Mastering time management

I wanted to share few tips from my experiences to help you successfully manage time management and achieve your career goals in 2024. 

I’m sure you noticed that person in your office who seems to be able to accomplish so much more during the week than the rest of your team. They manage to hit all their deadlines, tackle big deals and projects, and still have time to leave on time and spend time with family and enjoy some hobbies. Meanwhile, you're struggling to keep up with your to-do list, agonising over not having enough time. 

The secret to their success? Mastering time management. 

If you're ready to make the most of every minute, keep reading to discover why mastering time management is the key to success. 

What is mastering time management? 

Mastering time management is planning how to efficiently use and deliberately control the time you spend to maximise productivity. In short, get more done in less time.  

Why is mastering time management important? 

Many of us go through business as usual in life and at work tackling whatever task or emergency that arises, never realising that we’re as not productive and efficient as we think. 

Mastering time management means knowing how to plan SMART goals, prioritise daily tasks, set realistic deadlines and remove distractions to accomplish more in less time. While these skills may seem trivial, mastering them can lead to a multitude of benefits. 

As you master time management, your productivity will increase and you’ll achieve greater success in both your personal and professional life, and a more satisfying work-life balance. Efficiently using your time can help you unlock new opportunities, accomplish your goals and ultimately have a more fulfilling life. 

Here below are my top 5 techniques for mastering time management: 

1. Eat that frog

Your frog is your hardest and most important tasks for the day. 

Start your day early to eat them, first thing in the morning, and don't leave them for later. 

Repeat every day to turn this technique into a habit or routine and see how you become much more productive. To put it simply, eating the frog is the process of identifying your most difficult task of the day and completing it before you do any other work. 

2. Pomodoro

The process is about simple steps: 

1. Identify a task that you need to complete and work with no distractions for 20 min. 
2. When the alarm sounds, take 5 min break. Repeat the process 2 more times. 
3. Take a longer 25 min break and start again. 

The pomodoro technique can be an extremely effective way to make strong progress on a project or task. It's excellent when you have everything you need to complete your work; you just need to sit down and do it. 

3. Eisenhower matrix

The eisenhower matrix is a simple decision-making tool that helps you make the distinction between tasks that are important, not important, urgent and not urgent. 

This technique helps you organise your work in 4 quadrants and decide on urgent vs important and not urgent vs not important factors. 

This tool frees your mind from constant memorisation, and you feel more accountable for the tasks you have prioritized on. 

4. Pickle jar theory

According to pickle jar theory, time is limited like the volume of a pickle jar. To manage your time effectively, you need to know the level of importance of each activity.  

The pickle jar represents your everyday activities, while the sand, rocks and pebbles represent our everyday routine.  

Consider this as you plan your daily activities: 

1. Identify the ‘3 rocks’, which are the 3 top priority jobs that need to be addressed immediately.  
2. Identify the ’10 pebbles’, which are the fewer tasks that are important but can wait for some time, such as responding to emails, attending meetings, etc. 
3. Next, identify ‘The sand’, which is your small and straightforward tasks. 
4. Lastly, you must have a plan to spend quality time with your family and friends.  

5. time blocking 

Time blocking is a time management method that asks you to divide your day into blocks of time. You would assign time blocks for the tasks in your day to have the most effective plan with task blocking. 

When you learn how to time block effectively, you take control of your day by focusing on your priorities. This method will offer you productivity and effectiveness to manage your deadlines.  

I personally prefer the time blocking method as it supports your schedule and allow others to understand your availability. 

It’s no easy task to stay on task, but mastering time management is crucial to your success.  

Let us start this year with energy and motivation and with mastering your time management, try various techniques and adapt the ones that suit you well and improve your customer experiences, and your productivity and efficiency. 

 

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