It has been seen that people are so busy with their work that they have to omit their personal time, just to complete their work. They don’t have time management skill so they can’t handle all their work. But one can develop those time management skill which will help them in managing the work according to time. But the question is how to develop these skills and manage time? Here are all your answers.
Let’s see how one can manage time and what skills they require and why is it important to do so.
WHAT’S IN IT
What is Time Management?
In simple words, time management is just managing time according to the work. It comprises what and how one can effectively utilize his time and work accordingly. But, doesn’t it sound ironic that people say, one can’t handle time, as time won’t wait for anybody. Yes, that’s totally true, time doesn’t wait for anybody so how can we manage time.
Let me rephrase, we have to manage our focus and attention and only do our work according to time. Now, this sounds clear. Julie Morgenstern, the author of the best-selling book, Time Management from the Inside Out says, we need to understand time management differently than we currently do.
She says, “I would start by changing your perception of time, It’s sort of an ethereal, ambiguous thing, and I teach people to think of time as a closet. It’s a limited amount of space that’s only going to fit so much. Once you get a visual metaphor of time as a closet, it
becomes so much easier to manage it,”
Why is Time management is important?
The importance of time management can never be neglected, it’s like the heart of your body. But, you are thinking why did I say so. It is very important that you should have time management skills otherwise it may lead to the loss for you only.
The following are the importance of time management:
Limited Time
We all know that everyone is so busy. They have more work and have less time and everyone has to complete their work within that time span. Here comes the use of time management. If a person works accordingly, he can complete its work according to time.
Improve Decision Making
Time management helps in improvement of the decision-making ability. You had noticed that if you have to make a decision within a second, then that decision may go wrong as you had not calculated all the aspects because of less time available. But if you have done good time management then you have enough time to gather information and think about every aspect which leads to better decisions.
Become Successful in Carrier
As we discussed in the above point, better time management improves your decision-making ability, which leads to a good decision and subsequently helps you in your career or whatever work you do.
Reduce Stress
Time Management helps in managing the work. If you can manage your work according to time, you won’t get stress. If you know how to manage time and work according to it, you won’t feel stressed.
Improves Self-Discipline
If you have good time management skills, the chances are that you’re highly self-disciplined. The better you get at time management, the better your self-discipline will be.
What is Time Management Skill?
The time management skill helps in managing the time. The following skill will help you in being better in managing time:
Estimate Your Time
The meaning of estimating time is that you always have the question of “How Much” in your mind. Before starting the work, estimate how much time it will take and find if the works fit in your time slot then accept and start the work.
This will help you in completion of the task you are provided in the given time and help you to eradicate the task which can’t be completed at that period of time
Map Your Time
Mapping your time generally means to plan the work you are going to do. It is a template of what you are going to do in the week. This will help you figure out what is the most important thing which you should prioritize and what are secondary tasks which can be done later. These both are the most important skills which one should need for having good time management.
How To Manage Time?
There are some tips which will help you in managing your time, which is as follows:
Make To-Do Lists
To-Do List helps you remember things and helps you in figuring out what is the important work you have to do before anything else.
Wake Up Early
Waking up early can allow you to maximize your day time. If you wake up early, you get extra time to complete your work and move on to another as soon as one completes it.
Prioritize your work
Prioritize and complete the most important work. Write all the important tasks of the day in your To-Do List, and complete them one by one. Don’t focus on anything else or any other work than those.
Block Distractions
Block everything which distracts you, it can be your smartphone or the noise. Distraction doesn’t let you complete your task successfully and distract your attention to something else.
Take Short Break
Take small breaks after doing work. This will help you regain your power and concentration. It helps in increasing productivity, which helps in better work performance.
Automate Repetitive Tasks
Automate all the tasks which you have to perform every day. For example- Sending mails to the clients or customers. Automate this and many processes which you have to do every day., in the same manner.
Break Down Big Tasks
Break down the tasks into small steps, complete those small tasks, and take the rest of 10-15 minutes. This will help you complete the big task productively without getting bored or exhausted.
Time Management Techniques
There are time management techniques that help in managing time. Techniques are a collection of skills which is already tested by experts and now you just need to implement this. There are many techniques exists, but the most applied techniques are as follows:
Pomodoro
The Pomodoro technique is developed by Francesco Cirillo. It’s working is as follows:
1. Set your timer for 25 minutes
2. Focus on your work during these 25 minutes
3. Stop as soon as the alarm goes off
4. Take a 5-minute break
5. Resume work for another 25 minutes after the break
6. After four 25/5 minute cycles take a 20-minute break
7. Repeat the process until finished with task or project
Issues it resolves: ineffective scheduling, skipping breaks, multitasking
Kanban
This technique was developed by Taiichi Ohno, for Toyota Automotive, in 1940, to increase productivity and effectiveness. Its working is as follows:
1. Determine the number of stages in your task and create columns. Suppose, you created 4 columns.
2. Now move all your tasks in the following stages:
1. Backlog – Define all your tasks here. Then decide what tasks you have to move to the To-Do column, and what tasks can be waited.
2. To-Do – These are the tasks you’ll work on
3. In Progress – Tasks you are currently working on
4. Done – Tasks you’ve finished
Issue it resolves: ineffective planning, improper task delegation, multitasking.
Timeboxing
Time boxing techniques are to allocate a time period to the task and after that time period, you stop working on that task. Time boxing often includes fixed deadlines, so it’s used in project management.
James Martin was the first to explain the technique in detail, in his book Rapid Application Development. The working of the technique is as follows:
1. Note down all your activities and tasks on a list
2. Define your goals
3. If a task is important and requires great focus, allocate a longer time period to it.
4. If it’s a difficult task, parse it, and allocate shorter time periods and complete the task
in parts which make the task easier to manage.
5. When the allocated time for a task is up, stop working on it.
6. Take a break
7. Give your attention to other tasks in your schedule.
Issues it solves: missed deadlines, ineffective scheduling, multitasking, skipping breaks According to clockify.me, there are some more time management techniques which are as follows:
1. Inbox-Zero
2. Who’s Got The Monkey
3. Action Method
4. The Eisenhower Matrix
5. Biological Prime Time
6. The Productivity Journal
7. The Seinfeld Method
8. The 10-minute Rule
9. To-Done List
10. To-Don’t List
11. Flowtime Technique
12. Top Goal
Conclusion
So, I hope after reading this you got some insight into how you can effectively manage your work according to the time, which will help you in having good time management skill.
Also after following techniques, you will get some unbelievable results, so follow them and let us know in comments which technique worked for you.
Also you can read our blog on The Art of Concise and Good Communication -How to Put-up Your Point