Does it feel like there are never enough hours in a day to accomplish everything? Work complications, family obligations and personal commitments can be quite annoying, resulting in severe stress and fatigue. The great news is, good time management can almost offset your stress completely. A good schedule can help balance your free time so that it can adequately cater to your hobbies, peace of mind and even calm your nerves.
Continuous improvement is what this post aims to address. We will be using these time management approaches to not only make best use of the time available but also one’s stress levels. These tips can be useful for students, professionals, and house makers. Anyone leading a busy life can follow without any hurdles or difficulty.
Why Time Management Matters
Managing your time is more than scheduling your day. It helps bring order into your life. Good organization helps in identifying goals, concentrating on what is significant, and avoiding stress. Chaotic life often leads to stress and ultimately burnout. If time is poorly managed, one may constantly run behind deadlines, leading to stress and a consistent rush.
The right strategies allow one to break the cycle of poor management. Plan and enjoy the free time to oneself and the activities you find enjoyable.
1. Prioritize Your Tasks
Some tasks are more important than the others. In order to manage time effectively, the first step is to train yourself to give more focus to what really counts. There is an easier way doing this with the Eisenhower Matrix, which splits tasks into four portions:
- Urgent and Important – Get these done now!
- Not Urgent but Important – Schedule time for these.
- Urgent but Not Important – Give these tasks to someone else if you can.
- Neither Urgent nor Important – Try to stop wasting time on these altogether.
Assigning deadlines will give you the essence of what task requires the greatest attention from your end and what task can wait till later hence, eliminating decision fatigue.
2. Learn to Say No
One of the greatest procrastinators of all time is taking on too many tasks. While it is commendable to be ready to help others, saying “yes” all the time can leave you overly exhausted. Learn how to manage your time better by saying ‘no’ when it is necessary.
When you are able to say no for things that do not align with your priorities, you then have the power to say yes to the things that actually matter. Changing your way of thinking in this manner will reduce your stress levels greatly.
3. Utilize Time-Blocking Strategies
If you wish to manage your day more effectively than you may consider time blocking as a strategy. This approach allows you to assign particular hours as slots to various tasks or activities of your choice. Some examples may include:
- Answering emails from 9AM – 10AM
- Project Planning from 10AM – 12PM
- Lunch break and short walk from 12PM – 1 PM
If you begin setting out particular times to carry out various activities, you increase the chances of avoiding distractions and completing your work promptly. Furthermore, seeing your time spent on certain activities done through time blocking in a structured manner may motivate you to avoid procrastination.
4. Take a Break, or Two, or Five!
Breaks should not only be focused on when one is feeling overwhelmed. Taking a breather from work is actually proven to re-energize the mind, bring up concentration levels, and decrease stress significantly. Try focusing on the Pomodoro technique where you work for 25 minutes and then take a five minute break. After four cycles of that, treat yourself to a longer 15-30 minute break.
During this time away from your assigned task, focus on drinking water, doing light stretches, or just stepping back. You will feel better rested and prepared to comeback to work with a better outlook.
5. Some Tools to Keep You Focused
You can find endless applications for managing your time correctly. Here are some that may altar your time management:
- Google Calendar for planning and sending reminder notifications.
- Focus@Will to foster the productive environment needed.
- RescueTime for monitoring one’s time spend on the internet.
Ensure to choose tools that help you and incorporate them in your daily lifestyle.
Proper time management doesn’t mean filling every part of your day with activities. It means making wise use of your time by selecting where to spend your time.
From the list above, you can choose the method to take. Allocating priorities, blocking time, concentrating on one task, creating sets of goals and limits helps achieve your targets smoothly, effectively, with less stress.
