A Stress-Free Way To Prioritizing Tasks And Ending Busyness

Winning the game of life is not always easy.

If you’re like the majority of people, you’re probably used to struggling with learning new things and getting on top of your everyday tasks and demands.

For instance, do you regularly find it hard to keep on track with your work tasks and projects?

And how about in your personal life? Are you managing to keep up-to-date with your finances such as your tax returns?

Fortunately, if you currently feel busy all the time and struggle to find enough time to do the things you need and want to do — I have a solution for you.

It’s all to do with how you prioritize your tasks.

Get this wrong, and you’ll always be a victim of busyness; get this right, and you’ll become a master of productivity and achieve your goals and dreams.

So are you ready to find your way out of busyness?

If yes, then read on…

Prioritizing Tasks With the Superstructure Method

Let me guess, you’re probably wondering what exactly is the Superstructure Method?

Well, it’s a fair question, as this method is not something that is typically taught in school or college. (Although, I think it definitely should be.)

Put simply, the Superstructure Method is a way of quantifying the value of each of your tasks — enabling you to quickly and easily put them into an order of importance.

I’ve been using the Superstructure Method for many years, and it’s proven to be incredibly effective and helpful in both my work and personal life. For example, as an entrepreneur with a wife and two kids, it’s essential that I manage my time to ensure that everything work related gets done, so that I have ample free time to enjoy with my family.

I remember when I launched Lifehack back in 2005. I created the website to share productivity hacks to make life easier. To be honest, at first, I was a little taken aback by the incredible success of the site. In just a few years from its inception, it grew into one of the most read productivity, health and lifestyle websites in the world — with over 12 million monthly readers. I am sure you can imagine the amount of challenges I personally experienced as the Founder and CEO of such a fast-growing company.

However, where there’s a challenge, there’s a solution!

In this particular case, to help me manage my overflowing workload, I created the Superstructure Method. Not only did this help me get on top of my tasks, but it also helped me to reduce my stress and put my work-life balance back in order. And as you’ll see, it can do the same for you.

But before we dive into that, I want you to first grab the free guide 4-Step Guide To Create More Time Out of a Busy Schedule so I can walk you through the Superstructure Method in details.

Downloaded the free guide and ready?

Here’s how to master your time and accomplish what you want…

The first thing to know is that every task contains three components:

• Intention: Why you are doing it
• Value: What benefits this task brings you
• Cost: What you have to give up or invest to achieve the value (in resources, time spent, etc.)

To be able to identify the right tasks to focus on — and to spend the right amount of time doing them — you’ll need to know how to evaluate them.

That’s where the Superstructure Method comes in.

This holistic method helps you put your tasks and actions in perspective. For instance, if you were writing a book, you could use the method to plan, write, edit, publish and promote your book. To do this successfully, you would need to know which actions to take at each step of the way — starting from your initial idea and ending with your book reaching #1 on the Amazon charts!

I’m happy to say that the Superstructure Method is easy to understand and implement. You just need to follow four simple steps:

Step 1: Start with a Clear Intention

Consider all the tasks you have on hand and think for a moment about why you need to do these.

For each task ask yourself:

• What benefit am I getting out of this task?
• Will this action help me make progress towards my goal or my company’s goal this week?

To give you an example of how to do this, consider a task such as checking your work emails.

This is a task that will help you keep up-to-date with what is going on at your company, as well as allowing you to see and action requests and tasks allocated to you. It’s a task that when managed correctly will benefit both you and your company.

Step 2: Decide the Task’s Value

The next step is to sort your list of tasks into one of three categories. Where you choose to put them will be based on what your goal is.

• Must haves: Absolutely critical to achieve the objective. Without it, the outcome is meaningless.
• Should haves: Important but not critical. However, leaving it out may lessen the impact of the final result.
• Good to haves: Having it is nice, but not including it won’t have any negative impact on your objective.

Let me bring this to life with an example that you can relate to.

You need to present to your company’s directors on the work your team has done in the last quarter.

• Must haves: Create a PowerPoint presentation detailing the key tasks and projects that your team has achieved during the last quarter. Plus find time to practice speaking through your presentation with your slides.
• Should have: Feedback from your team highlighting important milestones and accomplishments from the last quarter. You might solicit this feedback with an email, but ask for more detailed input via one-to-one meetings.
• Good to have: Time to think about how you want to present to your directors and the emphasis you want to convey. You may also want to spend some time chatting to colleagues to get their input into your presentation.

The next step is to quantify each of these tasks into something you rank using numbers.

You can do this by assigning a number value to each of your tasks. The higher the number, the more important/urgent/valuable it is.

To make this easier to visualize, we don’t use a linear scale like 1 to 10, instead, we use a set of Fibonacci Numbers (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc,) that naturally create a larger interval between numbers.

So, using the example from above, you could choose to order the tasks as follows:

Must haves

• Create a presentation using PowerPoint (Value 13).
• Spend time practicing your presentation (Value 8).

