24/06/2021
Time management: six golden rules that work
Plan everything - day, month, year
To run a successful business and simply feel happy in life, you need to be able to plan both work and personal time. It is useful to build long-term and short-term plans - for a day, week, month, quarter, year, five, ten years.
For example, at the beginning of the work week, you should spend half an hour thinking carefully about everything you are striving for at this stage, what mini-goals you want to achieve before the weekend. It is better to plan daily tasks "from evening to morning". At the same time, it is necessary to specify the tasks as much as possible: present the desired result and write it down in a diary or electronic calendar in clear terms.
Modern services and applications for different platforms will help you take care of the graphics. Depending on the characteristics of the gadgets and personal wishes, you can consider Business Calendar, Todoist, Homeslice, Shifts, Fantastical 2, Pick, Sunrise, Timeful, Hours, Float, Clara. The main thing is to choose the one that will be convenient to work with. To plan a comfortable team work on a project, you can use Worksection, Basecamp, Trello, Teamlab.
Explore your biorhythms
Different tasks require different approaches, which means - and their own specific time. Do not look back at those who say that they "plow" all day long and do not feel tired. This is either not true or only relevant for a very short period. Each person has the most productive hours and hours of inactivity when the body is recovering. These periods are formed at the junction of evolutionary, social, individual psychological factors.
Observe yourself, find your peak of activity - and try to work on the most important projects at this time. Thus, much more can be done in a relatively short period of time. Over time, the "biological" schedule will become a habit, and it will become easier to stick to it.
Schedule breaks - no more distractions
If you want to succeed in completing your tasks, learn not to get distracted by trifles and concentrate on the workflow. Smoke breaks, coffee breaks, social media, endless email checking, chatting with coworkers about nothing are all distractions.
Schedule a few essential breaks during the day during which you can get distracted, have coffee, snacks, and chat with other team members. Even if they will be a little longer, they will be less in number: 10-15 minutes instead of five. The fewer the number of breaks, the less time will be spent "swinging" and returning to the workflow.
To save work time and better concentrate on business, I advise you to turn off the sound of notifications on social networks, phone and mail. It is enough to check them several times a day.
Learn to say no and delegate
In the process of work, there are often temptations to be distracted by some urgent matter, and to postpone the planned tasks to the next day, to finish “tomorrow morning”. It is absolutely impossible to do this. Urgent doesn't always mean important.
It is necessary to learn to say "no" to those tasks and people that are not on the schedule. This may seem very uncomfortable at first, but later on it will become clear that today's “no” can become tomorrow's “yes”. In doing so, you will follow your schedule and stay in good shape.
Another important quality of any leader is the ability to properly distribute their forces. To take on new tasks, you need to give up some of the old ones. This becomes a test for many. Learn to delegate tasks to other people in order to direct your own energy only to the most important tasks. The time of a founder or top manager is one of the most important resources in business. Spending it on light routine things is a crime in relation to your own business and to the whole team.
Analyze past experiences
When choosing a planning tool, it is important that tasks do not disappear from the list after completion. In this case, it will be possible to analyze the number of completed tasks in the past period and draw conclusions for the future. The right conclusions will help you better manage time and develop in the future.
For example, at the end of the working week, you can set aside half an hour to “run” according to your schedule, planner. Weigh the ratio of what you planned and what is actually done. If everything matches 100%, you are on the right track. If there is a discrepancy, you need to think about how to fix it, so that next week such "blunders" are not allowed.
Manage your personal time the same way as your work time
The main rule of time management is not to forget about rest and personal time. Rest is an individual thing. For some, it is enough to observe the daily routine (go to bed not late, get up early), others cannot imagine life without sports, others without walking and traveling, and for the fourth it will be much more comfortable just to lie on the couch before going to bed with a good book in hand.