Time management is the process of planning, organizing, prioritizing, and allocating time to perform tasks and achieve goals optimally. It includes identifying the essential tasks and taking the time to complete them. On the other hand, one should avoid distractions and unnecessary activities.
Effective time management enables people to optimize their time and increase productivity. In addition, it is a way to reduce stress and anxiety associated with work or other duties. Time management is about achieving a healthy balance between work, personal life, and leisure.
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Time management principles
As the definition implies, the three principles of effective time management are:
- Prioritization: you need to figure out how urgent, complex, and important the task is and only then execute it.
- Planning: you need to determine the task deadline and duration.
- Structuring: to complete a job, you must understand how to track its progress and results.
Here are ten working time-management methods that have proven most effective
1. Pomodoro Technique
The technique is designed to help people work more efficiently by focusing on one task at a time and taking regular breaks. To use it:
- Break your schedule into 25-minute intervals.
- Take a 5-minute break.
- After every fourth interval, schedule a more extended break.
By the way, the technique is called «tomato» because Francesco Cirillo, who invented it, used a small kitchen timer in the form of a tomato.
2. Eisenhower Matrix
This time management tool helps people prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance. It involves dividing to-dos into four categories:
- urgent and important;
- important but not urgent;
- urgent but not important;
- neither urgent nor important.
This method can help individuals focus on the most critical tasks and avoid wasting time on non-essential activities.
3. Getting Things Done (GTD)
The GTD method can help people stay organized and reduce mental clutter. The first step is documenting all tasks and duties in an external system. It can be a notepad, a specific application, or another program summarizing to-dos. Then break them down into smaller, actionable steps and follow them. It is also essential to regularly review and update the list.
David Allen, the author of this method, described it in his book “Getting Things Done.” He emphasizes the importance of capturing all tasks and commitments in an external list so that the mind can focus on the job. ‘Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.’
4. Pareto Principle
The 80/20 Rule, known as the Pareto Principle, applies to time management. It means you can achieve 80% of your results with 20% of your efforts. The method helps people focus on the most critical tasks and activities that yield the highest returns.
It requires analyzing your tasks and goals. First, determine the crucial activities that contribute the most to your success. Once you have identified these high-value tasks, prioritize them above all other activities. Then, focus your time and energy on these tasks before tackling lower-priority activities.
5. Kanban
Along with Scrum, Kanban is one of the core methods of the Agile management system. This work-organizing method distributes the workload among people to complete the job on time. In addition, it visualizes the growing pace of work and keeps track of everything.
The classic Kanban board includes three columns: To Do, Doing, and Done. Note that there may be more columns. For instance, you can track the number of stages in your project or production. Column titles may also vary at the discretion of the company.
You put all tasks in the first column as separate entries or sticky notes. Then you drag them individually to the next column as you advance in the task. Thanks to these drag-and-drop steps, you can easily track the progress of each person and the entire team.
6. Eat That Frog
Brian Tracy is the author of this time-management approach. It involves tackling the most complex and vital task in the morning when willpower and focus are strongest. This approach can help people avoid procrastination and increase productivity.
Brian Tracy encourages people, ‘Every minute you spend in planning saves 10 minutes in execution; this gives you a 1,000 percent Return on Energy!’
7. The Ivy Lee Method
One of the Ivy Lee Method’s strengths is its simplicity; it requires no specialized tools or complicated processes. However, to make the most of this technique, one must be disciplined and committed to following through on your daily priorities.
The method involves the following steps:
- Write down the six most important tasks for the following day at the end of each workday. These should be the tasks that have the most significant impact on your goals or objectives.
- Prioritize these tasks in order of importance. The most critical one should be at the top of the list, followed by the second most important, and so on.
- The next day, focus on the first task on the list to complete before moving on to the next one. If you cannot complete a task, move it to the next day’s list.
- Repeat this process daily, writing down six tasks and prioritizing them in order of importance.
8. The Zeigarnik Effect
According to this psychological phenomenon, people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed ones. The reason is that they create a sense of tension, motivating us to achieve them. Once you complete the job, the pressure is released, and the brain no longer needs to remember it.
The Zeigarnik Effect helps improve memory and motivation. For instance, breaking a significant task into smaller, manageable sub-tasks can create momentum and motivate you to complete the entire undertaking. Additionally, making a to-do list helps you to remember all of your incomplete tasks and prioritize them according to their importance.
9. The Flow State
It is a psychological state where individuals are completely absorbed in a task and lose track of time. This approach involves finding challenging but not too demanding tasks and creating an environment that fosters focus and concentration. It is perfect for finding out-of-the-box solutions and allows specialists to increase productivity and job satisfaction.
10. Evening preparation
This recommendation suits those who find getting up early in the morning challenging. Following the advice of modern psychologist Nick Wignall, write down work and personal tasks for tomorrow at the end of the working day. This way, you understand your workload in advance and distribute tasks without the morning rush. You can prepare a task plan, work clothes, or lunch in the evening if you work outside the home.
You can jot down your plans on paper or in the application. It is another effective way to manage your working time to complete duties before the deadline. Fortunately, we can use the latest technologies, which yield excellent results.
Check out five apps that help with effective time management:
- Trello is a popular project management app that allows users to create boards, lists, and notes to organize tasks and workflows. It’s an excellent app for those who prefer to see their goals visually appealing and intuitively understandable.
- RescueTime is a time-tracking app that helps monitor user activity and productivity levels throughout the day. It automatically logs time spent on various websites and applications. The app provides detailed reports and insights to help users make informed decisions about spending time.
- Forest is a unique app that gamifies the skill of concentrating on a task and helps users stay focused and avoid distractions. The app allows users to plant virtual trees, which grow over time as long as they remain in the app. The more trees they grow, the more rewards they earn.
- Focus@Will is a music app with specially curated playlists helping users focus and be more productive. The app combines music and neuroscience to create a customized experience that caters to each user’s needs.
- The Singularity app is a task manager that turns emails into tasks. This tool combines the best methods of managing duties, projects, to-dos, calendars, checklists, and reminders with best practices such as time management, GTD, and chaos management.
How we cope with tasks at Glorium
Implementing time-honored ways to keep things in order, such as the Kanban, Trello, and Eisenhower Matrix, allows you to focus on significant tasks and avoid minor distractions. At GloriumTech, we use all available tools to make work comfortable for our specialists and increase job satisfaction.
We use the best management practices to ensure each team member’s sense of belonging and work-life balance. So, join our team by sending your CV to experience it.
