It seems like we are all complaining of not having enough time, even with realtime communications and a smart phone in every pocket. These 3 tips can be used to manage your time and tasks effectively!
1. Write Everything Down
Organization is an essential part of successfully managing your time and tasks. Get a note book and carry it everywhere with you. Record your thoughts, conversations and activities. I use a combination of Google Calendar and a moleskine notebook. Writing things down helps with keeping your mind clear, tasks organized, easily prioritized and safely recorded.
2. Minimize Distractions
Minimizing distractions helps to keep you on task. Make sure you concentrate on only 1 task at a time. I had always read that turning off your email notifications was a good thing to do, but I was always afraid I would missing something important. I finally took the plunge a while back, and now I can say that turning off all of my email notifications was the best thing I’ve done in a long time. I still check my email frequently throughout the day, but it comes at natural breaking points now, instead of in the middle of what I’m working on.
Unfortunately you can’t control all your distractions as easily as your notifications on you smart phone. One way to attempt to control outside distractions is to block out time on your calendar for them and clearly communicate the available time slots.
3. Prioritize Effectively
In our busy lives, we unfortunately won’t get to do everything that we want to every single day. It’s important that we split up our days into work and personal. This helps to make sure that we prioritize tasks at a macro level and maintaining a work-life balance. Work-life balance means you leave time in your day for working on you. That could mean the gym, building personal relationships, school, hobbies, and (most importantly) sleep.
What are some techniques that you use to effectively manage your limited time and your overwhelming number of tasks?