Time Management Tips For Productivity

1. Find Out How You Spend Your Time

The average person has 168 hours per week. But how do you spend those 168 hours? How do you actually spend your time? Time management is a skill that many people either don’t have or don’t know how to use. It’s not just about managing your time, but also making sure you are using it wisely. The first step in time management for productivity is understanding how you spend your time.

You can do this by looking at your daily routine and assessing the following;

What are the tasks that I need to complete?
Which tasks take up the most of my time?
What are the tasks that I enjoy doing?
What are the tasks that I dislike doing?
How much time do I allocate for each task?
When do I complete my work on a typical day?

2. Identify Your Most Productive Time

Figure out how you work best, what works for you and what doesn’t. This will be your starting point in your journey to productivity. It’s one of the important time management tips for productivity. Some people prefer to plan ahead and set goals, while others prefer to focus on tasks as they come up. Some people like to take breaks while others prefer not to have any interruptions throughout the day. What matters most is that you figure out what works best for you and then stick with it. It is never too late to start a new habit or discard an old one. If you want to improve your productivity, start by understanding the way you work best and when you work best.

3. Create a time schedule

How do you manage your time? Do you have a schedule for the day? If not, then it is time to get one! Having a schedule saves time by ensuring that you have all your work organized in advance so that you don’t have to worry about forgetting anything important. Once you have an idea of what needs to be done, create a list of all the tasks that need completed. This list should include both long-term and short-term tasks.

The first step in creating a time schedule is to figure out what you need to do. Here’s a set of questions that can guide you;

What are my goals for today?
What are my current priorities?
Are there any deadlines for today, this week, this month, and this year?
Which tasks do I need to complete in order to reach these goals and deadlines?

Next, prioritize the list by sorting them from most important task at the top.

4. Prioritize Tasks

Prioritizing tasks is one of the most important skills in time management. It helps you to make sure that you are spending your time on the right things and not wasting it by doing unimportant tasks. The best way to prioritize tasks is to use the Eisenhower Matrix. It is a time management technique that can be used for personal or business productivity. This matrix divides tasks into four categories:

Urgent and Important Tasks
Important but not Urgent Tasks
Not Important but Urgent Tasks
Not Important and not Urgent Tasks

5. Assign Time Limits to Tasks

We often feel like we are in a race against time. We are always trying to balance our work and personal lives, but it seems like we never really have enough time for anything. This is because we are not assigning time limits to tasks. If you have a task that you need to complete in under 10 minutes, then give yourself 10 minutes. Set a timer and start working on it until the timer goes off. This helps you manage your workload more efficiently, which can lead to improved productivity.

6. Stop Multitasking

Multitasking has been proven to be inefficient and ineffective. The human brain cannot focus on more than one task at a time, so it switches back and forth, which wastes time. The first step to improving productivity is understanding the difference between multitasking and task switching. Multitasking is when you are doing two or more tasks at a time, while task switching is when you switch from one task to another. Task switching can be productive if done in short intervals of time, but it will not be as effective as if you were focused on just one task for an extended period of time.

7. Time Management Tools

Many people find it difficult to manage their time. They have so many things to do that they don’t know where to start and how to prioritize. There are a lot of productivity tools out there that help you manage your time better and make you more productive. Here are some time management tools you can use to improve your productivity;

Google Calendar
Todoist ; this is a great app for managing your tasks and projects. It has a clean interface that makes it easy to use, as well as having a lot of features like reminders, priorities, labels, etc.
RescueTime ; this is an app that tracks where your time goes on your computer so that it can tell what programs are distracting you the most or what websites are taking up most of your time.

8. Take Breaks

It is important to take a break from time to time. This is because it helps us recharge and rejuvenate our brain. Learn to take a break when you’re feeling tired and stressed out. When you take a break, it gives our brain the chance to rest and process the information that you have taken in.

Not taking breaks will lead to burn out and in the long run you’ll become less productive. It is important to take breaks in order to recharge our mental batteries and stay focused. Breaks can be as simple as taking a walk outside or reading a book. There are many ways that we can make sure that we are taking care of ourselves and not just pushing ourselves for the sake of productivity.

9. Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro technique is a popular method for managing your time in increments of 25 minutes with 5-minute breaks in between sessions where you work without interruption on a task or a set of tasks. This technique helps you avoid distractions and get more done in less time. Try this technique out and find out if it works for you.

The Pomodoro Technique consists of two phases:

Pre-work, where the task at hand is clarified and necessary preparations are made;
Work on the task until completion, followed by a short break;
Review of how the work went, followed by another break before repeating the cycle

10. Learn to Say “No”

We all have limited time, energy and resources. So it’s important that we know when to say no and focus on what matters most. Saying “no” is not only a time management skill, but also a life management skill. Learning to say “no” is a skill that many of us struggle with. It can be difficult to say no to someone we care about, or someone who asks for help. But the reality is that saying no can be good for both ourselves and for the other person in the long run.

11. Pareto principle

The Pareto principle can help you to manage your time and prioritize your tasks in order to be more productive and efficient. If you take a look at your daily tasks and notice that most of them are not very important, then you can use this principle to focus on the 20% of tasks which will give you 80% of the results. This can help you identify the most important tasks.

12. Delegate or Outsource

Delegating tasks to others can save a lot of time and energy. Time spent on delegating tasks is not wasted because it can be used for other productive activities such as brainstorming or researching. Outsourcing tasks to experts such as freelance writers, designers, developers, and web designers can also save a lot of time and energy. You can’t do everything, learn how to let others help you so you can focus on more important tasks.

13. Make Use Of Dead Time

The average person spends about a quarter of their time at work in some form of dead time. This is time spent waiting for someone else to do something, or waiting for a meeting to start, or just sitting and doing nothing. Dead time can be used to improve productivity if we make the most of it.

We can use this dead time for two things: 1) taking care of personal tasks that need attention like emailing and answering phone calls, 2) planning our day ahead by reviewing our schedule and figuring out what needs to be done next.

14. Distractions

We often get distracted by a variety of things in our lives. We are so accustomed to distractions that we don’t even realize how much time we spend on them. These distractions can take away from the time that we could be spending on productive tasks. Identify what distracts you the most. Is it social media, television, video games, or something else? Once you have figured out what distracts you the most, try to cut down on it. You can also try setting up a timer for your phone that will tell you when it is time to switch tasks. This will help you focus on one task at a time. Create an environment that is conducive to productivity as well.