Home » Training » Definition of Time Management: Time Management Tips That Will Change Your Life
Time is a precious resource which is impossible to recover. Many people over-compensate and try to be hyper-productive, but this is often a counter-productive approach.
What’s important is to allocate your time effectively, embracing a ‘work smarter, not harder’ mantra. That’s where good time management pays dividends.
This is especially true in the workplace, but is a philosophy that will carry into your personal life.
Staying busy is one thing, but could you be working more effectively?
By embracing good time management practices, you’ll unlock your true potential and work to the best of your ability.
Time management will help you eradicate mindless productivity, which is often the case when people are over-focused on menial tasks.
By being mindful of your daily work scope and evaluating your duties, you’ll identify areas of improvement and discover new ways of doing things.
Avoid a robotic approach to work, simplifying your duties to establish a faster and less stressful approach.
There are enough hours in each day to achieve greatness, you’ll simply need to take some time to rearrange and re-imagine.
Before we get to some top time management tips, let’s begin with a definition of time management to establish some common ground:
Definition of Time Management: What Exactly Is It?
Time management can be viewed as a process for organizing and planning your time effectively.
It is a philosophy for allocating time according to preferences and priorities. It looks at how you divide your time between activities, where good practice enables people to work smarter, not harder.
It allows workers to get more done in less time, to boost productivity on route to a more successful working life.
When pressures are high and time is tight, time management allows you to be effective in the face of adversity.
Now we’ve created a foundation to build on with a definition of time management, let’s get stuck into some top time management tips with life-changing potential.
Time Management Top 4 Tips
Prioritize Tasks
How often do you find yourself getting bogged down with tasks which aren’t of great importance?
If the answer is quite often, you probably haven’t learned to prioritize your time effectively. It helps when companies engage employees with proper training, so they’ll understand how to prioritize successfully.
You should always focus on completing the most important tasks first. This is a great way to establish a hierarchy of duties, while you gain a sense of order and structure in your working life.
A great way to prioritize is by establishing a list of highly important tasks, those which need to be completed urgently.
You might have 2-3 super urgent tasks that demand significant attention. In which case, you should focus on these throughout the week.
You can use up other time by focusing on less pressing tasks, which will often serve as a great way to break up the day.
Sleep Well!
Some believe skipping sleep is a great way to unlock more hours for work, but this is counter-intuitive.
Less sleep might give you more hours awake, but at what cost? Will you be at your best or will you feel sluggish?
Without sufficient restoration, your tiredness will affect productivity significantly. Sacrificing sleep is a surefire way to impede your body’s natural functions.
Preventing your body and mind from working properly is the last thing you need, and this will affect your ability to manage time.
To be able to work at your best, you should focus on getting 6-8 hours of sleep per night. Listen to your body and never underestimate the power of good quality sleep!
Focus Your Energy
Every task you complete deserves maximum energy and commitment. You should close off all other distractions when you have something important to do, otherwise your mind can easily wander.
Close unnecessary browser windows, put your phone on silent, and dedicate your time to the job at hand.
This is especially important with urgent tasks, those which require maximum effort and attention if they’re to be completed successfully.
When you immerse yourself in the job at hand, you’re much more likely to be successful. Get great results while maximizing your time with supreme focus.
Say ‘No’
Enthusiastic workers jump at the chance to take on new opportunities, but you must know when enough is enough.
There is always a limit to what you can realistically achieve, and the sooner you understand your limits the more productive you’ll become.
Juggling various engagements is an important element of time management, but as a productive worker it’s easy to take it too far and become open to exploitation.
At some stage you must learn how to decline opportunities. Saying no can be a blessing in disguise, one which allows you to refocus your ambitions.
It helps if companies promote the importance of saying no during an efficient onboarding procedure, to instill the right mental attitude in employees from early on.
Only take on commitments you know you have time for, otherwise you might be biting off more than you can chew.
