When you wake up early, your mind will be ready for the day’s activities and you will have time to complete your morning routine before you start your planned tasks or activities. Early morning rush will leave you confused, which will lead to a confusing and stressful day. Additionally, if you did not have time to plan your time and activities the night before, by waking up early, you can do it in the morning.
Sleep Early
Sometimes, sleeping early requires you to make some sacrifices such as giving up on your favorite TV show, the internet, or chatting with a friend at night. To make the time management process a success, make these sacrifices. How can you wake up early in the morning if you slept late? It is possible, but you will feel tired throughout the day.
Your body and mind need to relax and prepare for the next day’s activities. By resting your body (enough rest), you will concentrate on your activities and the chances of you falling asleep during the day will minimize.
Setting Deadlines
While scheduling tasks, it is extremely important to set a very real deadline. To complete a task on time, you need to know its due date; setting a realistic period gives you sufficient time to work on the task. If a task ends on Saturday, place its deadline to Thursday and start early.
This way, you will get ample time to work on it and will have extra time to review the task so you can correct any mistake you made earlier. Moreover, this helps you get spare time to tackle all the interruptions bound to disturb you.
It is vital to start your tasks earlier than a few days before their deadline so you do not have to fret about meeting the deadline and you get additional time to understand the task and its requirements.
Once you create a plan for your tasks, get started on completing them. Frequently refer to the schedule and plan you have created and ask yourself whether you are abiding by the schedule; doing this helps you stay true to your plan and follow it.
Moreover, please make a point of printing your schedule and pasting it in your workplace and home.
This not only benefits you, but it also helps everyone around you, especially those involved in the tasks you have started. By printing out your schedule and placing it at strategic locations, those closest to you find out the crucial things you are doing and the work they are supposed to do.
Eliminate Distractions
Distractions come in many forms; some are good while some are loathsome. They are a hindrance to getting things done. Most times, when you are working at your desk, you might get email notifications that distract you from what you are doing. Although this is not bad, there is a cause of concern when you start longing for the distraction so that you can stop your task. Eliminating distractions will help you accomplish more in little time. Below are guidelines that you can use to eliminate distractions and ensure that you achieve more.
Train your brain to focus
This is a fundamental part of eliminating distraction. Even though you might use headphones or other means to block out external stimuli, your mind is still the most significant distraction there is. If your mind is jumping from one topic to the other on unrelated subjects than what you are aiming to accomplish, there is no way you can remain focused. Training your mind can be done by learning how to control it.
Break down huge tasks
It is easy to get distracted when the task seems too big and impossible. It might even cause you to procrastinate. Huge tasks become more natural to accomplish when they are broken down into easier smaller ones that when combined, ensure that the big task is complete. Research has also found that it is easier to get the motivation to accomplish smaller tasks than it is to get motivation for larger tasks.
Track your time expenditure
As indicated earlier, distractions come in many forms. To remove distractions in your daily routine, it is vital that you track how your time is spent. This will assist you to learn which tasks attract much of self-distraction. A handy tool that you can use is a time tracker app that can be installed on your smartphone.
Block all distracting websites and apps
One of the most common distractions is the web. When that email notification comes in, and you are tempted to check what it is, the possibility is that you will also be tempted to make a brief stopover on Facebook and make a few comments and before you know it, 30 minutes are gone.
Create a schedule
As we have seen throughout this book, a schedule is essential in helping you manage time. It is also useful in limiting distractions. If you set a schedule, it indicates that you have every intention of following it, and it is harder for you to get distracted.
Manage Interruptions
While working on a task, you are bound to come across two significant challenges: experiencing interruptions and bothersome unnecessary tasks and issues. Minimizing different disruptions that crop up as you work on critical tasks is crucial to the success of those tasks. In order not to become distracted and lose focus on what you were doing; you need to keep interruptions at bay.
Realistically, you cannot control everything that tends to interrupt you while you are working since not everything is in your control. However, you can change how you tackle an interruption.
The truth is that interruptions are cleverly disguised multitasks. This could be email notifications or ringers and beeps. It is almost impossible to ignore an email if you get the notifications; it has something to do with how we are hardwired. You may want to use productivity apps like Self Control, to keep yourself focused on what is important.
Work When You Need to Work
It would help if you work when it is time for you to work. When you are in the office, start working as soon as possible. Do not engage in idle conversations, read a magazine, or watch cat videos online. There are things you need to do. It would be best if you will start doing those things immediately.
