Read further to learn the 7 secrets of time management.
1. Make room for your important and urgent tasks first.
Do you have items that need to be done first? Do what needs to be done first so that you don’t have to spend extra time worrying about it later. Also, knocking out the more difficult items in the beginning means that you may be able to spend more time relaxing later because you will know that you got the hard stuff out of the way. You never know if something that urgently needs to be done takes longer than expected, causing you to postpone the less urgent tasks.
2. Make a schedule.
Without a schedule, it would be hard to be able to effectively manage your time. Lay out a schedule of when you will do different things. Also, make sure that you have a schedule for when each task needs to be done and what exactly needs to be done. Having everything written out can help you because you won’t have to spend time wondering about whether or not you forgot about something.
3. Turn off your social media accounts.
If you are like me, then you probably have a tab open for your Facebook or Twitter account. If you find yourself constantly clicking over and just thinking to yourself “Oh, I will just check my Facebook account for any new updates for just one second,” please stop kidding yourself. One little chat notification can turn into an hour-long conversation. This is such a time drain. Prevent yourself from looking at your social media accounts entirely. You will be able to get so much more done if you just close out your social media accounts entirely while you are trying to work.
4. Remove yourself from time-suckers.
There are probably other things in your life that suck up your time. Maybe you are a master procrastinator. I sometimes find myself wanting to clean, eat food, watch television and so on when I really need to get things done. Remove yourself completely from these situations. Usually a designated office (whether that be in your house or you subletting an office for yourself), there are many ways to remove yourself from time-sucking situations.
5. Learn how to say “No.”
If you have too much on your plate, then you need to learn how to say “No” occasionally. You need to weigh whether or not you can take on all of the work that is given to you. Yes, agreeing to take on more work can have it’s positives. However, if you are lowering the quality of your work so that you can take on more work, then you may want to reevaluate your plan and see if that is truly working for you.
6. Allow others to help you.
If you have too much work to realistically handle, then you may want to ask others for their help. Not everything has to be done entirely by you. You could ask others to help take the load off of you, or you could possibly even hire an assistant if that is allowable in your budget or by your company.
7. Don’t multi-task if you waste more time doing so.
Some people are great with multi-tasking, but some are not. If you are one of those people who is horrible at multi-tasking, then you should stop and learn how to designate all of your time to one thing so that you can accomplish tasks more quickly.