Should have

• Send an email to your team asking for feedback on important tasks, projects and accomplishments during the last quarter (Value 5).
• Meet one-to-one with team members if you need more detail on any of their feedback (Value 3).

Good to have

• Time to think about how you want to present your team’s work to your directors (Value 2).
• Time to meet with colleagues to get their input into how you presentation will look and sound (Value 1).

Step 3: Evaluate the Task’s Cost and Prioritize

Having looked at each task’s priority, the next step is to evaluate each task’s cost — specifically their Time Cost.

As I’m sure you can imagine, some tasks are difficult and require extreme focus or perhaps even external help. The complexity or difficulty of a task is reflected in the time required to complete it.

To calculate Time Costs, I suggest you make a rough estimate of how long each task will take. This works best if you split the time into half-hour intervals.

0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3

I don’t recommend you have a task longer than 3 hours. That’s because any time longer than this is indicative that your task is probably too big and would benefit by being broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks.

Now here’s where it gets interesting…

Once you know the Value and Time Costs of your tasks you can calculate a final score for each task — which will then enable you to prioritize your tasks from highest to lowest.

How do you calculate the final score?

Simply divide the task’s Value by its Time Cost.

You can see this in action in the spreadsheet below:

Step 4: Schedule the Tasks

By knowing the priority of your tasks and the approximate time each of them will take to complete, you now have the keys to take positive, productive action.

And the good news is that it’s really very simple.

You just need to schedule your tasks on a weekly planner — choosing on which day and at what time should you tackle each task.

Once you begin following this Superstructure Method, you’ll quickly overcome any feelings of being overwhelmed. That’s because you’ll always have an organized weekly plan that allows you to master your time and achieve your goals.

And there’s more good news…

After a while of following the Superstructure Method, you’ll notice that you start to create a solid routine for some recurring task such as having regular meetings and replying to emails. And routines are a fantastic way of saving you time and energy, as they help you automate your tasks and keep you away from distractions.

For more on the power of routines, check out our article: Your Routine is the Key to Achieving Your Goals

A New You

Once you adopt the Superstructure Method and begin prioritizing tasks in your daily life you’ll see BIG rewards.

These will include a huge jump in your productivity and work output. You’ll also feel less stressed and overwhelmed, which will give you time and energy to be more expressive and creative.

Just imagine…

The new you could be getting more done while also having better mental and physical health, and more spare time to do the things you love.

This is not some fantasy. This is the life I lead right now. And it’s the life you can lead too if you put the Superstructure Method into action.

If you still haven’t got the free guide about the Superstructure Method, I urge you to download and complete our free guide: 4-Step Guide To Create More Time Out of a Busy Schedule

The only thing you’ll lose by applying the techniques is your busyness!

More on Tasks Prioritization

• The Ultimate Guide to Prioritizing Your Work And Life
• 10 Practical Ways to Improve Your Time Management Skills
• How to Use the Prioritization Matrix When Every Task is #1

Featured photo credit: Paico Oficial via unsplash.com

The post A Stress-Free Way To Prioritizing Tasks And Ending Busyness appeared first on Lifehack.

9 Weekend Activities To Set You Up For Productivity the New Week

That looming feeling of dread about Monday morning –– nicknamed the “Sunday Scaries” –– seemed to hit harder every week.

I would try to enjoy relaxing weekend activities, but as the work week approached, I found myself struggling to wind down. All I could think about were the responsibilities waiting for me in the office: a full inbox, a full schedule and to-do list, and the inevitable problems that would surface as I managed all of it.

Then, I realized: maybe the week itself wasn’t the problem. Maybe my weekend activities just weren’t preparing me to tackle the work ahead of me.

In my experience, one of the biggest predictors of a successful workweek is a strategic weekend.

The right plans on your off-days can provide the stamina you need to get things done when it matters most. The same is true the other way around: You’ll find more motivation to power through the week when you have something refreshing or fun to look forward to on the weekend.

Looking for some fresh ideas to maximize your effectiveness at work? Here are 9 weekend activities to set you up for productivity each week.

1. Meditation

Meditation can benefit your brain and behavior in many ways, from increasing your self-awareness and reducing stress to enhancing creativity and patience.^[1]

All those things tangentially relate to work productivity, but gaining the ability to be fully present can have a major impact on your ability to focus –– and get things done –– throughout the week.

If meditation feels overwhelming, start small. Focus on a relaxing task, like coloring or simply breathing, mindfully for 5-10 minutes. Write in a gratitude journal to improve your positive thinking. If you want some help in the process, download a meditation app like HeadSpace or Insight Timer.

You can also take a look at this Guided Morning Meditation for Beginners (That Will Change Your Day).

2. Something Creative

Painting. Writing. Redecorating your living room. All creative endeavors have one thing in common: They improve your well-being and brain function.

