time management tips

1. De-cluttered Workplace

A cluttered workplace can be a big distraction. Too many objects including stationery items, gadgets, or any sorts of clutters on the table can divert your attention. You may find something of interest to you. For instance, if you see a book, you will start flipping pages or start reading things. Your focus changes here. Clean your Workspace before you sit to work. Preferably, look for a secluded and comfortable place to begin your work.

2. Schedule & Prioritize

Scheduling and prioritizing are simple yet effective time-management techniques to overcome procrastination. If you don't know where to start, then start prioritizing your work. It should give you baby-steps to begin a job. Track down little things related to your task. Start with it. Schedule and prioritize based on what's important, and what needs immediate attention. Besides, add the closest task that can be completed. Maintain a little notebook for it.

3. Better Idea than Avoidance

This is a simple technique for your brain. Your brain can sense boredom. If you can sense dis-interest. As a result, it keeps doing the same thing, again and again, i.e. triggers the feeling of procrastination. Feed your brain some positive actionable thoughts. Whenever your brain triggers the thought of 'Let's procrastinate', divert it by giving valid ideas. Don't give the thoughts of 'Postpone' or 'avoid it'.

The three reasons we discussed here are the best time-management techniques to beat the procrastination habit. The reasons can help you with bringing productivity. We hope that these points will help you to think through procrastination and follow simple ways to overcome it.

1. Get Started somewhere

You cannot procrastinate in the long run. The habit leads to a level where your reputation can be at stake. If you don't find anywhere to start, it's fine. The next day, work something out. Analyze the task in hand. See what you can do about it. Instead of postponing, look for ways to begin somewhere. It can be as little work as 'creating a folder for your work. Do simple tasks like writing in your planner, or talking it with your colleagues. Begin somewhere.

2. Take Little Breaks

Celebrate little achievements. Take little personal breaks. If you feel like you are triggered to procrastinate, divert your thoughts. Go out. Listen to music. Get some fresh air. Do things you like. Settle yourself and begin fresh. Don't let the feeling of procrastination take shape.

3. Stop Notifications for a While

Social media, smart-phones, gadgets, and notifications divert the attention highly. Once you are addicted to them, you will automatically procrastinate with the work in hand. Before you begin to work, mute or turn off notifications for a while. It'll help you get started without any disturbance.

4. There's 'No' Perfect time

There is no 'perfect time' to start work. Waiting for "prefect-timing" is one of the common reasons behind procrastination by individuals. Don't wait for a perfect moment or perfect day or perfect time to start your work. Don't use this as an excuse.

1. "Active" in Your Spare Time:

Have a few hours of spare time every day. If you feel like you are procrastinating or very hesitant to start any work, close it as of now. Find some spare time in any part of the day. Work in spare time. The point is, instead of procrastinating, you can try different things in the same area in which you are working. Be active in those spare times with related work. practice this technique.

To better explain the concept, let's see an example.

Example: Imagine yourself as an artist. You keep procrastinating' a project due to lack of inspiration or motivation. Hence it becomes difficult to start the work. To begin with, find a few hours of spare time in any part of the day. Instead of focusing on the project, relax your mind. Take a canvas or journal and start drawing or coloring whatever comes to your mind. By doing so, you get to hit the brain's refresh button. You can get some ideas if you focus on yourself instead of postponing or ignoring it. Over time, you might get a spark to start.

2. Divide the work into little chunks:

Big tasks can be overwhelming. In due time, you start to feel total exhaustion. Likewise, big works bring starting troubles. Eventually, people start to procrastinate. So divide the works into little chunks. Break them into little actionable tasks. Divide tasks according to various categories. For instance: divide them based on importance, time-required, resources needed, etc.

3. 'Short-Time' things first:

Work on things that take short-time. In this way, you will not have difficulty to 'begin' the work. Beginning with short-time projects can be a healthy alternate to avert the feeling of procrastination.

i) CHEAT WORKDAY:

It’s ok to have a cheat workday as a cheat meal. We are humans, not machines. Just be careful that your cheat workday does not come too often.

ii) FIND THE MEANING OF YOUR JOB:

Find meaning in your work, and you will love to do it.

iii) SELF-ACKNOWLEDGMENT:

Reward yourself and praise yourself when you finish a big task at a given time.

iv) LISTEN TO YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND:

Have a pen and paper all the time so you can write down everything that your subconscious mind tells you.

v) KEEP QUESTIONING YOURSELF:

“Am I currently making the most use of my time?” Keep yourself asking this over and over.

vi) OUTSOURCE YOUR WORK:

If you want to achieve more in less time, learn how to OUTSOURCE WORK.

vii) EXCITING GOALS:

Set some exciting goals to motivate yourself and encourage yourself to do it.

viii) DO LESS COMMUTING:

If possible, work from home to save time commuting. Aghh..that’s a lot of time, man.

I) SLEEP WELL:

Taking sufficient sleep will give your body and mind enough time to rejuvenate. So they can work well on the next day.

II) HANDLE STRESS WISELY:

When we take more work than our ability, it causes a lot of stress that can hamper our productivity. To understand it very careful about how many amounts of work you can do and accept only that.