Minimize all of the Interruptions
It’s impossible to prevent all forms of interruptions. Whenever you face a disruption, try to minimize its effects by going back to your work quickly. If someone calls you, for example, don’t waste time with pleasantries.
Never beat around the bush. Doing so will lead to wasted minutes (or even hours). If you need to call someone, you must write down the things you want to talk about. This approach lets you cover all of the critical points of the conversation quickly. Your list will also serve as a useful guideline for your call. If the conversation heads to a topic you didn’t write down, you may apologize and go back to the crucial issues or end the request (i.e. if you have covered all of the points you listed).
Ask Other People
Other people are wasting your time. However, you cannot deny the fact that you also are wasting their time. It would be great if you could ask them about the things you do that affect their schedule negatively. This kind of conversation often leads to a win-win situation for the parties involved. Your coworkers can specify the things that affect their productivity negatively. Meanwhile, you will gain more information about the interruptions present in your workplace. Once you know how you waste other people’s time, you will have better chances of managing your own time successfully.
Chapter 4: How to Set Boundaries and Learn to Say No
Sometimes, a snap decision will require no response. Humans tend to follow an unspoken social contract that dictates that when someone asks you to do something, your answer will usually be in the affirmative regardless of what other tasks you must focus on.
Learning to say no is a useful tool to cut out the less important activities in your life and focus on the activities that are most important to you. It is also vital that you be aware of how to differentiate between important and urgent tasks. Learning to set boundaries and saying no is very important if you are to succeed in your time management endeavors.
In the example in the previous chapter, we had looked at a decision that had to be made between going out for a cocktail party with friends and spending preplanned time with family. Depending on what is m
ore important to you (in this case, family); one of these decisions will require a no. Setting boundaries, on the other hand, will help you know when you cross them and help you not to cross them.
When we say yes but want to say is no, we spend hours, days and sometimes months regretting the “yes” decision and feeling much resentment while wondering why we said it. In most instances, saying no to a lot of us brings about feelings of shame and sometimes guilt. For example, when you say no to your children on a particular matter, you might feel guilty and as though you do not love them as much as they think you do or that you do not care. It is a perfectly natural response to ‘no’.
Setting boundaries and learning to say no is about prioritizing and having the courage to love yourself and say no, even at the risk of disappointing others. The most important thing is not to base your worthiness on the approval of other people. Instead, always remember that it is impossible to please everyone, even Princess Diana couldn’t!
Learning to say no is symbiotic to productivity. Let us look at an example. If you were working on your computer on a strict deadline and you get a chat request from a friend whom you have not communicated with for long, what would your option be? Let the chat go un-responded to until you are through with your work or cut in on your deadline time and chat with your friend?
A lot of us will opt for the later and compromise on our work. It brings confusion and unnecessary adrenalin rush because we have to cover for the time we lost as the deadline approaches. Saying no looks like a mammoth task but, it is not. We are all faced with different scenarios on a day-to-day basis. Learning to say no will help you filter out what is not important and give you enough time to deal with the critical aspects of your life, which will significantly influence your level of productivity.
On the other hand, we cannot say no to everything. Developing an active time management schedule and skill will help you prioritize and recognize the things or activities that require a no and those that require a yes. It will also help you create a strong will and inner strength. Even though saying no or setting boundaries is a bit of a task, there are some simple steps that you can take to ensure that you develop the skill of effective time management.
Create a mantra
When you are sure you are going to say yes to someone you really want to say no to, it helps a lot to have a mantra. A mantra does not have to be a chant; it can be anything. A mantra is just something that you can use to remind yourself of your inner strength.
A good practice is to have a ring, bracelet, or necklace that you can stroke when the desire to say yes overwhelms you. Another useful tool is to have an actual mantra. In this case, choose something that adds more power to your resolve; “I can say no” is a good one. Tailor the mantra to your difficulty to say no.
If you have a lot of difficulty saying no, choose a strong mantra that helps you choose discomfort over resentment.
Keep a journal
One of the things that we have looked at is how after saying yes, we walk around being resentful, especially when we fail to set boundaries. When you are feeling resentful, write this down and note all the times that you experience this. It can help you to recognize which situations make you feel the most resentment.
