These are the 3 things at the core of almost every strategy or technique for managing your time more efficiently. The first involves managing the already committed things or things we just need to do. The second one is about influencing, slowly changing the kind and amount of tasks on our plate. And the third one is about getting the better of things that can derail all our painstakingly created time management plans.
Because managing your time more effectively is less about how much we can fit into our time and more about how satisfied we are with the way we spend our time because completing even a couple of important tasks with time to relax can feel way more productive, far more satisfying than a super busy day filled with a hotchpotch of things.
1. Making time for must-dos
Okay, so the first one is stacking and blocking. And there’s 2 parts to this.
A) Stacking tasks for managing your time better
First is task stacking where we simply create different buckets of tasks that require similar kind of action. Like the tasks that require you to think creatively, or plan, or move physically, or collaborate or communicate with other people. This saves a lot of time and energy for our brain because it doesn’t have to keep switching from one type of approach to another.
B) Blocking
Things usually tend to take up more time than we think. And that’s where the 2nd part of stacking and blocking comes in… the time blocking part. Assigning a certain amount of time to complete each task. Now, the idea behind this is something called the Parkinson’s Law, which says that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”.
Essentially, if we set aside say 2 hours for something that could be done in 1 hour, the work will expand to use up those 2 hours…we may try to make it more perfect, go deeper into it, or slack our pace or things like that.
So, blocking out time realistically for every task and stacking similar tasks together helps get more done, managing your time better. But there are also bad days or lazy days where everything takes more time….your energy levels are also an important part of managing your time more effectively.
2. Using available time efficiently
Managing your time also means managing your energy because no matter how precisely we plan everything in our day, if we don’t have the energy to match that…it simply becomes a beautifully drawn plan. When there’s too much to do in a day, we start feeling tired and unable to concentrate.
A) Manage your energy for managing your time better
Know which times of the day you do your best work. For me, it’s after midnight till around 3 to 4 in the morning. I know that’s not really healthy and I am working on changing that, but still when in a fix, I know I can cover a lot in that time. So, find out which time of the day works best for you and plan your work accordingly.
But for this to work effectively, we need to have a good idea about our priorities because using up that most productive time, in doing things that don’t really matter is simply wasting it.
“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
– Peter Drucker
B) Know your priorities
Knowing our priorities makes sure that even on a bad day or a lazy day, if we can manage to do even one or two things from our list, it will make the day feel productive and keep us moving forward in the right direction.
And the most powerful thing about being aware of our priorities and our level of energy is that we can start choosing confidently…be more confident about the things we say No to and those that we take up. That’s the way to fill up our day only with those things that we know are important to us, that really matter to us, and which we can realistically do…that’s managing your time effectively.
3. Key to a successful time management plan
Distractions and lack of motivation are the two biggest culprits that can throw any time management plan out of whack. Every distraction has an antidote and we need to know ours before we begin working on something.
Managing your time more effectively means being responsible for your own motivation, because a plan doesn’t mean much if we don’t take action on that. And to start taking action…take control of our motivation, we can do 2 things.
Watch the video up top to see which techniques help us keep showing up or take that first step when not feeling like doing anything,
But, there’s way more to it, like putting motivation on autopilot so that managing your time becomes way easier…no procrastination, more productivity, goals reached, time to relax and enjoy life. So, watch this video next to get the complete lowdown on getting and staying motivated.