It’s well known that a sense of mastery (essentially, achieving something) can improve your mental health, freeing up mind space for you to focus on work during the week.^[2] Being creative also encourages a “flow” state, which can enhance your productivity.

No matter how you choose to exercise creativity, do your best to give your brain a break from actual work.

3. Reading

Reading is a simple way to unwind any day, but it’s especially helpful to prepare yourself for the workweek. Any book you find interesting can be relaxing and enjoyable, but no matter what you choose, aim for paper –– all that time staring at screens can actually reduce your ability to read a real book.^[3]

There’s also evidence suggesting reading fiction can improve your brain connectivity and function, which contributes to your productivity in obvious ways.^[4]

In my experience, reading a great novel also helps me be more empathetic, and the ability to think from another person’s perspective can improve your relationships and problem-solving abilities. It’s a win-win!

Check out these 30 Books Everyone Should Read At Least Once In Their Lives.

4. Exercise

It takes some work to motivate myself, especially on weekends –– but I’ve found that my brain feels clearer and my body feels more relaxed the more physical activity I do.

It’s hard to over-emphasize the benefits of physical activity. Exercise impacts every area of health, from your mental well-being to your life expectancy and disease risk. But it’s also beneficial for your brain.

Scientific evidence shows routine exercise can improve memory, focus, and attention span, all of which contribute to your productivity during the week.^[5]

Even if you’re not athletic, choose an activity you like doing, and do it for 30 minutes a day. If you can’t go to the gym or you don’t have equipment at home, turn on a YouTube class or go for a walk outside. You’ll reap long-term benefits, but if you’re anything like me, even the immediate benefits of moving your body will be worthwhile.

Find out How to Find Workout Motivation When You Hate Exercise.

5. Spending Time Outdoors

Time outdoors is a simple, enjoyable way to boost your health and, along the way, improve your productivity and focus at work. For example, sunshine in the morning helps regulate your circadian rhythm, which promotes better sleep and mood.^[6]

Greenery, too has been shown to improve brain function –– even just looking at a pretty outdoor scene can pack a significant punch.^[7]

Aim to spend as much time outside as you can on weekends –- going for walks in your neighborhood, hiking on your favorite trails, even doing work in your yard. Opt to exercise in nature, and you’ll get the best of both worlds!

6. Something Fun

You’ve probably heard the phrase “working for the weekend.” While I’m a firm believer people should be passionate about their jobs, I also know how helpful it is to have something to anticipate throughout the week.

Psychological research suggests with an incentive ahead, people find more motivation to achieve.^[8]

Incentivize working by planning something you’ll really look forward to on the weekend –– seeing a loved one, ordering from your favorite take-out, taking a mini-adventure out of town, or a special movie night with your family.

7. Cooking

If there’s one hobby I’m glad I adopted during the pandemic, it’s cooking. Using your five senses is a great way to practice mindfulness and reduce anxiety.^[9] Preparing meals on the weekend can also help you save time during the week.

I like to make a big Sunday dinner and save leftovers to eat in the early portion of the week. Sometimes, I order groceries and prep ingredients on Sunday afternoons, too, and if I’m feeling ambitious, I’ll make separate batches of food to freeze and heat up later, when I don’t feel like cooking.

All the effort helps me to relax, saves me time after work, and prevents me from ordering fast food that’ll drain my energy later on –– and these three things combined increase the likelihood of productivity throughout the week.

8. Screen-Free Time

There’s nothing wrong with some tech-centric leisure, but if your job relies on tech throughout the week, it’s a good idea to unplug on the weekends.

First of all, too much screen time, especially at night, interferes with sleep. To best prepare for success at work, you’ll want to catch up on lost rest over the weekend –– and all that blue light isn’t going to support restorative rest.^[10]

Plus, it’s likely your brain needs a break from the constant input of the internet. It may feel relaxing to scroll Twitter mindlessly, but there’s lots of evidence that too much screen time can interfere with healthy brain function.^[11]

Allow yourself some screen-free hours on Saturday and Sunday, and you’ll find yourself more creative and focused during the week.

9. Planning Your Week

Is your goal is to enhance your productivity? Arguably, then, the most significant part of your weekend is the time you take to set intentions for the week ahead.

There’s no one-size-fits-all schedule for success. How you plan out your week should ultimately depend on your big-picture goals and the tasks you need to accomplish to achieve them.

There’s also evidence that high performance is more likely to occur when people and organizations take the time to plan out how they’ll meet their goals. Don’t skimp on this part –– studies show you’ll achieve more when your planning quality is high, too.^[12]

You may not want to spend your weekend laying out your schedule and setting goals, but you’ll find your stress decreases and your effectiveness increases if you do.

The same is true for the other weekend activities. It might feel better to zone out on Netflix, but setting yourself up for success is worth the investment –– especially if it banishes those Sunday Scaries once and for all.

Want to learn even more about the best weekend activities for personal development? Check out 13 Things to Do During Weekends to Improve Your Life.

