There is a saying “time is very precious, don’t waste it in vain…the time which has passed never comes again…and the people who waste time regret all their Life.” There is also a saying that if you spend your time in the right direction and at the right time then you can achieve your goal which comes in a return of your invested time. So let’s start without losing any time.
1. Importance of time management
It helps you to achieve your goal
Many people carry big and heavy burden and most of them fail to achieve their goals, but you can achieve your goal by managing your time effectively.
More time for day to day work
If you learn how to manage time then you will have enough time to do any work.
Increase productivity
If you complete your day to day work on time then you get enough time for yourself and in that time you can learn new skills or you can do something which you like to do and which increases your productivity.
Less stress
Let’s understand this with the help of an example…
If you work in a company and you have to provide a monthly sales report to your boss at
the end of the day and if you start your work late then you will have to give extra time to complete the work or you can keep the work pending for the next day which will create unnecessary stress for you. To avoid this stress you will need better time management.
2. Why is 24 hours time not sufficient for some people?
They don’t have fix time schedule
Many students don’t follow a fixed time schedule for their studies and due to this sometimes they don’t even complete their homework and they also get difficulties for their self studies.
They didn’t have list of priorities of work
If you don’t arrange your work according to their difficulties then you will face difficulty while completing the work.
Multitasking a lot
Focus has a major role in time management, for example if you have doing your office work and at the same time you are listening music or watching tv or if you are a student and you are studying and listening music at the same time then you cannot focus on one thing due to this you will get difficulties in understanding and as a result you waste your time.
Easily getting distracted
People who easily get distracted cannot do their work on time. These types of people are called BUSY DOING NOTHING (BDN). These people always check messages on social media. As a result they waste their time totally.
3. How to avoid time wastage
- Identify your time wasters
- Make a todo list
- Avoid internet surfing without any reason
- Avoid gossiping during working hours
- Remove all the time waster from your life
To avoid wasting your time you should have knowledge to identify the time wasters around you. We have to identify/observe those things which are the cause of time wasting.
Common time wasters:
- Constantly checking social media
Social media helps in increasing the brand awareness but this can be the main and big cause of your time wasting, as an example..You always scroll your Facebook feeds while doing some work, you check your chats and the upload pictures and you check time to time for the likes and comments in these process your lot of time gets waste.
Multitasking
If you think that you can save your time by multitasking then you are wrong, you can focus on a single task at a given time. If you are watching tv while studying then there are more possibilities that you will not learn anything and you can’t memory anything because at that time your focus can be on tv or on studies and normally tv creates lots of disturbances which will not allow you to focus you on your studies and by this you are going to waste your time.
Unnecessary meetings
According to the effectivemeeing.com, meetings are done on the daily basis in some organisations but some of them have useful purposes and some of them are just purposeless or meeting can be unproductive and wastes your time.
Procrastination
Besides of doing your work you keep on postponing your work or keep on delaying your work and when deadline arrives then you become stressed, in this not only your time gets wasted but also it affects your mental health.
Interruptions
Many times when you are involved in some important work and some uninvited people disturb you then you should know these are the time wasters for you.
Unimportant work
Nonurgent work
Gossiping
Doing things manually
Being messed and not being organised
4. Tips to avoid time wasters
Make a todo list
Many people are confused regarding their work priorities, they don’t understand which work should be done first, that’s why to come out of this problem there is a way out, you should make a todo list at the start of the day and plan accordingly.
Decide meeting time
Many people give their time for meeting rather than doing work which is totally wrong, you have to fix your time for meetings so that you can do your work more and more.
Do not focus of multitasking
If you are studying then you should focus on your studies at a time by this your concentration will increase and you learn more and more. Or if you are watching tv then you should watch only tv . Basically do single work at a time so that you can focus on that particular work.
Learn to say no
When you are doing your work then there are some people who want to talk to you. You should avoid gossiping, you should be ready to say no to those people.
Reduce unnecessary uses of social media/internet/mobile phones
When you are doing self study then at that time you should keep your phone on DND mode and study like you are studying in a classroom. To avoid wasting time you have to make some distance from your phone for some time and at that time you have to stop checking social media status.
Fixed time for replying/ checking social medias
In order to prevent yourself from wasting time you should set a proper time to check or reply to emails or to use social media.
Prioritise your work
You should give priority to only important tasks to manage your time.
Track your time
You should track your time like your budget.
5. How can you manage your time?
There are lots of techniques through which you can easily manage your time… Here are some rules..
1. Importance of prioritising your work using 5c rule
C- Clarity of goals
Work priority makes your goal clear, it clears confusion due to which you focus on your goal.
