What is Effective time Management skills and how is it Manage?

Effective time management skills

Hello everybody, today our topic is a very interesting module and one of my personal favourite it is called as Effective time management skills.  if you want to be a world-class leader have good work-life balance and generally want to be successful in your career and in your life this is the module that you need to pay a lot of attention on well. The agenda today is what we’re going to be covering in this module of time management.

Some of the subtopics are

  • Effective time management skills
  • How to plan and prioritize your day properly
  • importance of time logs and to-do lists
  • Identifying our time wasters and time robbers
  • Understanding the Pareto principle of 80by 20
  • Urgent and important matrix
  • Being busy versus being productive

So these are what we are going to cover today in our module let’s get started well everyone gets 24 hours in a day nobody gets more and nobody gets less so why is it that some people are always struggling to manage their time are always running pillar to post and always trying to squeeze in so much in their 24 hours still having no time for themselves at the end of the day these people complain. I don’t have time on the other set we have another group of people who are able to manage all their time very properly they are able to prioritize they are able to plan and they are able to accomplish everything in the days’ time at the end of the day. They have a lot of time for themselves and are always productive the difference between these two set of people is the latter set of people are always kind of people who have learnt the technique of time management. That is the reason why we having this module on effective time management skills to help us become productive and we could at our work.

Why do we need effective time management skills? Well there are a lot of benefits associated with being able to manage your time properly and once we know what these benefits are. We are definitely going to strive to be better with our time management so let’s understand what these benefits of time management are. The most important benefit is time management helps you to save time. Time is money in today’s date time lost will never come back again. Time saved is equal to money and time management helps you to reduce stress. We are so stressed out in today’s life why because we squeezed in too much into our day without realizing whether we are able to manage our time to all these different tasks that we have squeezed in so it helps you to stress free yourself. Time management helps us to function effectively be a constructive and a productive worker at our workplace. It helps to increase our work output; it helps us have more control over our job responsibilities so we are actually able to really function. Be a productive team member with our employees it helps you to prioritize and to plan our tasks better know what to do first and know what to do last. So, scheduling our priorities is something that will be a great benefit of time management it helps us to get more done in less time and isn’t that what we all strive for we all have so much to do and so little time it helps you to do less in amount of time it tells us to give good quality of work and we all should strive for quality work rather than just finishing off our tasks. Doing more multiple tasks quantity is not so good but quality is always better helps us to discipline ourselves and last not the least it helps you to make sure that you deliver what is promised these are some of the benefits of time management. I’m sure listening to all this you would definitely want to learn how to save time how to manage your time. Now there is a very interesting concept a lot of people feel that they are busy and they are also productive. Busy does not mean being productive, busy and productive are two different things you might say I am very busy doing something but when someone asks you what are you busy doing that is a question mark on your face and you are really not sure what are you busy doing but you tend to want to be busy.

So, what is the difference between being busy and being productive?  Let’s understand that a little in detail:

  • Being busy there are people who have multiple priorities they will have numerous priorities for themselves whereas productive people on the other hand they only focus on few priorities they would rather focus on lesser number of things rather than filling that is with too many things.
  • Busy people always respond with a yes they will never say no for a task or an activity whereas productive people on the other hand always think twice before they say oh yes to somebody.
  • Busy people when they are working they will keep all the doors opened so anybody can disturb or interrupt them which is not a good thing on the other hand productive people when they are at work they will close all the doors they will never let you interrupt them or make them you know understand what that is keeping talk about how busy they are.
  • Busy people always keep on hopping I am very busy doing this and that well on the other hand productive people they don’t go on harping about how busy they are. They let the results speak for themselves and isn’t that always a better option.
  • Busy people are multitasks they will do numerous amount of things a lot of things at one point of time they will multitask whereas productive people they will only concentrate on one important task or one important goal. Now let’s understand according to research a mind if it is focused on too many things at the same time you will not deliver quality work in any of those tasks because your mind is in different tasks however if you focus on one particular task or goal unable to finish. That’s always a much better option so we should always strive to do this rather than this.
  • Busy people they always ask for advice on the other hand productive people they take real actions and they get the job done rather than only asking people for advice. They do that but at the same time they do the work, they work on their actions rather than only talking to people about advises and suggestions.