Featured photo credit: Юлія Вівчарик via unsplash.com

Reference

[1]	^	Mayo Clinic: Meditation: A simple, fast way to reduce stress
[2]	^	The Growth Equation: The Transformative Mental Health Benefits Of Mastery
[3]	^	The World: Your paper brain and your Kindle brain aren’t the same thing,
[4]	^	Psychology Today: Reading Fiction Improves Brain Connectivity and Function
[5]	^	Harvard Health Blog: Regular exercise changes the brain to improve memory, thinking skills,
[6]	^	Somnlogie: Effects of light on human circadian rhythms, sleep and mood
[7]	^	Washington Post: Just looking at nature can help your brain work better, study finds
[8]	^	European Economic Review: Self-rewards and personal motivation
[9]	^	EatingWell: Why People Are Cooking to Help Relieve Stress During the Coronavirus Pandemic
[10]	^	Sleep Foundation: How Electronics Affect Sleep
[11]	^	World Psychiatry: The “online brain”: how the Internet may be changing our cognition
[12]	^	Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes: Goal setting, planning, and organizational performance: An experimental simulation

The post 9 Weekend Activities To Set You Up For Productivity the New Week appeared first on Lifehack.

15 Simple And Professional Tips To Be Organized At Home

We have never spent as much time in our homes as we have done in recent times. Our homes now have a multitude of functions that they may not have had previously. These can include: a place to school children, a place to workout or a place of work. This is in addition to the usual functions of being a safe place to retreat to and the hub of everybody’s lives. Our homes have certainly had to step up in recent times.

One thing is for sure, being organized at home is important in being able to cope with the strains that the current environment has put on us all, so let us take a look at some of the benefits that being organized can provide.

Being organized at home can simply make daily life a whole lot easier. When everything has its place, you know where items are and you are more efficient as you do not have to spend time looking for them. The saying ‘A tidy home, a tidy mind’ is very true. An organized and tidy home provides a calm and relaxed environment which in turn can make space for motivation and focus in other areas of life without being preoccupied.

If you know that your home is taken care of, you can concentrate on other areas of your life that need attention. Furthermore, an organized home can reduce conflict in the home between the family, this is due to there being less things to become stressed about because everybody knows where they stand and what is expected of them. It can provide the time to enjoy quality time together or to practice self-care and a positive environment to practice these in.

With so many benefits that being organized at home can provide, let us take a look at 15 simple and professional tips to be organized at home that you can start doing from today.

1. Plan

It is all in the planning, if your goal is to initially declutter and organize all aspects of your home, break down the work into small manageable tasks.

Firstly, divide each area of your home that you want to concentrate on into smaller chunks, write them down and set a schedule.

For example. if you want to tackle the kitchen, set out a plan to firstly sort out your fridge and then maybe next on your list sort out your cupboards and finally if you want to incorporate cleaning into your organizing then clean your oven.

Replicate this and make a plan for each area of the home that you want to tackle. Completed tasks will feel rewarding as you tick each one off your list and furthermore it makes sure that you do not get overwhelmed by the job at hand.

2. The Pareto Principle

Some professional declutterers incorporate the Pareto Principle into their work with their clients. The notion of this principle is the 80/20 rule, 80% of results will come from 20% of action. This can be applied to clutter and organization.

Most people only use 20% of items in their home, 80% of the time. Let us take shoes for an example, you may own 20 pairs of shoes but only wear 4 pairs most of the time.

When you are organizing a space, sort items into 2 piles marked: 80% – items used occasionally or not at all and 20% – items used most of the time. You can then sort through your 80% pile and decide on items that you will keep, throw away, recycle or donate.

The aim is to have more items in the dispose of pile than the keep pile. By deciding on which pile to put items in, you are being encouraged to be mindful, really think about that item and how much you use it or how much it really means to you.

3. Take Photographs

When decluttering your home, you may come across items that you are torn between keeping or disposing of. It is a fact of life that you may not be able to keep hold of everything as you just may not have the space, unfortunately this may include sentimental items.

One solution is to take photographs of items such as your child’s pictures that they have drawn or a particular piece of schoolwork that they are proud of. You can then keep these on your computer and make space in your home.

4. Allocate a Junk Drawer

Although one aim of organizing your home is to reduce items that are not needed or used, in practice, some junk is inevitable.

Allocate one drawer in the house for junk, once it is full – it is full and it is a sign that you need to sort through it. Having a junk drawer means that hopefully junk will not end up dotted around the house and you will be encouraged to sort through it periodically. This in turn means that you should not become overwhelmed and sorting of junk will not become a time consuming task.

5. Set Up a Family Meeting

Being organized in the home should involve the whole family. Set a meeting to discuss what is expected of the family as a whole and the benefits of working together as a team.

Discuss the tasks that each member will take on. Discuss with children the expectation of them helping with chores and being mindful of being organized in general.

If the whole family is on board, being organized at home should become a lot easier.

