Do you know what the one true thing is that every person in this world has in common, no matter how much money, fame or luxury they have?
Exactly, time.
Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day.
This may not come as a surprise, but it’s important to remember this.
Because behind every success is a person who gives their best every day.
People are the wild card in life and business, they can change the rules of the game at any time.
What makes the decisive difference is how they spend their time.
Today we’re giving you 10 tips for better time management.
Since we spend most of our time working towards our goals and achievements, a good understanding of these resources is crucial.
Mastering them will help you achieve more in less time.
But not only that, it will also have a positive impact on other areas of your life.
Tip 1: Set yourself goals and plan rewards
Setting goals is crucial for planning your day.
By setting goals, you can create specific targets and stay on schedule.
Before you set your goals, you need to look deep inside yourself and ask yourself if you really want to achieve these things.
Knowing your ambitions can help you maximize your productivity, stay on track and get as much done as possible in your 24 hours.
Don’t forget to reward yourself after every goal you achieve.
These rewards can range from sweets and food to short breaks to relax or watch a short video.
Tip 2: Prioritize your tasks
Sometimes you can’t get everything done, or you simply don’t have enough time.
That’s why it’s important to set your priorities correctly.
An effective way to prioritize is to divide your tasks into the following categories:
- Important and urgent: tasks that need to be completed immediately.
- Important but not urgent: Tasks that seem important but you can decide when to do them, but not before the first category.
- Urgent, but not important: Tasks that need to be completed as quickly as possible but have no lasting value once completed.
- Not important and not urgent: These tasks are usually leisure activities or things that you don’t really have to do, but just want to do.
This method gives you a better overview of your tasks and lets you know which ones need to be completed first.
Tip 3: Learn to delegate
Your goal is to get more done in less time, right?
Because you can’t stretch your time or get more hours per day.
You can achieve this by either being more efficient with the time you have or by delegating.
Delegating means that you give someone else responsibility for your tasks and trust that the result will be what you want.
Depending on the type of tasks you’re dealing with, you can delegate small tasks, such as hiring someone to plan your daily routine or pick up your suit from the dry cleaners.
But you can also think bigger and delegate work-related tasks.
This does require a bit of preparation on your part and you’ll need to invest time in finding the right person, but it’s worth it in the long run.
Tip 4: Start with small adjustments to your schedule
You don’t have to change your whole life at once to integrate a certain time management scheme.
Especially if you’re just getting into it, it’s not advisable as you’re likely to give up quickly.
Start with something small, such as getting up 10 minutes earlier and 20 minutes less pointless scrolling on social media.
This will give you a full 30 minutes to read more of the things that interest you or practice a skill you’ve been putting off.
It may not seem like much, but 30 minutes a day means 2 hours and 10 minutes a week working on getting better.
Tip 5: Set clear deadlines
How much time do you have to complete your tasks?
When do your tasks have to be finished?
If you don’t know these things, it can be difficult to keep track of your time.
It’s easier to be on time and get everything done if you set clear deadlines for each task.
Setting a time limit for each task will make it easier for you to complete them and keep track of them, as well as your time.
You can record your deadlines in your to-do list, your calendar or in an organizer.
A calendar can be very useful and important if you are trying to manage your time better, whether you use a classic paper calendar or an app.
A calendar can help you to know what you have to do and when.
Tip 6: Plan your meals in advance
Eating takes a lot of time, and deciding what to eat takes even more.
You can save up to an hour a day by planning your meals in advance.
If you like to cook for yourself, plan 2 to 3 hours every Sunday evening to cook or prepare your meals in advance.
Even writing it down is enough if you’re into take-out.
Write a list of restaurants you want to order from in advance and try to decide what you want to eat in advance too.
One trick to narrow down your options is to use theme days.
For example, you could eat fish on Mondays and salad on Wednesdays.
Yes, it will take some time at the beginning to set up a whole system, but it’s worth it in the long run.
And it’s all about achieving your long-term goals, isn’t it?
Tip 7: Say no to multitasking
The concept of multitasking means that one person performs several tasks at the same time.
Despite assumptions to the contrary, multitasking is not efficient and does not save time.
On the contrary, multitasking causes you to complete tasks at a lower quality and ultimately slows you down.
You could also miss important details when you multitask.
This is because your attention is divided between two or more tasks at the same time, forcing your brain to quickly switch between them instead of focusing on one to get it done as quickly and well as possible.
It takes a few minutes before you can switch from one task to the next and focus again.
Multitasking can also take away your ability to think creatively as it takes up a lot of your temporary working memory.
So be careful with it.
Tip 8: Link your actions to your goals
I assume that you want to achieve higher goals in your life and leave behind the things that are holding you back.
So one way to start with time management is to evaluate how what you are doing relates to what you want to achieve.
This is easy to evaluate.
Make two lists: a list of the goals you’re aiming for, be it money, love, luxury, whatever, and a list of the things you’re spending your time on.
If the lists don’t match up, it probably means you’re wasting time in the wrong direction.
This will probably give you a good indication of your efforts.
Sometimes even the people you spend your time with aren’t the best.
So make sure that your list of goals matches the list of people you spend your time with.
Tip 9: Block things that can distract you
Many people have problems with distractions and procrastination.
These two concepts can stop you from completing your tasks and wasting your precious time.
That’s why you need to block all distractions.
Put your phone away, block your social media notifications or use an app that prevents you from using your phone.
Block social media sites on your computer.
Set up a workspace.
Create a place that is just for working and completing tasks.
This will allow your brain to associate this place with work and productivity.
Distractions can easily pull you into a vortex of low productivity and frustration.
Preventing this can make a big difference.
Tip 10: Plan your day in advance
If you wake up in the morning and don’t know what you have to do that day, you may either forget important things or take on more tasks than you can manage.
A simple way to avoid this is to plan your day and each week in advance.
Take half an hour at the end of each week to create your schedule for the next week and five minutes in the evening to look at the schedule for the next day.
This will make you more organized.
The more time you invest in preparation and planning, the more time you’ll save later and you won’t have to patch things up and iron out mistakes afterwards.
You can find out more about this topic in this video.