So, what we are trying to say in these above particular points are always try to be productive rather than only being busy.

Now one of the very important ways of you knows managing our time is being able to create something which is known as a productivity journal. A productive journal is nothing but a time log of your day-to-day activities what you do in your entire days’ time right from the time you get up to the time you retire to bed at night.

So, let’s understand the productive journal, we should have two journals one for personal journal and one for professional journal.  it’s important to bifurcate these two journals always label it with the effective time management skills. The time of the day the date and your name on the journal prioritize your first three tasks. It’s very important to jot down or to write down what you want to accomplish your first three priorities of your day. It’s important to use your productive journal every day don’t just use it once and then let go of it for the next 15 days and then open your journal again. It’s something that I would want you to work on every single day of your life and that’s the crux of managing your time properly how do you maximize using your productivity journal it’s important to plan the night before. Now the reason why I say plan the night before is because when you sleep at night your subconscious mind is the most alert at that point of time and whatever you feed into the mind at that time stays with you till the morning hours hence it’s very important plan your task the night before rather than doing it after. Getting up in the morning prioritize your tasks. When we talk about prioritizing what I am really trying to say is that understand what task needs to be done first and what time needs to be done second third and so on and so forth. Prioritizing your task is very important and we will throw a lot of light on it later on in the module cross off completed task. There is nothing more accomplishing or motivating than putting a tick mark in your productive journal saying that you have finished this task. It gives you mental satisfaction and yes there is a hormone which gets released whenever you feel motivated and proud and that’s important. Carryover unfinished tasks if for some reason you have not been able to complete a particular task in a day it’s okay does not matter you can carry it over the next day this is again a very important way of managing your time better having to-do lists now.

To-do list is a concept which most of us really know about but have you really practiced. It is a question I would want you to ask yourself. To-do lists are very important to make sure that all your tasks get captured completed within a specific point of time in your day. The reason why we say to-do list is important is because you are able to write down everything and know what all other things you need to do in a day. There is a step by step approach and I would really want you to follow this. Whenever you are making a to-do list so let’s understand these below four steps which will help us make a to-do list.

Step 1 – Capture everything you need to do however small or big the task is doesn’t matter you capture everything on a piece of paper writing down everything that needs to be done small or big doesn’t matter.

Step 2 –Follow ABC method of priority now I’m trying to say is all those tasks which you feel are most important just right an in front of them which you feel are less important right be in front of them and whatever you feel is the least important right see in front of them this way you have prioritize your tasks which you have written down for yourself.

Step 3 -You need to write down how long with us each and every step take now what I would want you to do is try to understand that each task needs a sometime that you need to give to that particular task so what is the time you want to give to that you need to write in front of that it spits going to take an hour’s time, half an hour’s time and two hours’ time. You need to write that down.

Step 4 – As I mentioned earlier tick when the task is done it is very motivating to know that you have accomplished so much in a day. It’s motivating. Isn’t it? This is again a very important way of managing your time chunk block-and-tackle now when we are faced with a very huge project that we need to do. It is very overwhelming for us it is something that we get scared of or half afraid of fear and apprehensions such a big task.  How am I going to do it? You have something which is known as chunk block and tackle this will help you manage your overwhelming task and get it done. How do we need to break down the project if it’s a big project? Break it down into smaller manageable tasks that will help you get started. Second set time for a specific task those small tasks that you have you know kind of motivated down for yourself. Try to have a set amount of time that you will take to complete each task avoid interruptions when you have blocked or rather chunked of small pieces of tasks always have a small set of time that you will aside to each task and also try not to get interrupted during that when you are focused on something please give you a hundred per cent avoid phone calls, avoid emails, avoid technology. Try to just be focused on that one task and tackle one task at a time as I mentioned before don’t multitask. If you are focused on one task it gets completed much better.