6. Set Up a To-do List

A to-do list breaks down tasks, it also helps to make visible how much progress you have made, this in turn gives you the motivation to keep going. It can help to put the list in a place that is visible to the whole family so that everybody knows what needs to be achieved. There are to-do list apps that can help you to keep on track too.

7. Prepare the Night Before

Preparation is key to being organized. In the evening, prepare lunches and set clothes out ready for the next day. This may only take 15 minutes but it makes sure that your morning can run smoothly and unexpected events can be dealt with the night before.

For example, if you have ran out of something that you need to make lunch, you can sort this in the evening rather than finding out in the morning. This prevents becoming stressed and rushing or being late for work. You can ensure that your morning is as stress free as possible.

8. Wake Up 10 Minutes Earlier

Waking up 10 minutes earlier will not have a negative impact on your sleep but it will have a positive impact on your morning. These 10 minutes extra can allow you to do a quick tidy as you go along in the morning and ensure that you come back to a tidy and organized home when you return from work. Wash your breakfast dishes, put your cosmetics away as you go along and most importantly, make your bed.

9. Do The Washing Up Straight Away

After each meal, do the washing up and dry the dishes straight away, if you put it off then the task will become overwhelming. Why not use this time as a family to work together?

You could ask your child to take the dishes to the kitchen and you and your partner can share the task of washing and drying. You can use this time to catch up as a family, the kitchen will be tidy and you can relax knowing that you have not got to get up and do three meals worth of dishes in the evening.

10. Do a Quick Evening Spruce Up Before Bed

Spend 10 minutes before bed to wash any cups or dishes used in the evening, fluff up the sofa cushions and put any bits and bobs in their place. Doing this will prevent a build up of clutter and you will have a tidy and organized home to wake up to in the morning.

Clutter and disorganization can create a stressed and cluttered mindset. By spending a short amount of time preparing your home for the morning, you can go to sleep knowing that there is one less thing on your mind that needs doing and you can wake up in the morning with a relaxed, calm and clutter-free mindset.

11. Make a Meal Plan For the Week

Organizing your meals can have a positive impact on your health, save you money and create more time for you. There is nothing worse than spending time looking through the cupboards for something to eat or walking aimlessly through the supermarket wondering what to pick.

Having a meal plan for the week can assist you in providing healthy meals for your family and you will not purchase items for the sake of it which will save money. Meal planning can also help everybody to know what meal they are having each day and you never know, they may even surprise you and take it upon themselves to make one of the meals. You can find tips on how to create a delicious and healthy meal plan here.

12. Set a Designated House Tidy Day

Set a day that suits your life and your family to work together to go through your home from top to bottom and do a full tidy and declutter. If you have kept up with some of the suggestions in this article and kept to a routine as you go along day to day, this task will not be as daunting and time consuming as you think.

Start from upstairs and work your way downstairs: clean the bathroom, make the beds, empty bins, dust where you haven’t throughout the week, change the towels, mop and open the windows to refresh the house.

Doing this at the end of the working week or on a Saturday morning can ensure that your weekend is relaxed and free of thinking what you have to do around the house. This leaves you time to spend with your family, practice self care or to just have a well deserved break.

13. Organize Your Paperwork

Set a designated place for your household paperwork to keep your environment clutter free and routinely discard any paperwork that is no longer needed.

Set up an archive folder and a to-do folder so that important paperwork is not missed. These tips should help you to be more productive and also save you time and stress when it comes to needing to get your hands on paperwork quickly.

14. Make Money From Your Unwanted Items

As motivation to organize your home and dispose of items that are no longer useful, sell your items online.^[1] This may encourage your children to sort out their toys and games and you will be surprised at the value that others see in your unwanted items. You can look at ways to sell your unwanted items here.

15. Habit Forming

Make the routines suggested in this article a habit and your home will become more organized automatically. Rather than thinking that you have to do the particular routine and that it is laborious chore, change your mindset and make it a habit that promotes positivity.

For example: remember that the household chores are a benefit to you and all of your family, turn on some music when you are doing your cleaning and count it towards your daily activity or look on your time doing the washing up with your partner as a chance to catch up with each other.

Bottom Line

There are many benefits to keeping your home organized and this organization can have a positive effect on your mindset, your family and other areas of your life.

In the unprecedented times that we are living in at the moment, it is all the more important to keep homes organized due to the simple fact that all of us are spending more time in our homes than ever before.

There are many ways in which you can have an organized home and keep on top of the clutter, this article has hopefully shown you that it is also simpler than you may have originally thought.

The key to keeping your home organized is to make routines a habit. You will see the positive effect on your life immediately, so why not start organizing your home today?

Featured photo credit: Patrick Perkins via unsplash.com

Reference

[1]

^

Money Saving Expert: Flog your rubbish for cash

The post 15 Simple And Professional Tips To Be Organized At Home appeared first on Lifehack.

