Time Management: Take Charge of Your Day!
Have you ever compared yourself with others? Wonder how they can achieve a lot more things than you despite both of you having the same 24 hours a day? That is because they are good at time management.
The practice of managing and planning how to split your time between various activities is known as time management. When you get it right, you'll find yourself working smarter rather than harder to get more done in less time, even when time is short and pressures are high.
Why is it Important?
Being able to manage your time is an important skill that will get you far in life. It helps you maximize your day to the fullest. Good time management holds a lot of benefits for you. Those benefits are:
Boost Productivity
The importance of time management is so that you can increase your productivity. You can do this by effectively managing your time. Assigning a specific time for all things to be completed in a day allows you to plan your day ahead of time and complete more tasks in less time. However, keep in mind that this will only work if you complete your task on time; delaying will hurt your productivity.
Keeps You Organized
The easiest method for students to manage their time is by designing and sticking to a timetable. Additionally, sticking to a timetable will also help you prioritize your tasks. This is beneficial for students because they will have a clear understanding of the many chores that must be completed each day, and they will be able to readily mark the jobs as completed once they have been completed. This will help you organize your daily chores, and you can even prioritize them by putting the most critical ones at the head of your to-do list.
Reduce Stress
When you have a lengthy list of things to do and not enough time to complete them, you might become anxious. You can prioritize tasks and tackle them first with good time management. You'll know exactly what you need to do and how much time you have to finish each assignment this way. You will feel less anxious and stressed because you have ample time to complete everything.
Find out the other benefits of time management in this article.
How do you do it?
How do you become more productive in a day? More specifically, how do you start to manage your time better? The most important thing that you need to do first is to classify your time based on the time management matrix.
What is a time management matrix, you ask?
Stephen Covey's infamous book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People introduced the Time Management Matrix as a self-management tool. It's now commonly used by businesses and people to discover time wasters and prioritize vital tasks.
See the table below to see what the time management matrix is.
From the table above you can see that the time management matrix divides your tasks into four categories based on their importance and urgency. This matrix is one of the best ways for you to be more organized and keep you from procrastinating.
See the full detail on how to use the time management matrix here.
Maximize it with tools
The preparation and the procedure of setting a timetable are challenging and time-consuming. Therefore, using tools to help you manage your time can save you a lot of time and work. This means it can help you be more productive. Take a look at these tools that you can use to help you manage your time better:
Tomato Timer
You may be faced with an assignment that you've been dreading. Or maybe a university application deadline is approaching, but you haven't started working on it yet. Here comes Tomato Timer, a web-based tool that draws on the Pomodoro Technique, which divides your time into 25-minute work chunks with five-minute breaks in between.
Forest
Studying while building yourself a virtual forest? That's what Forest is. Forest is one of the time management tools available on iOS and Android. Basically, when you start your study session, you plant a seed. The seed will grow into a tree if you manage to stay off your phone for a set amount of time. At the end of the day, you can look back at your virtual forest and revel in all the work you've completed!
Remember The Milk
Keeping track of the things you need to do can be difficult. Worry not, Remember The Milk is here as your reminder. Make a list of everything you need to do and you'll be reminded of all your deadlines. Not only can this app sync with all of your devices, but it can also integrate with your calendar and emails!
Need more recommended tools to manage your time effectively? Find more here.
Time management tips
It is not an easy task to start managing your time better. Therefore, here are some tips that can help you hone your time management skill.
Find out where you waste your time
If you find it takes you much longer than should be expected to finish an assignment or meet deadlines, have you figured out the root of the problem? Perhaps you look for snacks after finishing a set of questions and end up not regaining your focus.
Tracking your activities is a good place to start to have a clear picture of how much time you spend on different activities. This allows you to eliminate any time-wasters that may not contribute to any of your work!
Identify your productive 'time zone'
Knowing when you're at your most productive allows you to adjust your schedule and take advantage of those periods. If you are most productive at 4 in the afternoon, for example, isolate those productive periods and work on the tasks you need to do.
Read here for more tips regarding time management!
Managing your time is hard and difficult, but it is worth a shot. Do not see it as a responsibility or a chore that you have to do every day, see it as a small habit that can support your success.
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