Next we are going to talk about how to prioritize your time. Time management is not only about learning how to manage time?  It’s about how to learn effective time management skills yourself in relation to the time and how to prioritize your time with something which is known as a urgent important matrix. Let’s understand what urgent important matrix is.

What is urgent and what is important? Is there a difference between these two terms?  I or are they similar? If you don’t do the important tasks they become urgent. That’s something that we want to avoid being in an urgent own. So let’s start doing the important tasks before they become urgent.

Here, we are going to talk about four quadrants:

Quadrant 1 – Which is urgent and important? It means you are always running to manage your pressing problems it’s a crisis situations. You are running for projects meetings trying to accomplish everything in a day and that is when you are in this quadrant urgent and very important for you.

Quadrant 2 – Which is important but not very urgent? What do we mean by important but not urgent these are certain tasks which you need to make sure. You do in time before they become urgent so something like preparation prevention value clarification planning your life, your goals and your vision relationship building spending quality time with your family members going out for vacations and recreations etc. These are not very important things but yes they are important if you give yourself the time to be in this zone quadrant.

Quadrant 3 – Which is not even audit and not important? While you are at your desk working you might get some interruptions some important meals to send, some important phone call which comes in your way etc. These are things that we want to avoid why because they are urgent for some other people but you start wasting your time in this quadrant because you give a lot of attention to these pressing problems meetings some or the other report which needs to be sent etc. So try avoid being in this quadrant.

Quadrant 4 – Which is urgent but not important?  One of the most important activities which I would say in today’s time is the social media. We are so busy with our whatsapp,  our Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. We spend so much of time in these activities that half of our day is completely filled. With these and then we don’t have time for our urgent and important tasks so any junk mails, some phone calls, our timewasters and escape activities are really not helping us much. Manage our time when we are in this particular zone. We are only and only wasting our important time of the day by filling it with these activities.

Now, out of all these four quadrants if you really want to manage your time be in quadrant number two which is important but not urgent. Once we start being in quadrant two we will learn how to manage our life and our time much better.

We are next going to talk about a Pareto’s principle which is the 80 by 20 rule. Mr. Pareto came up with this particular concept which is known as Pareto principle way back in the 1900s. What he’s really trying to is focused on 20% of your actions which will reap 80% of the results. The Pareto principle says put your efforts where they will make the most difference. Most of us try to accomplish too much in a day rather accomplish the important things in a day which only call for 20% of those activities which will actually help you to reap a lot of benefit which is 80%. Even if you look back into times back people who actually owned 20% of the land make 80 % of the money. So try and understand focus on only those tasks which are only 20% important but will actually give you 80% of the result benefits of 80/20.

It helps you to identify the most important tasks of problems which you need to take care of. Secondly it helps you to concentrate on your strengths. Now we all know what our strengths and weaknesses are. So, it helps you to concentrate on those activities which you enjoy doing and which you love to do so concentrate on your strengths it helps you in undivided focus. Now when you know what you have to do you try to focus your attention your100% attention on that activity and lastly you use the tools which are most needed resources like time energy money. Everything is needed for this particular20% of your actions so it helps you in that these are certain benefits of the 80 by 20 tool. I would really strongly recommend start using the Pareto principle as well as the urgent important matrix if you want to manage your time a little better.

What we are going to cover is one of the most fundamentals of effective time management skills which is learning how to tackle procrastination?