Practice
Saying no is something that develops over time, but like everything else, you have to practice. There are individuals in our lives that we cannot be able to say no to instantaneously. It helps to start small.
Setting boundaries will help you greatly in determining what is and what is not important and will help you achieve more in areas of your life that matter the most. Setting boundaries also requires that you set up a schedule that you can follow. A schedule should not be too restrictive and should afford you some flexibility.
Chapter 5: Improve Your Productivity by Identifying Your Personal Values
Because time management and life management are inseparable, improving your productivity starts with determining your values. Keep in mind that managing time properly is impossible if you don’t know the things you value.
Excellent time management involves harmonizing a set of events that you consider as a top priority. If you think an activity is a low priority, you won’t exert any effort to manage your time well in doing it.
Answer this simple question: “Why are you doing what you are doing?”
The Purpose and Meaning of Your Life
Everyone needs a purpose and meaning. People become sad and anxious if they feel that their activities are irrelevant to their values and beliefs. If you know the “why” behind your activities, you’ll know the “when”, “what”, and “how” of improving your productivity.
Improving your time management skills is useless if you think that you are doing unimportant things. If you are good at doing things that are in contrast to what you value in life, you will just become more anxious and frustrated.
The Most Important Things in Your Life
After determining your life’s purpose and meaning, you must identify the things you consider as extremely important. What are the things you would stand for regardless of the situation? What are the things you would never do?
Your day-to-day activities should match your own values. According to recent studies, poor time management results from the difference between a person’s inner convictions and the things he/she needs to do.
Believe That You Are Special
Each person is unique in terms of values. No two people have the exact set of things they consider as important. Appraisals form an essential part of your identity. They rarely change as you grow old.
You must find your real values and manage your time so that you are working (and living) according to those values.
Perform Self-Analysis
The following questions will help you understand your values. Once you have determined those values, use them as the basis for preparing your schedule.
How would you describe yourself to a stranger?
“If an alien asks you to describe humans, what would you say?” – This question will help you understand your thoughts about humans in general. Do you consider humans as kind and loving creatures? Alternatively, you classify them as devious entities that cannot be trusted?
“How would you define life?” – With this question, you will discover your life philosophy.
“What is your ultimate goal?” – Your response to this question determines the goal that you should achieve for you to feel complete. This goal has the most significant influence on your entire life.
Some Apps for Productivity
Focus Booster
The Focus Booster makes use of the Pomodoro Technique based on the previous chapter. It works like a timer with more features, allowing you to manage your time in small bursts while avoiding potential distractions. The great thing about this app is that it records sessions and presents it in a detailed spreadsheet that allows you to analyze your time. Together with this, you can get suggestions on how to use your time better.
Rescue Time
Unfortunately, Rescue Time isn’t free. On the plus side – it is an excellent app to have with more features to speak of. It is the perfect app for people who do most of their work online or through a computer, whether its PC, Linux, Mac, or Android. Rescue Time essentially tracks down your computer activity and presents you with a chart showing how much time was spent on websites.
Any-Do
A comprehensive app, “Any-Do” is ideal for people who often work with others in a group. It is because of the main perk of “Any-Do” is to share the list with other people who are working on the same project.
Other than that, “Any-Do” carries the most essential features of a typical time management app. It includes shopping lists, “To-Do” lists, notes, reminders, and events. You can also sync the app with other devices.
Toggl
Toggl works mainly as a time tracker. What you do is turn it on and off whenever you’re doing a task and labels it for futu
re use or reference. You can even organize time tags, and for those who get billed by the hour, you can use it to track billable time. It’s currently one of the apps being used by those who work remotely. Timesheets may be sent, exported, printed, and reviewed.
To Do Calendar Planners
Electronic calendars are so much more efficient, allowing you to create a task list and have yourself reminded before the crucial moment. It is precisely what the app can do, including synching of data, prioritizing tasks, and even attaching Google Maps to your tasks.
Remember the Milk
An app to remember, Remember the Milk lets you organize and manage your time through several devices. It works in computers and mobile phones and may connect with your Twitter, Google calendar, and Gmail. You can also separate task lists depending on priority or if they’re for home, work, or even school.
Time Doctor
Another one for the team, this app helps track your time, provides reminders, reporting tools, and integrates with other computer networks. It has the additional benefit of monitoring sessions through screenshots, therefore allowing you to find out whether your workers are working. Unfortunately, the app isn’t free.
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