure, too difficult task, lack of clarity of goal, or you need to be perfect, and so on. Whatever the reason may be, procrastination is a huge time waster.

7.    Avoid tardiness. Tardiness is seen as a purposeful slight against the person you intend to meet. It demonstrates that you do not value another person's time.

8.    Select a task. Start working on it immediately. After 10 minutes, reflect on your focus and patience, decide if you want to continue or stop. If you wish to continue, work for 10-minute periods until you want to stop working on the task for the day. Follow The 10-Minute Rule and make mini-deadlines for big projects.

9.    Every office has one, two or more employees who can discuss things endlessly and will get to the point. If you want to have a discussion or meeting with one of the more verbose members of your team, be very careful and smart to schedule that meeting. Organize the meeting before lunch or immediately before another important appointment. This is called strategic scheduling. Beat the time.

10.  If you are spending endless time in the meetings to which you contribute nothing. I had definitely on Mondays. I had to be the last person to present the weekly report in 2-3 minutes after spending close to 2-hours. I discussed with the organizer of the meeting to depute my junior to attend this high-profile meeting. He was thrilled and my valuable time was saved. Miss the meeting if you are not contributing.

Time is money. Use this valuable resource effectively. Always remember if you are on time you are 15 minutes late. Beat the time.

Rajesh Rai Sharma is a working management professional having 28 years of experience in leadership roles, Marketing & Sales, Exports, International Marketing, Management, and Business Development. Worked in Asia-India / Bangladesh, Africa / West Africa as PCH / GM / Marketing /BD /Commercial / Operations. Core Areas of Expertise – Textiles / Fabrics / RMG / Fashion / FMCG - Food & Beverages /Soap /Chemicals /PET / Polymers.


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