How to get more time out of your day
People with a busy lifestyle complain that there are never enough hours in a day to do all the tasks that they had originally planned. Here is an article providing some time management techniques/tips you may want to adhere and adapt to that may allow you to get more time out of your day to complete set tasks.
Organisation
Making sure you are organised is the first and most important thing to do in the morning. If you take 15 minutes out of your morning preparing your work area, that will save you an hour in the day that you would be spending finding things you need such as papers, phone numbers, and supplies and so on.
Recognise your most productive time
Some people for example, maybe a morning person and like to do all the difficult or most time consuming tasks first whilst it’s fresh on the brain where as other people may prefer to complete these tasks later on in the day. If you have young children and you are an at home parent or work at home, during your child’s nap/TV time you could do your most difficult tasks of the day.
Produce a To-Do list the night before
Doing a to-do list the night before lets you know what you have planned to accomplish the next day and when you wake up you know the goal you have in your mind that is set for the day. This saves you wondering around thinking about what you have to do. If you divide your to do list into several parts of a page labelling them; tasks for today, tasks for tomorrow, tasks for this week, tasks for next week, and tasks for the month. As you complete these tasks, tick them off so you can clearly see what you have left to do.
Get up earlier
If you maybe need an extra hour in the day. Get up an hour earlier and sit with a tea or coffee going through your emails and organising your work. Some people call these “day wasters”
Schedule your tasks and stick with it
Write one thing that you will complete in each day of the week on your calendar. For example you could write ‘do online banking every Wednesday’ or ‘update website every Monday’
Avoid “day wasters”
Big day wasters include Facebook, TV, looking on the internet and talking on the phone especially if not being used in relation to the tasks you have set. If you don’t use these in moderation you could end up losing hours in your day not leaving enough time to complete tasks which could put you behind schedule for the next day’s tasks.
Leave time for interruptions
Make sure that with every task you do you leave a bit of time just for interruptions just in case you are asked to come a side. If you do not have the time for interruptions you may want to put up a do not disturb sign so you are able to get your important tasks done.
When things go wrong
When things go wrong this is when you persevere and take positive attitude towards failure and concentrate on other tasks you can do instead of dwelling on the task that didn’t go as planned – these things happen!
Contingency plan
Having a back-up plan is very important as if you are not able to complete a task on your original plan, you are able to refer back to your contingency plan to fill the time with another task which is preventing you from losing out on time.
Don’t waste time waiting
If you are waiting to go into a client meeting or waiting to go into a dentist appointment you have left work for, fill in the time completing the small tasks whilst you are waiting. You could either be replying to emails, reading emails, planning tasks, reading reports etc…
After all, time management is a myth, there are only 24 hours in a day and that will not change, it just depends on yourself and how you manage your time. You CAN be in control and get everything done that you wish to accomplish once you have come to terms with the time management myth.