III) START EARLY:

You already know that we are most productive in the first hour of the day, then you must start your day early.

IV) EXERCISE:

Make time for a gym or workout at home. It will help you to stay fit. And you can work an extra hour if it is needed.

V) USE THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUR BRAIN:

There is a part of our brain that we don’t use at work. To gear up your creativity and use that at your disposal, learn to use that part.

VI) TIME FOR RELAXATION:

Don’t let your work stress comes in between your relaxation time. Enjoy your free time with friends, families, and loved ones. It will help you to fill with new energy.

1. ELIMINATE EXCUSES:

Find all the reasons that we usually use for not completing our work or not growing in our lives. Then eliminate them. It will open a whole new opportunity to challenge your skills.

2. PASSION:

Find passion in your work or work in your passion. Only then you will go beyond your limits to complete it in time.

3. PLAN:

When you are going to bed, plan for the next day’s starting. You will not be confused on the following day.

4. SOFTWARE TOOLS:

There are a variety of apps and tools, and some are useful for business management, especially for monitoring and assessing daily processes. Use them.

5. ONLINE CALENDAR:

Use an online calendar to track your schedule and time limit at any time and anywhere.

6. ORGANIZE YOUR EMAIL:

The best way to speed up email communication and waste less time on superfluous exchanges is to organize your inbox. Don’t get hung up on a cluttered inbox.

7. LET YOUR PHONE RINGING SOMETIMES:

It is not every time necessary to pick up a phone call just because it is ringing. If you are at work, then you can avoid unnecessary calls to save time.

1) MAKES A USEFUL HABIT:

Make your regular task a habit. It does not come on a single day. It depends on your consistency.

2) COMMIT TO YOURSELF:

Start your day by telling yourself that you are going to do this much work by the end of the day, and at the end of the day, you evaluate what percent of total work you have done. If you don’t value the commitments to yourself, then you can’t expect others to do.

3) SOCIAL MEDIA:

If you are not using social media on a professional purpose, then you have to be very careful about the time that you invest there. Because social media is the biggest distraction in our time, and you probably don’t realize when your 3-minute breaks become 2 hours of time waste.

4) POSITIVE VIBES ONLY:

Be surrounded by the people who carry positive vibes with them. You will find an extraordinary change in your attitude both professionally and personal life.

5) TAKE RESPONSIBILITY:

Take responsibility for your words and your work. It will push you beyond your limit to complete work on time.

1. DON’T WASTE TIME WAITING:

We all have to wait in a long queue in how many times a week or maybe sometimes daily. But don’t just wait and waste your time on the line. You can make some use of that by reading an inspirational book or anything that you want to read but couldn’t make time in your schedule.

2. BE HEALTHY:

If you are not healthy, then you can’t work effectively for 17 to 18 hours a day. Only a healthy and fit person can work for this long.

3. LESS IS BETTER:

Yes, less is better. You can work less and be the best at that.

4. BATCH SIMILAR TASKS:

If you have related work in your hand, then put them in the same frame of time. It will take less time to complete rather than doing them separately.

5. INSPIRATION IN ENTERTAINMENT:

We all know the importance of entertainment in our lives. But you also can have some motivation at that time saved for entertainment purposes. Watch some Ted talk shows or some documentaries on successful people.

6. WORK SMARTLY:

Work smartly rather than just working hard.

(1) PERFECTION COMES WITH TIME:

Perfection is not something that happens overnight. If you think that you can be perfect by just working a single day, then you will waste lots of time, and you will not have time to do the other critical daily jobs. So keep practicing daily. It will eventually make you perfect. But don’t over-invest your time on a particular job on a single day.

(2) BREAKS ARE IMPORTANT:

Research says that the human brain can focus on work only for 90 minutes at a time. So don’t overburden yourself. Make small breaks of 5 to 10 minutes between each 90 minutes session of work to increase the rate of efficiency of your work.

(3) BE ORGANIZED:

If you can put a thing in the right place where it is taken from, then it will save you a lot of time daily. It also makes your life a lot easier.

(4) LEARN TO SAY ‘NO’:

I know you have a soft heart, and you don’t want to upset anyone. Remember that you can only handle limited work at a time. So learn to say no to less prior things at that moment.

1) STAY OUT OF DISTRACTION:

Whenever you are working on computer use, that ‘do not disturb’ function. It will help you to stay out of all the distractions that might cause you a waste of time.

2) FIRST HOUR-FIRST THING:

Early to bed and early to rising makes a person more productive. The first hour of the morning is the time when we are most capable of doing anything right. So the first important thing you should complete on the first hour of the morning.

3) MULTITASKING DOES NOT WORK ALL THE TIME:

Yes, you read it correctly. Multitasking is a skillful thing. But doing it every day at the last hour is not a good sign. It can mess up your whole efforts. So try to stay out of multitasking as much as possible and finish works at its scheduled time.

4) INSPIRE YOURSELF:

Why you should wait for inspiration and lose valuable time. You should do things that inspire you. Motivate yourself to be a better person and to grow as an individual.