How To Create An Effective Schedule For Time Management

Are you excited by the fact that you have the same 24-hours in your day as the likes of Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey? Or do you find yourself more concerned about the fact that you only have 24-hours in a day to get everything done? There are those who are able to accomplish so much in their day, and there are others who seem to always be running out of time. If you have not achieved the success you seek in life, a great place to start is knowing and improving how you spend your time each day. By learning how to make an effective schedule for time management, you can be sure to focus your time and effort on the tasks that matter to you the most.

1. A Commitment to Your Schedule

The first thing you need to do each day is to make your schedule—know what tasks you have to do and prioritize so you can have a more organized day. Those who have mastered making an effective schedule have made it a way of life, not a way of convenience.

Many people limit their scheduling time to when things already get really bad or when they have the “extra” time. However, you will find that scheduling your day is the best way to ensure that you have the “extra” time you’re looking for.

To decrease the likelihood of procrastinating, make sure that everything you write on your schedule or calendar is something you are committed to completing.^[1] By filling your schedule with items you will do, you will have a sense of urgency about adhering to your schedule.

The problem that many people face is that they schedule their ideal day, but most days are not ideal. Each day has unique problems and situations you were not planning to deal with that day. For example, you scheduled time to go to the gym before work, but you had to stay up late the night before working to meet a deadline, or you received an email late the night before about needing to come in early the next day because there was a problem discovered in your report.

When you make an ideal schedule, you look for an ideal day to implement it. That is why you should instead make an honest schedule each day about the things that will be done. These tasks are essential and, therefore, you have to complete them regardless of the unexpected problems that may pop up throughout the day.

2. Find Your Focus

The first step to learning how to make an effective schedule is to spend more time creating time blocks and less time creating to-do lists. When you create a to-do list based on tasks, you run the risk of not completing everything on your list. Despite your best planning efforts, some of the tasks you listed may take longer than anticipated. As a result, you may find that you haven’t completed many of your tasks at the end of the day.

A better approach to effective scheduling is to set blocks of time (time blocks) to complete your most important tasks each day. Instead of listing the tasks you want to complete each day and working on each one until it is completed, you will set a certain amount of time each day to complete the tasks.

For example, you can check and respond to emails from 8:00 am to 8:30 am each day. Then, you can work on a project due later in the week from 8:30 am to 10:30 am. From 10:30 am to noon, you can then work on a different project that you also have to prioritize.

Studies show that time blocking is a more productive way of managing your schedule because you are working in concentrated blocks of time.^[2] By grouping similar tasks, you allow yourself to use the same side of your mind, and this is the more ideal approach than frequently switching from your analytical side to your creative side.

3. Say No To “All Work and No Play”

Productivity isn’t the only thing that matters when learning how to make a schedule. It is also important that you leave yourself some time for fun. This is not a contradiction to the idea your schedule should be realistic and not ideal. In fact, this is the secret to making a schedule that works.

Too many people fill their schedule with tasks and professional ambitions that leave them feeling out of balance. Bring balance to your schedule by allotting time for your friends and family. Whether it is as simple as a walk to the park, watching a movie, or playing a board game, make sure that you are leaving some time with those people you enjoy spending time with.

Think of making a balanced schedule as you would think of starting a diet to lose weight. How likely are you to be successful if you restrict your diet to fruits and vegetables? Many studies show that drastically changing your diet usually results in you relapsing back to your previous eating habits and may even cause other health problems.^[3] As a result, you run the risk of losing all the gains you previously made.

The same holds true for determining how to make a schedule that’s effective. If you make significant changes to your daily schedule overnight, you run the risk of losing all your gains in a short period of time.

4. Leave Some Time for Yourself

It is vital that you leave time for yourself—and only yourself.^[4] Oftentimes, there is a negative stereotype surrounding the idea of being alone. However, alone is where you have a chance to slow things down. Life is always moving at such a fast pace that you may often forget why you are moving in the first place. Allow yourself some alone time to contemplate your motivations, goals, and aspirations.

Humans are blessed above all other creatures with the gift of being conscious of their existence. We know we are living, and we know we are going to die. We can swim upstream or down—just because. We can also fly north or south—again, just because. The problem is that most people do not take advantage of this amazing ability. We fall into patterns and habits and continue to remain in those patterns.

By devoting time to yourself, you give yourself the necessary time to evaluate how you spend your time each day. Don’t fall into the pattern of living a life based on decisions you made years ago that are no longer aligned with your current goals.

Final Thoughts

Making a schedule is more than just writing a list of tasks that you are going to complete each day. It is also about allocating your time in a way that gives you the best opportunity to live a life without regret. You need to allocate your time in a way that increases your productivity while leaving you time for yourself and those you care about.

Take control of your time so your life is more aligned with those you respect and admire. Remember, we all have the same 24-hours in the day, whether you use those 24 hours to create the life of Jeff Bezos or you use those time to create the life of someone who is wasting time. Either way, it is your life, so treat it like the treasure it truly is.

