Besides their achievements, successful people have one thing in common. It is an effective time management technique they practice in life. Every individual has their own terms of achievement and success. Their assessments on professional and personal success differ. For everything, you need to master your time management skills. Time management should go hand-in-hand with the work you do. With better Time-Management, you can increase your productivity as well as gain a sense of confidence. Apart from these, practicing time-management takes you one step closer to making your goal a reality.
How to Master Time Management skills?
Everything takes practice. Practice brings perfection. It takes disciple in managing the time efficiently. Even a slight act of procrastination beats the purpose of time-keeping. Besides, mastering the time-management skills is easy for you.
i) Time management begins with your daily lifestyle activities upon starting the day. Manage your mornings, and the whole day gets sorted for you.
ii) The same goes for your professional life as well. Being to work on-time gives a smooth start.
iii) Starting from ‘How you begin your day’ to that of ‘How you finish your day’ depends upon time management. Make this time-gap effective, and you become productive!
iv) You got 24 hours for you. Effectively managing that time limit, knowing what you can do and what has to be done is all it takes to master the skill.
Here are the 25 easy ways to master time management skills for you.
25 Time Management Skills to Master
1. Bring together all the tasks you have
If you need to manage your time, you need to distinguish your tasks and activities. Define all your tasks for the day. Include all your activities, meetings, appointments, and other related things, so you don’t miss anything. Without the tasks, there comes no time-planning and scheduling. Bring all the tasks together before you sit to plan your time.
2. Separate the tasks based on the importance
By now, all your tasks are laid out in front of you. Separate the tasks based on importance. It’s an effective time-management technique for you. Once you separate the tasks based on importance, you will know which one to start and which ones can wait. It prevents you from wasting time.
3. Divide your tasks into small ones
It brings a considerable difference in ‘task Completion.’ Also, dividing big tasks into chunks saves time. It increases your interest. On the other hand, lengthy work can bring boredom easily. You can see how effectively you have completed the tasks if it is small actionable steps.
4. Make priorities
List your tasks and works based on priorities. It’s the most important tip for good time-management. First, it saves plenty of time. Secondly, a priority gives a perspective of what needs to be done ‘now’ and ‘later.’ You will begin to work quickly and effectively. The third and most important one is Time-Management.
5. Set time limit
Set a Time-limit on your own. It’s like a self-alarm for you to finish the task or work. Allocate a specific time for your tasks to complete. Try to complete the work in the allotted time if the time exceeds, no problem. Relax. See where you lagged or what made the delay. Continue the other day by correcting your mistakes. The time-management process takes twists and turns.
6. Decision-Making
Timely decision making corresponds to good time management. Good decisions can save plenty of time, effort, and resources in your workplace as well as professional space.
7. Do Good Planning
Good planning demands time. On the contrary, making appropriate plans in a short time-frame is a skill needed nowadays. You need to develop good planning skills to resolve quick tasks as well as big tasks. It comes with managing your time.
8. Execute it
Once you are done planning, execute it. Executing a plan has multiple factors corresponding to it. Understand the time every stage of execution takes. Manage the time well through planning, scheduling, and deciding. By doing so, you can easily get the results.
9. To-do list or Checklist
It depends upon individual preferences. Preparing a check-list or to-do list of all your tasks, priorities, and important works will help you. It lets you keep track of things.
10. Meeting Deadlines
It’s an important skill associated with Time-Management. Meeting your deadline brings more credibility to you. In order to achieve it, you need good planning. Utilizing time efficiently is important here.
11. Setting your Deadline
It is not only for your projects. Include this tip in your day-to-day tasks.
For Example: If you are working on a task, set your own deadline of 10-15 Minutes early to the actual deadline. You will increase your work. In the meantime, you will start thinking about the related tasks needed for completion.
12. Stop with the ‘perfection’ mindset
The emphasis here is on managing your time well and getting things done in a good way. Don’t bring ‘perfection’ here. Perfection can bring time delays.
For Instance, The term perfection can be the ‘Working-Process’ for some people. Meanwhile, for some people, perfection is in the ‘Results.’ They don’t care about how the process is. A good result is what such people expect. The term differs with meaning. The importance here is to do the work on time.
13. Track the time
Track the time you are spending on each task. Analyze your performance for the past week. Notice the ‘time you take’ and the ‘time you spend’ on tasks and other activities. Identify the places where you could save time. It improves your time. This technique is one of the best ways to master your time-management skills.
14. Identify the mistakes from it
By tracking your past week’s performance, you can identify what went wrong. Try to correct it in the coming new week.
15. Stay away from Distraction
We understand that one needs personal breaks now and then. You can have healthy distractions such as food-breaks, snack times, music, walk, etc. Make sure that you stay away from distractions that don’t benefit you.
16. Hardest or Easiest Task First
It’s an important time-management route. Being Indecisive about your tasks is not the answer. Choose your tasks. It depends upon individuals. For those who have trouble starting or procrastinating, begin with small tasks. Completing it on time gives a confidence boost. For others, you can begin at your convenience. Either way, working and completing on-time is important. Follow this idea. You need to master this particular time-management skill over time.
17. Mentally prepare for the day
It is important. It helps you start the day with a positive mindset. With a positive and mentally-prepared mindset, you can manage the day and time with confidence. Consequently, if you are not mentally prepared for the day, it can get tough. You won’t feel active. Agitations due to un-preparedness can spread throughout the day. Time gets wasted while productivity becomes less.
18. Don’t have too much on your plate
Do what you can do at the stipulated time. If you have more things on your plate, time management gets tough. Share your work when needed. If not, allocate a different time-management strategy that suits.
19. Regarding the commitments
Think before you make another commitment. Too many commitments in different stages of in-completion are bad. It is not a good time-management practice.
20. Accept the unexpected
Unexpected things happen all the time. Accept it. Change your time-frame and associated planning accordingly.
21. Don’t focus on the Phone
You need self-control here. Notifications and social-media take a chunky part of our valuable time. Don’t do it often. Have some break time and check your phone. Don’t start and end your day with gadgets, especially social-media.
22. Be an Early Riser
It brings excellent productivity. One of the oldest and still effective time-management skills to master is waking-up early. You get plenty of time to prepare for the day mentally. It helps you positively shape the day.
23. Good Sleep is a Must
Restlessness causes multiple troubles. The weariness it brings will make individuals fall behind in everything they do. Get enough sleep. A restful night brings a good vibe throughout the day, followed by increased productivity on time.
24. Even if it is Less let it Be the best
It’s a golden rule in Time-Management. Even if it is less work, let it be the best work. Don’t hurry. Timing is essential, whereas the good output is even more important. Let it go if the time becomes difficult here. Make sure that the work you do becomes the best.
25. Get the Help of Tools
We can see multiple planning and calendar tools online. Pick one according to your preferences and convenience. A plain notebook is also good. Time-management can be kept on track with the help of these mediums and online tools.
Considering these 25 tips, you can get a rough idea about how you can master the time-management skill. Through this article, it becomes clear that time management needs practice. It requires patience in the case when things go wrong or unplanned.
To Conclude
Let’s be practical here. We like to emphasize a point repeatedly, i.e. mastering the Time Management skill takes practice and patience. Most importantly, it takes life experiences. With experience, you will get the knowledge about how to handle your time and day within 24Hrs.
Over time, you will start prioritizing your tasks and manage the things in hand. As a result, you become good at managing time. The 25 tips we shared here about time-management skills will definitely help you sort things out.