What is time management?
It’s about distributing and planning the tasks you set out to do throughout the day, prioritising those that help you meet your goals according to their importance and urgency. It’s not just about completing more tasks or completing them faster, but about doing it in a strategic and healthy way.
If you feel that time is slipping away from you, that you have too many things to do and they prevent you from enjoying your leisure time or your family, if you never find the time to do that important task because the urgent ones get in the way, then time management can help you.
Saving time or managing time?
This is a common question and we should not confuse time saving with time management. The difference lies in the approach and actions involved.
Saving time‘ refers to performing activities and/or tasks as quickly as possible, without necessarily being more productive (meeting your objectives). We focus on optimising the process needed to complete tasks.
Time management‘ is a broader concept, which not only encompasses saving time, but also optimising its use, in order not only to increase productivity, but also to improve our enjoyment of time and an optimal work-life balance. We focus on choosing and completing the tasks that bring us closer to our goals in a strategic way.
Why is time management important?
Applied in the work environment it improves our productivity and performance. And above all, when applied well, it reduces or eliminates our stress and balances our personal and work life. Some of the benefits you can gain from consciously managing your time are as follows:
- Reduce stress and feelings of chaos.
- Increase your productivity.
- Improve your concentration.
- Help you with decision making.
- Increase your confidence.
- Help you reconcile work and personal life
So, how do I do it?
It is essential that you find your motivation to strive for healthy time management. Some of the most common may be: spending more time with your family, feeling in control of your time, improving your productivity or your health, etc.
Set your work and personal goals and use them as a beacon to decide which tasks move you closer to them and prioritise them.
Read, research, learn and, above all, apply time management techniques. Try to start with something simple, and fix it into your routine before tackling the next improvement.
Give yourself time and be patient, not all strategies work for everyone or at certain times. Maybe one didn’t work for you in the past and now it does, and you can always try something else – don’t give up and give it a try!
What tools are there?
In order to achieve a conscious and healthy use of time, there are several strategies or techniques that are compatible and complementary to each other. Some very popular ones are:
- The Pomodoro technique : it consists of dividing time into 25-minute chunks of activity, followed by a 5-minute break, with a slightly longer break every 4 pomodoros.
- The GTD (Getting Things Done) system: it is based on capturing, organising and reviewing daily and weekly pending tasks, dividing them into concrete actions. It focuses on freeing the mind from constant reminders to concentrate on efficient execution.
- To-do list: this is about building a digital to-do list that you can always carry with you. It allows you to sort and prioritise work, reorder without rewriting, change priorities, add descriptions, set deadlines, create reminders and notifications, and you can have more than one list at a time.
- 80/20 rule or Pareto principle: this consists of identifying the tasks with the greatest impact and focusing on them, since it is considered that 80% of the tasks can be done in 20% of the time, and that 20% of the remaining tasks will consume 80% of the time.
- Time blocking: this technique consists of setting aside time in the diary to do certain tasks. It can be used to schedule the times you are going to spend on recurring tasks, such as checking your to-do list, reading or answering e-mails, or making phone calls. It is also used to ensure that we dedicate a specific time to complex tasks or tasks that require more concentration, such as studying, strategy planning, etc.
- Peak concentration hours: this is based on identifying the times of the day when the brain has the most energy and the greatest capacity for concentration in order to tackle the most complex tasks.
How can I put all this into practice?
I share some actions that have worked for me to manage time in an effective and healthy way:
- Write down where you can read it every day what motivates you to apply conscious time management. You can also set the phrase as a password on your PC, so you will have to remember it several times.
- Try recording all your work and personal to-dos as they arise in a digital ‘To-Do list’. Set alerts if they need to be started or completed by a specific date. This will save you the stress of coming back to them over and over again for fear of forgetting or not completing them on time.
- Prioritise each task according to your objectives. If you think it will take more than 25 minutes to complete, divide it into several tasks. This will allow you to focus on the tasks that are closest to your goals first.
- Make sure that, when it is your turn to complete a task, you have everything you need to complete it. If you don’t, and you are dependent on someone else to get it, create an additional task to get what is missing.
- Block time in advance in your calendar, especially at peak energy times of the day , to do the tasks that require the most concentration.
- Block time for the actions that have the most value – why not set aside time in your daily schedule to take care of yourself, study or spend time with your family? Set limits on work and reserve a minimum amount of time for other personal activities.
- On a weekly basis, review your to-do list to prioritise them, and decide which ones to focus on the following week. Keep your goals in mind.
- On a daily basis, look at the gaps in your calendar and choose which priority tasks you are going to focus on and in what order.
- If you falter, remember what motivated you to apply these time management techniques and be patient with yourself – it takes about a month for a new habit to take hold.
Conclusion
If you want to manage your time in a conscious and healthy way, get rid of stress and move towards your goals, take action and enjoy the journey!