C- Consistent growth in work efficiency and productivity
When you make your work priority list then you know about your work and its deadline and you also know how and when to complete that particular work and this action increases your productivity level and efficiency.
C- Completion of task without missing anything
Prioritising work helps you to make a todo list and with this you can do your work systematically at the right time and with this you can complete your work with ease.
C- Concentrate on the important but not yet urgent task
Prioritising helps in focusing on important but not yet urgent tasks.
C- Complex decision making made easier
Prioritising helps in taking complex decisions easily.
2. 1+1+1 Rule to save your time
1+1+1 Rule helps you to achieve 1. Long terms (far future) goals. 2. Medium terms (near future) goals. 3. Short terms (current) goals and also prevents to waste your time. For example:
If you are a student and you have passed your 12th board examination, then your…
- Current goal: to take admission in a good collage
- Near future goal: to study well, score good marks and to get a good job in a good company
- Far future goal: after doing job to buy a car or a home would be your goal.
Importance of 1+1+1 :
Time saving
Having a plan helps you to save time and work more efficiently.
Quick relevant changes in your plan
If you want to advertise your product and if you have plans for one week then you can also plan for next week. Basically it will help you to track your plan and make quick necessary changes so you can plan better for the next week.
It helps you to remain on track
Current goals are visible because they are immediate goals but we have to watch our near future goal and far future goal, by this only this will help you to achieve your long term goal.
Rule to follow 1+1+1 Rule:
Plan today to execute today
Plan tomorrow to execute in future
Plan day after to execute in far future
3. 1-3-5 Rule of time management
This rule will help you to focus on accomplishing:
- 1 big thing
- 3 medium thing
- 5 small thing
Thus this rule narrows down your task list to only “9” things..
Large tasks:
We meet to focus more on large tasks and this can take almost 4045% of your day. Basically these tasks are meant for big projects or business management meetings.
Medium task:
It takes only 12 hour of your day…basically 20% of your working day is required to complete this task.
Small task:
You can do the work of this category in just 2030 minutes. These are the least focused areas. It takes only 510% of your day.
Benefits of 1-3-5 rule:
- Antiprocrastination
- Minimises distraction
- Increase productivity
- Reduces stress
4. Manage your time with a worklist
Eat the frog first
Everybody has a worklist and in that worklist complexity, priorities, choices, willingness etc. Eat the frog first is a famous western phrase which means you should complete the most challenging work first so that you will be able to do the most difficult work ahead.
Create a worklist
You must set a table and keep the worklist in front.
Prepare thoroughly before you begin
To start any work whether it is related to a business or a project you have to understand it thoroughly and arrange accordingly.
Make your difficult task easier
ABCDE Method of time management:
- A- Absolutely important task: Do the most important task first.
- B- Badly needed to be done: Categories task based on their priority.
- D- Delegate to others: Distribute unimportant tasks among others
- E- Eliminate from the list: Remove the tasks that are unnecessary.
5. Save your time by saying “NO”
Reason behind not being able to say “NO”
- People don’t want to ruin their relationship
- People are scared of spoiling their image
- Because of humanity
- Their consequence doesn’t allow
- People have a helping nature
- People have corporate pressure
Right way to saying “NO”
- Give a valid reason
- Give an alternate solution
- Show the current workload
- Give valid consequence
- Tell the real dilemma
Why is saying “NO” is a positive act?
- Saying NO means you value your time
- Saying NO is a brave act
- Saying NO means you know what you want
- Saying NO means standing your ground
- Saying NO is something saying YES
Learning to say NO is a situation that can harm you later. Say know to prioritise yourself. DO not always say yes to unnecessary demands of people.
6. Manage your time using tools
Before using these tools for saving your time you have to improve
- Estimating Deadline
- Avoid procrastination
- Improve discipline
- Learn from previous mistakes
Here Is the list of free tools using that you can easily your lot of time:
- Google calendar
- Google sheets
- Microsoft sticky notes
- Any.co
- SplenDo
- Trello
- TimeTune
- Woven
- Meetingbird
- Calendly
Use technology to organize and manage your time to meet deadlines.
Here is some paid tools using that you can easily save your lot of time:
Benefits of using paid tools are:
- Saves your time
- Increase your productivity
- Increase your efficiency
- Increase your concentration and focus
- Track your performance and time
- Save all information at one place
LIST OF PAID TOOLS:
Plan your actions before work to save time. Understand and manage time to work efficiently and take breakes in between work to refresh yourself.
Great job👍👍
Highly recommended
Nice keep it up 👍🏼