Procrastination means not being wanting to complete a particular task setting it off for some other time, date, month or you’re saying that you want to complete the more pleasurable task rather than the unpleasurable task. Wanting to do the less important or urgent things rather than the urgent and important things. So, human beings by nature are very lazy and careless and they do want to do things at that particular time. How do we tackle procrastination is something which will help you really manage your time and life better. We have certain tips and tricks to share with you which will help you tackle procrastination there are nine ways in which you can actually overcome this habit of procrastination. Let’s understand what these nine ways are:

  1. The first one is deleted, if you feel a task is just getting carried over again and again another day, another time & another week. It’s better to delete that task because it is not meant to be to do that does rather better delete it from your list.
  2. The second way is delegate. Delegation is a very important way of managing your time. Delegate that particular task to somebody who has a time and resource and the intelligence to do that particular task delegation works very well if you want to be a successful leader.
  3. The third way is do it, just does the task finish it off rather than thinking planning finish it off and just do it.
  4. The next way is follow something which is known as a 15 minute rule. What this means is when you have a task in hand, think it over in your mind, if you are able to complete it within 15minutes, just complete it. That very time do not delay it or do not procrastinate it just within 15 minutes finish it off.
  5. The next thing is chop it up well as we mentioned before if there is an overwhelming big project which you need to do and you’re really wondering, where do I start from well chop it up into smaller bits and pieces and that’s where you will be able to manage doing this particular task.
  6. Next is asking for advice a lot of times we procrastinate a particular task or work because we don’t have the expert knowledge of how do we go about doing it. So, ask for advice do a research, ask seniors or ask your leaders who will help you give you that recommended advice which will help you do that task rather than procrastinate it.
  7. Next way of dealing with procrastination is have clear set deadlines. Most of our task gets procrastinated because we have not assigned a clear deadline. So, a sign or deadline to your task because that will help you overcome this procrastination.
  8. The next one is rewarding yourself, nothing is more motivating than rewarding yourself. Give yourself a nice pat on your back. It’s motivating and it’s really good for your self-esteem and self-confidence. So, next time you finish off a task reward yourself.
  9. The next way is remove distractions when you are focusing on a very important and urgent task for yourself. There might be a lot of interruptions or distractions, these distractions just focus on your work.

By following these nine ways of overcoming procrastination you are one step closer to managing your time much better.

Now when we talk about effective time management skills they are definitely going to be some barriers or obstacles which will not let you manage your time. What are these obstacles and barriers? Let’s understand not having clear objectives so unclear objectives really lead to lack or less of time management because you don’t know where to get started, you don’t know what to door, what not to do. So have clear directions and have clear objectives why you want to do that particular task the next is being disorganized nothing can be more irritating and annoying than being disorganized wherever you are whether at work or at your home. Always have your table and your area organized, if you are organized, you are able to get more done in Lesson number of time. Lack of planning if you do not plan you will never be able to schedule your task probably so always have good planning and prioritization avoid disruptions and interruptions that’s one of the major ways of effective time management skills when you are able to avoid any kind of interruption in your day.

Focus on your task that’s essential and important the next part of our module on effective time management skills understands what are our time wasters?

We waste so much time within our 24 hours you will not believe it but yes it is true we waste 80% of our day on activities which are not really productive and taking us towards where we want to be. This is something which we are going to cover on time management understanding our time wasters so avoiding interruptions and distractions. Poor planning not able to plan well perfection ilysm expecting too much to perfectness trying to do everything yourself and that’s where we falter because we are not able to identify where to delegate the task or where not to delegate the task taking on too many responsibilities, taking on too much on yourself which is not a great thing to do crisis management yes too much of socializing. We tend to socialize too much during our day try to do too many things meet, too many people, spend too much time with our friends and family which might not really help you solve the problem of time management not valuing your own time if you don’t value our time nobody else will value your time and lack of skills. These are certain areas or certain problems which will creep up. Which are your timewasters and time robbers once we know how to deal with all of these things we are one step closer to managing our time better? I would like to only conclude by saying that time is equal to money time spent or time lost will never come back. Again learn how to prioritize, learn how to schedule your priorities, learn how to manage your time better. If you want to be a world-class leader, if you want to be successful in your life, It is important to learn effective time management skills and communication skills to improve personality.

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