Always short on time and behind on tasks? Is your productivity getting affected since there are only 24 hours in a day? Then what you need are effective time management skills perfected by the biggies of the corporate and celebrity world. For these are the people who manage to do so much more, in the same amount of time as everybody else.
One View Successful People Commonly Share — Time Is the Most Valuable Commodity
Successful people know that time is as essential and valuable a commodity as is money – so they use it wisely and well. Time that is wasted can never come back – each minute should be utilized wisely for that makes all the difference in you having an excellently productive day or not.[1]
Time management is essential if you want to finish the day’s work and chores in an orderly manner, not have any guilt over “wastage” and even have enough free time left over to spend with family, friends or even with yourself.
8 Time Management Rules That Successful People Follow
Maintain a Time Log
When you embark on a fitness of weight loss regime, nutritionists and dieticians often advise that you keep a food and workout log – to note down all that you ate in a day, the quantity of what you ate and even the fitness regime for that day. Similarly, successful businesspersons often advise that you start a time management program by maintaining a time log – this will tell you how you used your time and where all are you wasting it – it may make you feel a bit like a slacker, but it will ultimately help you give your work day proper direction and help you answer that nagging question “where is my time going?”[2]
Get Some Workout in the Morning
Richard Branson, the super famous, filthy rich celebrity-cum-corporate honcho gets up at 5 am to work out and claims that his morning fitness regime helps him have a super-productive day. And he’s not wrong – working out in the morning keeps you mentally sharp and physically active through the day – and you also get the feel good of the exercise high since the endorphins aka happy hormones flood your system and also are on a high since you did something positive for yourself early in the morning! [3]
Decide on a Must-Do List
Entrepreneur and CNBC’s The Profit star Marcus Lemonis has another great tip to offer his audience – he makes a must-do list every morning – though he calls it his knockout list. And he of course has card in his basement closet specially made for this, and after he has done his five things of the day that simply cannot be put off, if he has the time, he does more. And the card of the day is turned into a paper plane once the tasks are all done… So the gist for you remains the same, though you don’t need custom-made cards – a simply notebook, planner or even diary would suffice, and you don’t have to make paper planes out if it either – do your own quirk instead. [4]
Do Difficult Tasks in the Morning
There are things – call them tasks, call them chores or call them bores – that we all tend to groan and moan about and put off till the very last minute. These are the tasks that you should tackle the first thing in the morning itself when you are fresh, sharp and not jaded by what the day has brought you. Do what you find boring and uninterested first, the rest of the day is likely to be much more interesting and fun for you to go through – if you keep putting off those tasks they are likely to take up a lot of time when you finally get around to doing them. Morning is the time your willpower is at your highest – so a good time to tackle what would normally take you a lot of dithering to finish.[5]
Make Work Interesting
Jack Groetzinger, co-founder and CEO of SeatGeek makes his tasks fun by gamifying them. He has written a software that calculates how much time it takes him to do something – say writing an e-mail and maintains a daily log of the same. Each day, he tries to break his own record by doing the same thing faster, even if it’s just by a few seconds. And while not all of us are tech-inclined enough to do the same, there are not plenty of apps available that literally map your time, and help you finish your work faster – by using regular reminders, or even screen alarms.[6]
Concentrate on Core Competencies
What you don’t know well, will take you time to do. We are all are great at a few things, but not-so-great or inclined at others. Make sure that when it comes to time management skills, you tackle the work that falls within your core competencies the most, instead of doing stuff that you first have to learn, err or that is simply not up your alley. This is not to say that you shouldn’t learn something new or try something that you haven’t before, but keep that restricted to your free or leisure time. Bill Smith, founder and CEO of Shipt says that as much as he’d like to do everything by himself, he’s much rather delegate stuff to competent employees so that he is free to do what he is best at – oversee and direct.[7]
Use Your Free Time, Plan Your Breaks
Arianna Huffington, author and entrepreneur takes breaks during the day, especially for meals and believes that taking “pauses” boosts productivity and decreases stress. Similarly, Daymond John, founder and CEO of FUBU and entrepreneur tries to maximize him time – if he’s travelling, he doesn’t snooze away his time. Instead he’ll do his e-mails… So when you get free time, use that to your advantage instead of whiling it away. And your breaks need to be planned as well – you can use a bit of free time to plan ahead and take some deliberate breaks to refresh yourself at work as well.[8]
Plan a Good Weekend
Nick Huzar, the founder and CEO of OfferUp, prioritizes some alone time on Sundays to refocus himself and his work. His breaks are planned and used to plan his week ahead. On the flip side, planning a good weekend also works and will help you stave off that I-have-wasted-my-free-time depressing feeling. Plan three to five anchor events that give you the positive feeling that the weekend was spent well, instead that a weekend merely happened. Go for a run, or a weekend trip, or a movie or even a family picnic. Spend your free time constructively instead of being just a boring homebody.[9]
So basically, learn from the experts as to how they manage to accomplish a lot more than others, in the same amount of time. The day is the same 24 hours for everyone – but time management makes all the difference in what all you are able to do in it… [10]
Reference
| [1] | ^ | CNBC: Time Management Tricks From Richard Branson & Other Successful People |
| [2] | ^ | Time Management Success: Time Management Log |
| [3] | ^ | Time Management Ninja: 10 Reasons Why You Do Have The Time To Workout |
| [4] | ^ | Forbes: Five Best To Do List Tips |
| [5] | ^ | Fast Company: The Morning Routine of the Most Successful People |
| [6] | ^ | Gethppy: 10 Ways to Make Work Fun |
| [7] | ^ | PMC Training: Workload Time Management Competency |
| [8] | ^ | Kent: Time |
| [9] | ^ | Learning Commons: Using Weekend Time Effectively |
| [10] | ^ | Business Insider: How Successful People Manage Their Time |
The post 8 Rules Successful People Live By to Make Their Time Well Spent appeared first on Lifehack.
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