More Tips on How to Make an Effective Schedule

• How to Plan Your Day for a Healthy And Productive Life
• 5 Techniques to Tackle a Busy Schedule (And Create More Time)
• The Importance of Scheduling Downtime

Featured photo credit: Estée Janssens via unsplash.com

Reference

[1]	^	Princeton: Principles of Effective Time Management for Balance, Well-being, and Success
[2]	^	Entrepreneur: Time Blocking Tips Top Experts and Scientists Use to Increase Productivity
[3]	^	The Week: Making sudden changes to eating habit may harm health: Study
[4]	^	New York Times: Why You Should Find Time to Be Alone With Yourself

The post How To Create An Effective Schedule For Time Management appeared first on Lifehack.

How To Use the Time Management Matrix To Do What Matters

When major life changes or disruptions happen, time management is one of the first things to fly out the window. In those situations, time can lose all definitions. Understandably, the terms “urgent” and “important” take on new meanings.

In his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey popularized a concept he calls the time management matrix. Covey breaks down the time we spend while awake into four quadrants:

• Quadrant 1: Urgent and Important. Examples: getting help in a medical emergency, or stopping a small child from running into traffic.
• Quadrant 2: Not Urgent, but Important. Examples: getting the oil in your car changed regularly, or meeting an internal company goal to respond meaningfully to every customer contact within an hour.
• Quadrant 3: Urgent, but Not Important. Examples: a co-worker stopping by to ask about the company picnic, or responding to “limited time” offers.
• Quadrant 4: Neither Urgent nor Important. Examples: doomscrolling through social media feeds, responding to website comments posted by people you don’t know, or TV binge sessions.

Here’s the matrix graph illustrated by Sage Automation:^[1]

To make the best possible use of these four quadrants, we need to be brutally honest about how—and to what—we assign Covey’s terms. Here’s how to go about it:

1. Put a Dollar Figure on Your Time

If you want to eliminate the time-wasters in your life, start treating your time as if it were money. Considering time as an asset can feel like a somewhat fuzzy concept. Affixing dollar signs to your hours will bring clarity in a hurry.

Finance expert Dave Ramsey suggests tracking every penny you earn by assigning all of your money to a category. For example, $1,000 of your next paycheck might fall into the category of “rent,” $400 might go to “groceries,” and so on.

Until you start naming and tracking your time, time management will be nothing more than guesswork and gut feelings. Combining the Covey time management matrix and the Ramsey technique is the first step toward putting yourself in the time management driver’s seat. Maybe you decide your time carries a cash value of $30 per hour. At the end of a Netflix binge, for example, you find that you’ve spent 4.5 hours. That comes to a net value of $135. Record this in a daily log under “entertainment.”

If you’re like most people, your moment of clarity is likely to arrive at the end of the month when you total up the dollar values you’ve assigned to your various life categories.

While you might have shrugged off the $135 “spent” on a single TV binge, how will you feel when you discover that, in one month, you spent $1,485 in that category? As a point of reference, your available inventory of time for a 31-day month, assuming 16 waking hours a day, comes to $14,880. Work hours alone probably soaked up something in the $4,500-$6,000 range.

Now you have the power to bring real clarity to managing your priorities. Was watching TV really worth almost 10% of your total waking hours? Only you can answer this question.

2. Prepare Yourself for Time Management Matrix Success

Start by Writing Out Every Task

At this point, all you’re trying to do is empty out your brain. Don’t spend any energy thinking about urgency, importance, or deadline. That part will come later. For now, just do your best to get all of the tasks buzzing around inside your brain into a spreadsheet or on paper.

Use whatever tools work best for you so you can unload your thoughts as quickly as possible. Don’t stop until you are confident that you’ve captured everything.

Next, Assign a Deadline to Each Task

Start by filling in those deadlines you know to be set in stone. To maintain healthy relationships, you’ll want to prioritize the commitments you’ve already made to other people. If possible, set your deadlines ahead of what you’ve promised—you may need that flex time further down the road. Start with a time management goal of being known as the sort of person who under-promises and over-delivers.

Highlight the tasks you know to be urgent. Be careful with your application of the term “urgent.” What seems urgent to you may be of no consequence to your family, friends, and customers. Everyone needs to come up with a personal working definition but to start off, use this classification sparingly.

Prioritize previous commitments as you classify. You can always go back and upgrade a specific task to this status, but start by showing some restraint. After all, if everything is urgent, then nothing can be truly urgent.

Reorder Your List by Importance

This is where using a spreadsheet instead of paper can really pay off. Insert an importance column on your spreadsheet, or pick a different colored pen or marker if you’re using paper or index cards. Give each task an importance rating from 1 (not at all important) to 100 (of the utmost importance).

I personally like to use a scale of 1 to 100 because of the granularity it provides. For example, two tasks might both rate an 8 on a 1 to 10 scale, but you can differentiate between an 82 and an 88 when sorting.

