6 Practices In The Art Of Time Management

Time is money, yet money cannot buy time. Time management is critical to a company’s success, from optimizing operational productivity to the difference between delight and dissatisfied clients. For the company’s various departments, time efficiency can help improve performance and productivity. So, how can you manage your time more efficiently? Follow these six time management best practices to eliminate time waste:

Write It Down

You’d find it easier if you put all your shopping items on a list, rather than have it all memorized. Similarly, putting all of your targets, objectives, deadlines, and deliverables in your head, along with all of your other thoughts, will inevitably result in you forgetting something important.

The current Work From Home situation can cause your mind to be cluttered, seemingly unable to settle down. So write down your to-do’s. It can be a standard list, a spreadsheet on a computer, or have an app that will allow you to stay organized.

Listing all items off your head and onto a paper or document will allow for greater focus on the tasks at hand, without the bothersome feeling that you’re missing out on something important.

Choose a Prioritization Strategy

From a simple number or letter based ranking on paper lists, to a stage-by-stage Kanban board, there are a variety of ways in which you can get to prioritize tasks. Which one you use depends on the complexity of the tasks you are looking to manage and finish.

Sometimes just a simple reminder will do for certain tasks like sending an email. In other projects with multiple deliverables under them and many people to interact and depend on, a more complex tool or real-time spreadsheet may be required.

Block out time for regularly occurring tasks

You’d find that some of your tasks during the course of the week are repetitive. Be it about scheduling the regular posts for social media, setting the agenda for a weekly review meeting, we all have a standard, set list of tasks that we need to complete each and every week.

Since the tasks are consistent like that, set aside a consistent block of time as well for them. It’s also important to mark this on your calendar so other members of your team understand your workload as well.

If It Will Take Less Than 15 Minutes, Do It Immediately

Not everyone’s created equal. That said, no tasks are equal either. Some deliverables may require a whole week to complete, others can be done in just a minute. If there’s a deliverable that comes your way and you know it can be done within 15 minutes, finish it off right away!

Many a drop of water makes an ocean, and many of these little tasks can build up and clutter, so clearing them off your list as soon as they come will clear space in your mind to focus on larger tasks at hand.