Mastering Time Management in 2023: 5 Tips You Need to Know Now!
Time is free, but it’s priceless, you can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you have lost it you can never get it back.
Are you a busy bee struggling to find time to finish your to-do list every day? Do you sometimes feel like you need to borrow a few extra hours from the next day to have a productive day?
Well, let me tell you, the problem is not time but the management of it.
In the fast-moving world, we seldom find time to do things that we actually love. It's not because we don't have time, it's just that we don't know how to manage time.
Time management is a skill, not only for working professionals but also if you are a student or homemaker, freelancers, it's a skill for everyone! Managing your time properly can increase your productivity and reduce stress. It also helps in achieving balance in life.
This new year we all would have planned our goals and prepared an action plan for the same. For some of you, managing your time better might have been a resolution. But before we do that, quickly go and check your last two months' progress. How much of your goals have you accomplished, and how much is pending, calculate all this and prepare a report.
Even if you have achieved only one goal, Woohoo, you have done it. But what about the others? What was stopping you from reaching there?
There may be several reasons, but the most important one will definitely be not being so efficient in time management.
As I said before, managing your time effectively will alone help you achieve more than 70% of your goals. So, how exactly should you manage this priceless resource?
Well, let me share with you my top favourite tips to manage your time better.
Make the most of your time in 2023 with our expert tips for better time management and increased efficiency. Keep reading!
Track Your Time
Tracking your time is the most important part of time management. Monitoring every part of your life is the key to increasing your productivity and ensuring a healthy workflow.
There will be more time-consuming tasks, which you haven’t recognized yet. There will be a task you are doing that is not at all important, but consumes a lot of your time, for example, scrolling through social media. Your minor daily activities can add up to heavy time consumption.
Pause reading right now and go check your activity on just one app [Instagram], how many hours have you spent on social media just today? Now check for your average screen time.
Are you really still going to say the same excuse, that you don’t have time? All the hours that are going wasted doing things of the least priority can be used productively if only we know how to manage our time. This will happen the moment you start tracking your time.
Time tracking reports of a day can give you insights into a day’s activity, thereby helping you to prioritize your tasks better and gain motivation to be more productive. Use time-tracking applications or software like Toggl Track to get insights into your daily time consumption.
Planning and Preparation
Have you wondered how much time you waste thinking about what to wear to the office tomorrow? And what to cook for dinner? Believe me, these aspects of your life are killing your time. Why not from here on make a plan for this? Set aside a day in the week when you do the entire meal planning for the week and plan your office outfits.
I usually tune into Spotify and plan my meal, goals, outfits etc, while grooving to my favourite album or listening to my favourite podcast episode.
I know this is not a new tip, but why do you think so many productive and successful people keep following them every day? Exactly, it worked well yesterday, it works today, and it will work tomorrow too.
Similarly, plan all these mundane tasks early so that you don’t waste your precious time worrying over silly things. Making a to-do list and prioritizing tasks can bring wonders to your life.
Consider making a weekly to-do list to take care of all these repetitive mundane tasks like meal planning, expense tracking, weekly planning, arranging your office outfits, and even your spa and self-care rituals. When you plan and give them a specific time slot, you are most likely to finish them all.
Keep these in mind while you make a to-do list
Try making it the night before so that you don’t have to rush in the morning.
Organize in order of priority, first things first.
Limit yourself to 3-5 tasks a day, don’t overdo it.
Add tasks and not goals to your to-do list.
Avoid Multitasking
To be honest, every one of us is a multitasker sometimes or other. Multitasking can be dangerous to the brain, shows research. Multiple streams of information can lead to exhaustion and fatigue.
You think you are doing too much simultaneously and being productive, but you are not. Your brain can concentrate on only one thing at a time. Doing too many things together can reduce focus and hinder the efficiency of work.
So avoid multitasking when you are working on an important project. Just give your undivided attention to the task at hand and see how it works like magic.
Take Regular Breaks
Your brain gets tired too easily. Working for so many hours without break not only affects the quality of work but also your creativity and focus.
We usually convince ourselves that we don’t have time to take a break and rush through the chores. However, researchers have shown that microbreaks in between can boost your performance.
Use the Pomodoro technique of time management, where you work for 30 minutes and take a break of 5 minutes in between. In this way, you will not feel bored and will be able to work without distractions.
The 80/20 rule is a time management tool developed by Vilfredo Pareto. The idea behind the technique is 20% of your actions are responsible for 80% of your outcomes. It focuses on prioritizing your tasks based on problem-solving efficiency.
One day sit and list out all the activities you do in a day on a regular basis. Now take two different colour markers or highlighters and highlight the 20% of tasks you do which you think to bring in 80% of the outcome. Repeat the same for tasks that take up 80% of your time but are responsible for 20% of the outcome. Now you know which tasks to prioritize and which ones should be given minimal priority.
Stay Organized
I can’t stress enough this aspect of time management. Have you ever thought about how much time you spend in a day looking for pens, papers, books, or any other random stuff?
This year make yourself more responsible by organizing your things. Organizing is not all a herculean task, follow these simple steps to get your life together-
Keep everything in place - the most obvious part. Sometimes we take a pen and leave it somewhere and again waste our time looking for it. Next time keep everything in place. The actual place where it belongs. Trust me, this can save you a lot of time.
Take 10 min every week to declutter the work desks - you would have never noticed that there are piles of papers or things on your desk that need to be cleaned as soon as possible.
Organize your digital folders once in a while - I know your phones and computers are filled with documents and unnecessary screenshots. Let’s rewind, and declutter digital folders. Decluttering can give you space to organize better.
In addition to the above-mentioned tips, beating procrastination and avoiding distractions are the most important aspects of time management.
When you work, distractions can come through different doors, the major form being your mobile phones. Avoid using your mobiles while you work or use the do not disturb mode. Keep a space exclusively as your workspace without any distractions or interruptions. Fill your space with positivity. It can ensure maximum productivity.
Follow these tips for making the most out of 2023 and start planning and organizing effectively. Let’s start the new month with a BANG…
Now with all these tips, first go and understand your screen time. Make changes to your routine in such a way that you reduce your screen time by half and start following all the above-mentioned tips.
I am 100% sure you will see at least a small change even if you follow a single tip mentioned in this blog. I am also 100% sure that we won’t see any change until we get up and take action. To which 100% do you want to belong? Make a decision today and start taking action!
I will see you next week with another interesting blog.
Is there something you would like to say to me? Drop your suggestions, recommendations or even feedbacks at abinayasivashanmugam07@gmail.com
Until then,
Signing off,
Abinaya S 🙂