Tools & Techniques For Effective Time Management

Time is a unique resource; the one that you can't get from anywhere else in the world and if you waste it you will not even realize that it is gone. The most important measure of time is not how much of it you have;  it is how effectively you can use it.

This is why it is so important to learn how to make the best use of your time. There are several time management tools and techniques available to use; the main objective is to support and describe how to plan, prioritize, organize as well as analyze and monitor closely how time is spent on different activities.

Time | The Most Precious Resource

Time management is fundamental to productivity because, without the knowledge about the time you have to accomplish tasks, you may not be able to accomplish much at all. Time management should help you reduce stress in your life and improve your emotional well-being too. As we have also experienced it also help you reach your vision and goals easier.

But what Is Time Management? To develop time management skills, you must understand what time is, what time management is and how it helps you achieve a large number of tasks with ease. Without time management skills, there is a higher risk of your personal or business productivity dropping. However, if you are aware of time management techniques and know how to apply them effectively, you will achieve optimal results.

You cannot have more time, but you can make the best use of your time. Being proactive about your time management will make it easier to enjoy your professional and personal time. Since time is always limited, it is worth managing it and spending it wisely. There are some tricks to learn on how to keep work and life balance and to help your career stay on track while you enjoy your family life at the same time. Let explore some strategies for effective time management.

Effective Time Management Techniques

Effective time management depends mostly on two main skills; on how organized we are and how much clarity we have on our goals. Being organized is key in time management as it helps you have an overview of the tasks and avoid procrastination. Clarity on your goals will help you make quick decisions when activities that you have not foreseen or planned come along the way. We will now share some techniques and tools on effective time management:

o   Prioritization

Prioritization is an effective time management technique as it enables productivity in stressful times by separating time-consuming, but not important tasks. These less important tasks are all but impossible to finish in one go, and so you should put these tasks at the bottom of your priority list. At the end of the day, if you are to be in a position to actually have time to finish those tasks that you chose, you will need to allocate more time to them. This will allow you to maintain a high level of productivity during the day, and at the same time ensure that you get those important tasks done.

There are numerous techniques that help you to set priorities. The "ABCD" method allows you to categorize tasks in terms of urgency and importance and gives you a good overview of all of your tasks. Similar to the "ABCD" method, a scaling method from 1 (most important) to 10 (least important) can help you prioritize in a short time. Although both these methods are not very precise, they are very useful as they can be completed in a relatively short time. When considering more in-depth ways of doing prioritization we could apply the "Pareto Principle". The idea behind this method is that if you want to make the most of your time you need to use the 80-20 rule that implies that only 20% of our tasks contribute to 80% of your outcome. Although this analysis allows you to focus on the most important tasks first - the 20% - it does not consider the urgency aspect of tasks. Another more elaborate method for time management is the "POSEC" method which stands for Prioritize, Organize, Streamline, Contribution, Economize, Contribution. This is however a more general method and is relevant in professionals setups so we will no go into greater depth.

o   Procrastination

How we deal with procrastination plays also a role in effectively managing our time. One of the techniques here is to know to recognize when we procrastinate, then reflect to understand the reason and take action to avoid procrastinating. Typical reasons  why procrastinate could be the following:

·        We have a large number of tasks we need to do.

·         Our goals are not clearly defined and we cannot pinpoint exactly how and when to accomplish the tasks.

·         We face challenges along the way, our self - doubts and doubts about our ability to finish the task.

·         Our expectations are unrealistic.

o   Distractions

To get more done in less time, you need to establish a process for maintaining your focus and avoid distractions. Distractions can have many forms e.g. reading email, multitasking, internet, re-prioritizing, procrastinating all of which lead to loss of focus. Nevertheless here the intention is not that you should isolate yourself but rather to be aware and learn how and when to give yourself a time-out when necessary, in addition, attention-management techniques might be useful in addressing this aspect of effective time management.

o   Monitoring

To improve your time management skills, you should consider monitoring how do you perform and how much time you spend on different tasks once you have prioritized them. Through monitoring, you will also realize easier the time you spend in unplanned activities. You could do the monitoring by including the time aspect in your task list once you have completed a task.

New Insights On Time Management

As described earlier using prioritization and categorization for your tasks in terms of importance and urgency is an effective tool. However, after applying the technique we have realized that at these times where things are moving at a high pace and our brain rarely ever has an opportunity even for a small pause this technique needs a further addition to become effective.

According to our observations, if you try to organize and prioritize your tasks in a span of only one day then it is very likely that you might place a lot of tasks under the urgent and important category  (even if that might not be actually the case) thus actually making not good prioritization and judgment. This is because when we look at such a short-term time we have difficulty aligning correctly our tasks in the context of some of the higher or long-term goals we have in mind. A solution to this is to use the Time Management tool in a span of a full week. Allowing yourself to plan ahead with such a time frame for your tasks and activities will make it easier to make a more effective plan and use of your time. In case also that during the week you have to move things around a bit, having the clarity for your goals and tasks over the whole period will allow you to adjust with confidence.

Another insight with regards to time management and prioritization is that you could also try to distinguish your different tasks according to the different roles you have. For example, you might have a professional role or roles and/or different personal roles, such as a spouse, a parent, a friend, and so on. These different roles create different tasks and you could also choose to visualize them in your time management prioritization list (for example with different colors or group tasks under the same role). Once you have done so, then you can also have better clarity on how you see the week ahead unfolding and how you allocate your time and importance to your different roles.

Prioritization Tool

Of course, the above insights and application suggestions for time management take away the simplicity that a daily task list could offer. However, it seems as a far more effective way to apply Time Management.

In addition, you will be giving yourself a nudge towards a proactive look at your life rather than having to be reactive to all the different things that come across.  This long time span will allow you will to see and plan your week with the higher goals and vision in mind. For doing this planning, consider allocating a specific day every week to work on this. start by considering your roles and the tasks you would like to fulfill. Then use your calendar and place them throughout the week. It is better to have them in electronic format or somewhere you can easily access them (e.g. your phone, cloud storage, etc.). Take this holistic look in life when you look at time management, give it a try and see how it works for you. 

Our experience is that you would find it much more suitable for our modern way of life. Most importantly you will notice that when you approach time management in this way, more tasks will go under the B category, and it is this category and those tasks which are actually the ones most difficult to prioritize and at the same time the closest to your vision.

If you would like to try the weekly time management you can download our prioritization template.

Drop us a message and let us know how did it go.