3. Plug Your Life Into the Time Management Matrix

Now, take a step back and look at what you’ve got. If you’ve done your homework, you should now see every one of your tasks along with its rankings for importance and urgency.

Begin moving each task into one of the four quadrants of the time management matrix. Start with the obvious placements. Once they are on the grid, you can assess the close calls that might legitimately end up in either one of two quadrants. You may begin reranking items in terms of importance or urgency, and that’s fine. You may realize some tasks aren’t as important or urgent as you initially thought.

Q1: Maintain an Open Landing Strip

Try to keep as many things out of the Urgent and Important quadrant as you can. That may not be possible on your first attempt at time management, but set a long-range goal of maintaining some open space in Q1. You can accomplish this by dealing with tasks that appear in the other three quadrants as efficiently and effectively as possible.

For example, a busy startup founder will still want to stay in shape but not have hours to spend in the gym. Wall Street Journal best-selling author Dr. John Haquish recommends variable resistance training over heavy weight training. “Variable resistance training is scientifically proven to yield better results for fitness in far less time,” says Dr. Jaquish. “This, combined with a high-protein diet can give entrepreneurs the results they want without sacrificing valuable hours out of their day.”

Obviously, you could get a client call 10 minutes from now that instantly places something in Q1. No planning or preparation on your part could have stopped it from landing there, so that’s not your fault. Your job is to keep the landing strip available for this eventuality.

Q2: Knock Out These Tasks With Dedicated Blocks of Time

If something is important, it stands a good chance of eventually becoming urgent. Using the oil change example, you obviously want to address this task before your engine seizes up. If you don’t, a Q2 task suddenly has to be reclassified Q1, and you’ll have a brand-new Q1 to keep it company: “Get a rental car.”

Other Q2 tasks may never become urgent, but that doesn’t diminish the importance of these bigger-picture items. “Maybe you’ve committed to learning more to help advance workplace antiracism,” notes author and Forbes contributor Dana Brownlee. “That goal most likely won’t materialize until and unless you’ve proactively blocked time on your calendar to ensure you’re appropriating necessary time towards that goal.”^[2]

Without a conscious effort to schedule these tasks, they will remain forever undone.

Q3: Ask Your Urgent Items a Few Questions

At least one problem with this category is that urgent tasks often masquerade as important. It’s common to confuse the two, so it’s critical to learn to make this distinction. A text from a prospective client you’re hoping to land is urgent while an email from your insurance agent wanting to schedule an annual policy review can probably wait until Friday.

Emails, voice mails, text messages, and other forms of instantaneous communication nearly always carry with them a sense of urgency, but they might not be important. As you look at the things that have landed in Q3, ask yourself whether you share the sender’s sense of urgency or not. It might be time to unsubscribe to certain groups, individuals, or newsletters to minimize Q3 clutter.

Q4: Make the Most of Your Not Urgent, Not Important Activities

Q4 is the quadrant every would-be time manager likes to dump on, but don’t be so hasty. While you definitely want to eliminate outright time sucks, this is also the quadrant where downtime lives. Rather than vowing to swear off all Q4 activities entirely, make the most of those you do engage in.

First, begin by eliminating or delegating tasks that aren’t the best use of your time. Sure, that report needs to be reformatted, but an intern could likely do it for you. Use sales software to automate your prospecting emails so you don’t have to send them all yourself.

When it comes to taking a break, be conscious of activities that leave you feeling refreshed and those that leave you feeling drained. Say yes to that walk in the woods and no to arguing with strangers on social media. By choosing your leisure activities wisely, you’ll get the most from your Q4 buck.

Final Thoughts

Covey’s time management matrix is a tremendous tool to adopt when you feel as though your schedule controls you instead of the other way around. Your success will likely boil down to how honest you are with yourself when assigning labels.

Don’t be afraid to ask yourself, “Is this truly urgent?” You’ll also need to make sharp distinctions between what is important to you and what is important to someone else. It’s all too easy to accept someone else’s label of “important” or “urgent” uncritically.

There’s a sweet spot to time management that puts you in full control of your schedule without veering into rigid thinking. Entrepreneurs, in particular, will need to factor some flexibility into their schedules so they can take advantage of Q1 opportunities that pop up unannounced. Too much flex, though, and you’ll end up wasting time. As you customize the techniques of Covey and Ramsey to fit your life, give yourself some grace to make mistakes and tweak as needed. You’ll get there.

More Tips for Effective Time Management

• 10 Practical Ways to Improve Time Management Skills
• 10 Proven Time Management Skills You Should Learn Today
• How to Increase Work Productivity: 9 Ground Rules

Featured photo credit: explorenation # via unsplash.com

Reference

[1]	^	SAGE Automation: What exactly is a Time Management Matrix and how can it prevent maintenance?
[2]	^	Forbes: Avoid This Time-Management Mistake In 2021—Your Calendar Will Thank You

The post How To Use the Time Management Matrix To Do What Matters appeared first on Lifehack.