Best 14 time management strategies and tips you should adopt to boost your productivity

BEST 14 TIME MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES AND TIPS YOU SHOULD ADOPT TO BOOST YOUR PRODUCTIVITY

Time management is a conscious process of organising, planning and controlling time spent on different activities or tasks in order to maximise efficiency and productivity. A good time manager works smarter and not harder and produces more results with less time. Successful people are exceptional time managers. Good time management has numerous benefits and is therefore important as time is of the essence in self-management, business management and project management, and therefore the need to adopt useful time management strategies.

BEST 14 TIME MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES AND TIPS

1. SET CLEAR GOALS WITH TIMELINES

In planning your activities or business, it is wise to set clear goals with specific timelines. Your goals should be for long term, medium term and short term. Goal setting with timelines allow you to focus your efforts on your desired achievements and gives you an insight on how long it will take to accomplish them.

2. CREATE A TO-DO-LIST

As you start your day in the morning, take a few minutes to create a list of things you need to do for the day having your goals in mind. This automatically keeps you focused and makes you more efficient and productive. This is an effective time management strategy.

3. CREATE YOUR ROUTINE AND STICK TO IT

You know yourself better. Check yourself and your activities and take note of the important things that you normally do on daily basis and the best time you can achieve the best result on each task. Use this and create a consistent plan and maintain this daily. It will help in your drive for effective time management.

4. PRIORITISE YOUR ACTIVITIES

As you plan your activities, it is important to pay attention to those tasks that are of top priorities considering their importance and urgency. The ABC analysis used in business management can be applied here:

A – Tasks that are important and urgent

B – Tasks that are important but not urgent

C – Tasks that are not important but urgent

D – Tasks that are not important and not urgent

Tasks that fall into the A category should be of top priority followed by tasks in the B and then C categories. Tasks on the D category should be considered as distractions and if considered on the priority list should be the least.

5. AVOID DISTRACTIONS

Distractions are everywhere. Your phone, your TV, your computer games, your pets, the social media and noise in the environment can be sources of distraction. For effective time management, do all you can to avoid them when you are dedicated to achieving your work goals.

6. DON’T LITTER, MAINTAIN CLEANLINESS

Keep your work environment arranged, neat and nice. ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’. Arrange your working tools in a decent manner so that you don’t have to waste useful time searching for an item. If you are working with the computer, your files should be properly named and decently arranged in folders. A good time management culture demands that you make good use of folders, dividers, shelves, highlighters, labels, tool boxes etc.

7. CREATE SHORT RELAXATION TIMES BETWEEN TASKS

The human body is a living machine and can break down if over stressed. So you need to create some buffer time in-between tasks to cool off your body and brain. You can take some 30 minutes to cool off with a glass of your favorite drink or a cup of coffee, play with your pet, stretch your legs outside, and so on, and then get back to work. Taking a short break will definitely improve your overall productivity.

8. AVOID PROCRASTINATION

What should be done now must be done now. Avoid the habit of postponing important tasks to future dates. Consider this popular words of wisdom according to Kay Lyons Stockham:

            ‘Yesterday is a cancelled cheque;

            ‘Tomorrow is a promissory note;

            ‘But today is the only cash you have, so spend it wisely’.

9. STAY HEALTHY

Good health is wealth. So do all you can to stay healthy so that you won’t waste a lot of your productive time on the sick bed. Eat healthy foods with high content of fruits, vegetables and nuts (Genesis 1: 29) and avoid diets with high content of salt, sugar and cholesterol. Regular body exercising can help in maintaining a good healthy life (1 Timothy 4:8). Value your sleep but don’t oversleep (Proverbs 6: 9-11). An average human being needs about eight hours of sleep per day for optimal functioning of his body, mind and brain. A healthy sleeping habit reduces stress and enhances good health and productivity.

Also consider taking a short stroll under the morning sun to boost your vitamin D intake. Go for regular medical check-ups and above all, ask God for divine health (3 John 1:2).

10. DELEGATE

For efficiency through proper time management, you cannot do everything by yourself. Take some stress and burdens off you by assigning others to handle some tasks for you. Even if you are knowledgeable in a lot of areas, it will be more efficient and time saving to delegate some duties to others who are also experts in their own field.

11. KNOW WHEN TO SAY YES AND WHEN TO SAY NO

You cannot definitely be a ‘Jack of all trade’. You need to know your limits concerning what you can do best and what you cannot do, having your goals in mind. Know when to say no to some proposals that may come as distractions.

12. TAKE CALCULATED RISKS AND DON’T BE AFRAID OF FAILING

Doing business is all about risk taking. So don’t fail to take calculated risks and don’t spend useful time thinking about possible failed outcomes after taking such risks. Just take action and don’t worry about the fear of failing as fear can be some false evidences appearing real. If peradventure there is failure, you can learn from your mistakes as failing has a great role to play in your effort to climb your ladder of success. Failure according to Albert Einstein is success in progress.

13. ASK FOR AND GET FEED-BACKS

As you progress in your business or project execution, there is need to ask for and get feedbacks from friends, business associates and customers. These feedbacks can bell you out where you were stocked. You can develop new strategies for improvement based on the feedbacks. Feedbacks can be gotten via personal interactions and questionnaires and the results analysed and used in mapping out new strategies for improvement.

14. MECHANISE, DIGITALISE AND AUTOMATE YOUR PROCESSES

Mechanising, digitalising and automating your business processes can help you to save a lot of time and improve your efficiency and productivity. Make use of machines as much as you can in your operations. Utilise softwares and digital business platforms to digitalise and optimise your business for higher productivity. Although this may sound as if it is very expensive, especially when you are operating on a tight and limited budget. If you can afford it, the outcome will be encouraging at the end of the day.

The good news here is that there are lots of free digital business enhancing platforms that you can leverage on. One good example that we recommend here is to enroll your business on topservices.ng, a free digital platform that will help you to take your business online and you can reap a lot of benefits from it. On topservices.ng, people will see what you offer and request for your services. You can also hire experts and professionals online on this platform to work for you.

As a service provider on topservices.ng, you can create branches of your business from your account. You can also create different staff on the platform and assign to them different tasks to handle thereby enhancing delegation of duties and saving your time and energy while enhancing the efficiency of your operation and profitability. So this platform can serve as a time management solution for your business.

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