Having a grasp of time management enables professionals to accomplish their daily tasks and responsibilities efficiently. Anyone can benefit from improving these skills. Without them, developmental opportunities and your quality of work might take a dip while your stress levels skyrocket. If you’re a professional struggling to manage time, here are seven tips to help you improve.
7 ways to improve time management
- Prioritize
- Learn to say no
- Take breaks
- Avoid distractions
- Use tech to stay accountable
- One task at a time
- Reward yourself
- Get your priorities straight
Improving your time management involves knowing how to prioritize. How you prioritize will depend on factors like urgency or the amount of time and effort needed to complete. Knowing how to prioritize specific tasks will help you better understand how to schedule your days and workweeks. Whenever you receive a new task, determine its importance compared to your other responsibilities.
- Learn to say no
Many people have a bad habit of saying yes to too many responsibilities to make a good impression. But constantly saying yes will have you spreading yourself too thin. As a result, your work efficiency and quality will plummet and your sanity.
To avoid getting overwhelmed, set a limit for how many tasks you’re willing and able to accept. After determining your ideal workload, you can confidently decline any tasks that exceed it. Doing so will allow you to fully concentrate on your most important tasks, maximize your productivity and keep your level-headed.
- Take breaks
While you might feel inclined to skip some breaks to get through that lengthy to-do list, don’t; it’s more than okay to take breaks throughout the day. It’s healthy for your brain. Skipping breaks can lead to burnout, increase stress, and reduce your mental health. Briefly disconnecting from work every few hours will help you feel refreshed and return to tasks with a new outlook.
- Avoid distractions
To get in the right mindset for work, you need to block out any distractions. With life and work so fast-paced, it’s easy to get distracted, which can be detrimental to your professional success.
Minimize any non-work disturbances like silencing your personal cell phone or turning off social media notifications. If you work from home, avoid putting in that load of laundry or emptying the dishwasher until you have a break or are clocking out for the day.
- Use tech to stay accountable
With countless daily reminders regarding deadlines and meetings, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and feel like you’re always playing catch up. Time tracking software and time management apps are great options for minimizing this stress. Time tracking software allows you to test how long it takes you to complete a task, while time management apps can organize and schedule your tasks all in one place. Using these tools can help you become more efficient, create more accurate schedules and avoid distractions.
- One task at a time
You might think multitasking is an efficient approach to completing multiple tasks, but it’s actually all a myth. Diving your attention on two things at the same time is scientifically impossible. If you think you’re multitasking, your brain is just working quickly.
People who work on one task at a time finish faster and with greater quality than those who attempt to multitask. You can reduce potential distractions and mistakes by aiming all your focus on one assignment.
- Reward yourself
If you find yourself finishing tasks earlier or other improvements in your time management skills, you may want to consider rewarding yourself. A small reward that won’t distract from your work can reinforce your successes and motivate you to continue developing these productive skills.
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