Time Management – Develop habits to succeed

Time Management – Helping you take control by developing habits to help you succeed. 

Time management is one of those impactful habits that helps to improve confidence and competence when achieving goals and objectives. Time Management is about you taking control and recognising how best to use your time, prioritising tasks and activities to maximise your output. Effective prioritisation allows you to work with greater focus and clarity resulting in a more calm and efficient use of your time, removing feelings of incompetence and anxiety that can result from poor time management. 

You may be busy and working hard, but the goal is to help you develop habits to work more productively. 

There are four core elements to improving your Time Management: 1. Planning, 2. Prioritisation, 3. Scheduling and 4. Reflection.

Planning

Writing things down will identify what needs doing and help keep you organised and focused. Utilising agendas, diaries and/or calendars are great tools to help plan for daily, weekly and monthly activities, tasks and goals.

1. Finding a tool that you want to use is also helpful here, keeping you motivated to build the positive habit of planning – the likes of The Head Plan Agenda is one I personally use and, importantly, enjoy using. If you’re more into Project Management Tools there are free options with Wrike, Asana, Monday, Clickup and Trello.

2. Planning Tips:

   1. List everything – personal and professional

   2. Sunday – to amplify productivity, outline your weekly & daily agendas on a Sunday. This will help to reduce procrastination and indecisiveness each morning. By plotting your week in advance – you know exactly what you have to do each day. 

   3. Answer – what do I want to achieve this week? What will make me feel good? What will make me feel each day was a success? Ensure you are adding these tasks/activities, irrespective of personal or professional, to your lists so you feel a sense of accomplishment and personal achievement. You can be super busy and complete a ton of to-dos but if you don’t feel happy, you may require time to reflect and consider additional questions to ask yourself. 

Prioritisation

Segment and prioritise your to-do list. List your activities from most important/urgent to least and categorise into relevant headings like: Things I must do, Things I should do and Things I’d like to do, or the 4 D’s: Do, Defer, Delegate and Delete.  When prioritising consider:

1. The 80/20 Rule – Understand what actions will derive the greatest results. In most cases, 20% of your work produces 80% of the results. Get clear on your 20%.

2. SMART goals – SMART goals help ensure your objectives are attainable within a certain time frame.

   1. S = Specific – what exactly are you looking to achieve?

   2. M = Measurable – how will you know you have achieved it?

   3. A = Achievable – check that your objectives are actionable and be clear on what steps need to be taken to achieve them.

   4. R = Realistic / Relevant – why are you setting this goal? how does it contribute and add value? Can this objective be broken down into smaller tasks making it more achievable? 

   5. T = Time-Bound – when do you want to achieve this by?

3. Prioritisation Tips:

   1. Don’t get overwhelmed – compartmentalise big projects, breaking down into smaller segments and action items.

   2. Priorities – identify the most important challenge for each day and make it the first thing you do

   3. Review & Critique – review your list; if your time is not best served doing something – can you delegate or defer it?

   4. Be Decisive – I am notorious for post-its and marking emails as unread; if I have a good idea, someone mentioned something that may be relevant, read this, do that; but find they pile up and no action is taken.  There are four options available to us: Do, Defer, Delegate and Delete. Get yourself in the habit of using your categorisations – Don’t sit on it, do it or schedule it, delegate it, file it for later or bin it!  Make the best decision you can with the information you have and move forward. 

Scheduling 

Once prioritised and categorised it’s time to schedule so you can take action. 

1. Scheduling Tips:

   1. Utilise your Prime Time for actions and tasks that require the most brain power and focus. 

   2. Segment your time – designate time for checking emails twice a day,  where possible, bundle creative activities together – bundling allows you to live in the creative space for longer, driving innovative thinking.

   3. Monotasking – to increase focus and productivity, monotask. This will increase the quality of your attention to your activities. Remove distractions – silence instant messaging apps/tools, do not check emails in meetings…etc.

   4. Self care – don’t be a cart-horse. To perform well and be at your best you must take care of yourself. Take breaks – help yourself stay energised with intermittent walks, time away from the screen and fueling your body is vitally important. Bake in break times to help establish a healthier routine.  Taking time off to relax and ensure balance is imperative. Your aim is to be productive, not burnt out. 

Developing good habits around Time Management helps you take control. Elevate your productivity and focus by holding yourself accountable to your scheduling. We often veer towards doing easier tasks and things we like to do, rather than those we find more difficult, but it may be these that are more vital. Don’t procrastinate, lean into getting started, taking one step at a time. 

And lastly, don’t forget to Reflect. Ensure as you traverse the week you also account for interruptions and supporting others. Reflecting allows us to identify delegation, growth and development needs as well as assessing what you need to spend less time doing and what you should be doing more of. Acknowledge what you held yourself accountable to and what you need to work on to continue to build stronger time management habits. How can you further improve on last week’s routine for a more successful week ahead?

Be proactive and get started on prioritising your time for YOU. Time is a much in demand but limited resource yet you have control as to how productive you are with it. 

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