1. WORK ON YOUR SKILLS:

You can be successful in any field where you want to. But when you work on the field, you must have the technical knowledge regarding that field. Otherwise, it will take you lots of time to finish an average work and although you might not get the desired result.

2. USE OF SUNDAY:

I understand that people want to take a rest and enjoy themselves on Sunday. Apart from that, you can make a little use of that Sunday on your time management purposes. Make the complete chart of the work schedule for that week on Sunday. Then you will get some time to evaluate and edit that. Without hampering your Sunday Vibes, you actually can save quite a lot of time for other days.

3. ‘DONE’ LIST:

Make a column on the right side of your to-do list. You mark those completed work in time there. Also, mark which of the work taking more time than it should be. It will make it easy to evaluate your progress.

1. SET A TIME LIMIT:

Put a time limit to all of your work. Thus you will understand how efficient you are doing that thing. It will make you a more proficient worker.

2. IMPORTANT THINGS:

There is some work daily that everybody needs to do, like eating, taking a bath, etc. All you can do is take one and a half hours to complete all of these things. Save your time on these and invest them in creativity.

3. PRIORITIZE THINGS:

It’s important to know which one work you want to do or which one you don’t want to do. Like it makes no sense of wasting your time on things that are not worthy enough to do.

01) DAY TO DAY WORK SCHEDULE:

Make a concise list of your day to day routine. Try to finish all the work on that given day. This will not make more burden on your next day.

02) KEEP CALM:

People mostly ignore the importance of being calm. They think that they can work more by getting overactive. It’s wrong. By getting hyper, you waste your time in wrong works. Your brain works faster when you keep calm and control your nerves. You will find more effective ways to work faster and proficiently.

03) TIME AUDIT:

If you are running out of time daily, then you are probably doing some works that are draining your time. It is time to evaluate the report and find out where you lose your time. So you can make a new chart on what work to do and which one to avoid.

04) BE VISIONARY:

As we all only get 24 hours on a given day, then it is essential to know which work will provide you with fruits and which one is a total waste of time. That’s how you can save your time from investing it in wrong deeds.

50 AMAZING TIPS TO GET THE MOST OF YOUR TIME

01) DAY TO DAY WORK SCHEDULE

02) KEEP CALM

03) TIME AUDIT

04) BE VISIONARY

05) SET A TIME LIMIT

06) IMPORTANT THINGS

07) PRIORITIZE THINGS

08) WORK ON YOUR SKILLS

09) USE OF SUNDAY

10) ‘DONE’ LIST

11) STAY OUT OF DISTRACTION

12) FIRST HOUR-FIRST THING

13) MULTITASKING DOES NOT WORK ALL THE TIME

14) INSPIRE YOURSELF

15) PERFECTION COMES WITH TIME

16) BREAKS ARE IMPORTANT

17) BE ORGANIZED

18) LEARN TO SAY ‘NO’

19) DON’T WASTE TIME WAITING

20) BE HEALTHY

21) LESS IS BETTER

22) BATCH SIMILAR TASKS

23) INSPIRATION IN ENTERTAINMENT

24) WORK SMARTLY

25) MAKES A USEFUL HABIT

26) COMMIT TO YOURSELF

27) SOCIAL MEDIA

28) POSITIVE VIBES ONLY

29) TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

30) ELIMINATE EXCUSES

31) PASSION

32) PLAN

33) SOFTWARE TOOLS

34) ONLINE CALENDAR

35) ORGANIZE YOUR EMAIL

36) LET YOUR PHONE RINGING SOMETIMES

37) SLEEP WELL

38) HANDLE STRESS WISELY

39) START EARLY

40) EXERCISE

41) USE THE OTHER SIDE OF YOUR BRAIN

42) TIME FOR RELAXATION

43) CHEAT WORKDAY

44) FIND THE MEANING OF YOUR JOB

45) SELF-ACKNOWLEDGMENT

46) LISTEN TO YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND

47) KEEP QUESTIONING YOURSELF

48) OUTSOURCE YOUR WORK

49) EXCITING GOALS

50) DO LESS COMMUTING

Mother Teresa once said, “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.”

This is the ultimate truth of life. Especially for those who want to work for themselves. Career-oriented people can easily relate to this quotation. In this fast-paced world, every possibility of success lies today. One time that is most valuable for us is the time we are in, neither yesterday nor tomorrow.

20 common time management mistakes

Here are 20 COMMON MISTAKES people do in their time management journey, and I have shared SOME KICK-ASS METHODS TO RECTIFY THOSE MISTAKES.

1.) TURN OFF NOTIFICATIONS

2.) SET PRIORITIES AND GOALS

1.) Create a daily plan

2.) Peg a time limit to each task

3.) Use a calendar

4.) Use an organizer

5.) Know your deadlines

6.) Learn to say "NO"

7.) Target to be early

8.) Time box your activities

9.) Have a clock visibly placed before you

10.) Set reminders 15 minutes before

11.) Focus

12.) Block out distractions

13.) Track your time spent

14.) Don't fuss about unimportant details

15.) Prioritize

16.) Delegate

17.) Batch similar tasks together

18.) Eliminate your time wasters

19.) Cut off when you need to

20.) Leave buffer time in-between