Home » Performance Management » The Best Ways to Improve Time Management: Time Management Games?
Do you ever wish you had more time on your hands to complete those all-important tasks? We can all benefit from more time, and by working on your time management skills this is achievable.
Too often you’ll settle into unproductive routines where time isn’t used wisely, and for the most part don’t you won’t even know it until you decide to look at your habits.
We can become so busy in both work and personal contexts, the time available to complete important tasks shrinks. Whether you’re an executive, leader, or front-line worker, tackling time management challenges is a great way to balance your objectives.
Whether you play time management games or simply track your activities, there are various methods for allocating your time more effectively. Time management games might seem like they’re for leisure, but you’ll be surprised by their usefulness.
If you’re curious about how you can become more productive, you’ll enjoy these fantastic approaches:
Prioritize
What elements of your project are most important? It’s common to tackle work with no real rhyme or reason, while failing to acknowledge which tasks are most urgent. By learning to prioritize, you can more efficiently execute your work.
By working out which projects must be completed to hit your targets, you can break your workload into manageable components with short term, medium term, and long term importance.
Figure out which tasks will deliver the greatest returns, and consequently work on those you determine will bring the most value. These values should be promoted with ongoing training.
Time Management Games
Time management games aren’t simply for enjoyment, they can actually be leveraged for educational purposes. They are practical games which require you allocate time effectively to be successful, a skill which can later be transferred to work environments.
Though the format will appear to be an entertaining one, the application offers various skills which are transferable to industry. They force you to think fast on your feet, which is crucial in the workplace. Discover the right games for you by performing a simple Google search, and you’ll be pleased to encounter something which helps you manage your time more effectively.
Scheduling
Time is utilized more effectively when its planned out, where organization is a key focus. You can work out what you plan to achieve days in advance, and this will provide clarity around your objectives.
You should account for unexpected challenges, which occur in a world where things never go to plan. Understanding the tasks and responsibilities you’ll encounter, and how you’ll tackle them, there’ll be added motivation for the week ahead. With a clear plan of action, you’ll spend less time deliberating what to do next, and productively allocate your time on route to success.
If you suspect you could be allocating your time more effectively, spend some time tracking your daily activities. You will subsequently work out what tasks are taking the longest, and can identify which areas to replicate, and which areas need attention. Time management is all about evaluating your current processes, and assessing problem areas which could be critically improved.
Boundaries
Whether you’re in personal settings or at work, setting boundaries is always advisable. There will be times when you don’t want to be disturbed, so it’s important you clearly communicate your boundaries with people who could easily distract you.
Discuss your time limits in a polite, but direct fashion. When you need time to yourself, you’ll need to inform people about the importance of peace at given moments. To make a few things clear, tell others the time of days when you can’t be interrupted unless it’s an emergency. To do so, you’ll first need to establish what qualifies as an emergency.
There will be times when you’re available to take calls, and other times when you can’t. There will also be occasions when scheduled meetings are suitable, and times when you can’t afford to discuss complex issues because of your current work scope. Working through these issues will alleviate dilemmas and bring you one step closer to allocating time better.
Avoid Negative Distractions
Some distractions are positive, because you can’t expect to work for hours on end without breaks. Positive distractions can help us stay productive, where you let your mind rest then return to work refreshed.
Other distractions can influence our productivity dramatically. These are persistent, and regularly eat away at your time. Whether they’re distractions which drain long periods, are those which chip away at productivity, you should address and seek to remove them.
A typical example is constantly glancing at your phone. This has become commonplace in today’s smartphone driven society, but a dependence on checking your device doesn’t positively influence productivity. Social media is another time drag, alongside leaving your emails open when you need to complete an important task. By simply addressing these three you’ll learn to allocate time more effectively, but it’s a case of evaluating your individual circumstances because everyone’s distractions are different.
