The festive season is around the corner, that means the Christmas break will soon be upon us and 2019 sooner than we think. It is the start of a new week and you want to get the most done before the break at work as well as prepare for the new year.
All this cannot be done without effective time management skills. If you’re not managing your time well, there’s no way you’re going to reach your goals in your work and personal life. Sure, you might make some progress. But your time management will be an uphill battle if you do not take your time seriously.
The truth is that time is the greatest equalizer in life. No matter who you are, your age, income, gender, race or religion, you have the same amount of time as the next person. Whether you’re filthy rich or dirt poor, your time is the same. It’s not about how much time you have. It’s about how effectively you manage your time.
Here are 7 crucial time management tips for getting the job done in 2019:
1. Find a good time management system.
One of the tips for managing your time is to find the right system to actually do it. The quadrant time-management system is probably the most effective. It splits your activities into four quadrants based on urgency and importance. Things are either urgent or important, both, or neither.
2. Audit your time for seven days straight.
Spend seven days straight assessing how you spend the time you do have right now. What are you doing? Record it in a journal or on your phone. Split this up into blocks of 30 minutes or an hour. What did you get done? Was it time wasted? Was it well spent? At the end of the seven days, tally up all the numbers. Where did you spend the most time? The results might shock you.
3. Spend your mornings on your most important tasks.
Mark Twain once said, “If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” His point? Tackle your biggest tasks in the morning, these are your most important tasks. Accomplishing those will give you the biggest momentum to help you sail through the rest of the day.
4. Follow the 80-20 rule.
Another great time management tip is to use the 80-20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle. This rule states that 80% of the efforts come from 20 percent of the results. The trick? Identify the 20 percent of the efforts that are producing 80 percent of the results and scale that out. You can do this with meticulous tracking and analysis.
5. Eliminate bad habits.
One of the biggest time-wasters we have is our bad habits. Whether it’s Netflix binge-watching, excessively surfing social media, playing games, going out frequently to drink with friends, or so on, those bad habits take away the precious little time that we do have. Use your time wisely by eliminating your bad habits if you’re serious about achieving big goals in life.
6. Make to-do lists in the evening for the next day.
Every single evening before bed, make a list for the next day. Look at your goals and see what you can do to help move you closer. This doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. But by making to-do lists, you’re effectively setting goals for the day. Daily goals are easier to achieve while helping to move us towards the longer and bigger goals. But that happens by creating to-do lists.
7. Declutter and organize.
Studies have determined that clutter in our environment helps us to lose focus. When we lose focus, we lose time. If you want to avoid that, declutter and organize. Don’t do it all at once. Start small. One drawer today. A shelf tomorrow. Maybe a closet the next day. Just one per day. You build momentum and eventually find yourself turning into an organizing warrior.
