Boost Your Productivity with These Essential Time Management Skills

If you're looking to become more productive with your time, then you have to understand that you need to make constant and never-ending improvements to the way that you work. Fortunately, there are many time management skills that you can improve that will help you become more productive. Here are several essential time management skills that can help you boost your productivity.

 

Goal Setting

 

Time management isn’t a standalone skill. While you can't manage time, you can control how you use your time. When it comes to your productivity, the way you use your time should be directly driven by effective goal-setting. The most fundamental skill when it comes to time management is your ability to use the time you have in a manner that serves your goals.

 

Prioritization

 

When it comes to prioritizing work tasks, most people attempt to prioritize the items that are on their to-do list. However, many of the things that appear on their lists are ones that shouldn't be on there. When it comes to time management, your prioritization efforts should start with eliminating tasks that you shouldn't be performing. When you've done this, then you can begin to focus on finishing the most valuable work with the time and resources that are available.

 

Self-Motivation

 

There will always be days that you don't want to do anything. On days like this, you have to be able to motivate yourself into action. When you can improve your self-awareness, you give yourself the information that you need to get yourself motivated to work. While you may have all the other time management skills necessary to remain productive, if you cannot motivate yourself, you'll find yourself bowing to stress and pressure.

 

Focus

 

Being able to shut everything out and focus on the task at hand is one of those time management skills that you don’t realize the importance of it until you struggle with it. The best way to achieve focus is to stop multitasking and identify the most crucial task and block the rest out.

 

Delegation

 

As an entrepreneur, you need to ensure that all the necessary work gets completed. However, that doesn't mean that you have to be the one to do it. One of the most vital time management skills that you can master is knowing when you're not the right person to perform the task. If you have a task that is more suited to someone else's skill set, then you should consider delegating those tasks.

 

If you want to get the best results from your work, then you need to improve your time management skills. As you start to improve your time management skills, you begin to enjoy a boost in your productivity and get more work done in less time.

Improve Your Productivity With These Essential Time Management Hacks

It seems that the one thing that technology can’t help us create is more time. There are only 24 hours in a day, so if you want to increase your productivity, you need to have a better sense regarding time management. When it comes to managing your time, it is essential to understand that time management isn't about trying to squeeze as many tasks as possible into a day but instead finding a way to work smarter. If you're looking to improve your productivity here are some essential time management hacks to help you along the way.

 

Get Enough Sleep

 

Often, our rest and sleep are sacrificed to gain more time in the day. Being well-rested, well-fed, and having a healthy body removes the distractions that will rob us of our time. When you can get enough sleep every night, your focus is sharper, your attention span is longer, and your quality of work is higher, which lends itself to an increase in productivity. 

 

Plan Ahead

 

When you can take the time to outline the events of the coming day, you provide your mind with the time to work through the tasks while you are sleeping. This allows you to start your day with many of the subtle details already worked out. Before you go to bed each night, take a few minutes to evaluate what you achieved. Spend a few minutes clearing your workspace, and create a list of the tasks that you need to complete the following day. 

 

Create Work Bundles

 

Various tasks that you have to perform require different skills and different ways of executing them. To save yourself time with re-orienting yourself between jobs, create work bundles. Grouping similar tasks together that require related skill sets will allow you to more easily flow from one segment or tasks to the next without a break.

 

Create Routines

 

There are some tasks that you work on that require little to no thought. You can create a routine for these kinds of functions that will allow you to accomplish them without becoming distracted from the real tasks at hand. Establishing routines is similar to your overall planning and execution, but with the sole intention of automation.

 

Work on the Hard Tasks First

 

We tend to tackle the easy tasks on our lists first because they don't take much time to complete, which will leave you with more time to work on more involved things. However, to increase your productivity, you should tackle the more difficult tasks first with your fresh energy, which will make the lighter tasks flow quickly. 

 

When it comes to time management, there is always time for improvement. Try to take into account the above tips, and you will find yourself getting more done in less time.

Increase Your Productivity with These Daily Habits

Everybody wants to get more done and feel like they accomplished something at the end of the day. While there are millions of different tips for productivity out there, you can increase your productivity levels by changing a few daily habits. Here's how you can improve your productivity by changing the following daily habits.

 

Arrive Early, Stay Later

 

If you live in a congested city, you can save some time and beat traffic by starting your day earlier. When you're not wasting your time sitting in traffic, you can start working on your most essential tasks sooner. Your ability to save hours not sitting in traffic will drastically increase your productivity. Make it a habit to arrive early and stay a bit later, and you'll notice an increase in your productivity.

 

Plan the Night Before

 

Spending just 15 minutes before you go to bed creating and prioritizing your to-do list for the next day will give you a head start the following day. After you create your to-do list, spend a few minutes marking the tasks that are important to remind you that those tasks have to be done to push you forward in achieving your goals.

 

Have Lunch Outside the Office

 

While small, this habit can have a huge and powerful effect on how you work for the rest of the day. Using your lunch to get out of your work environment can refresh your creativity, significantly reduce your stress levels, and help you re-focus when it's time to get back to work. Consider taking a short walk to help clear your head and think about what you want to accomplish the rest of the day.

 

Minimize Distractions

 

Distractions are everywhere. If you work from a computer, you have the temptation of checking your social media and surfing the Internet, among other things. There are plenty of tools that can help you minimize these distractions. If you work in an office with a door, place a ‘do not disturb' sign up, so your coworkers know not to bother you.

 

Always Keep Your Goals in Sight

 

After you’ve set your goals, keep them in sight at all times. You want to write your goals down and keep them in a place where you will end up seeing them throughout your day. Being able to see your goals throughout the day will give you the motivation to get tasks done that move you closer to accomplishing them. 

 

Changing these five habits will move you toward being a more productive person. Keep track of your results and watch as the small daily victories start to transform your life. 

The Top 5 Time Management Apps for Entrepreneurs

Your time, as an entrepreneur, is valuable. Every minute you waste looking for your to-do list is a minute that you’re not earning money and building your business. Rather than hiring an assistant to help you keep track of your time, why not try one of these five time management apps for entrepreneurs. 

 

Todoist

 

Todoist is an app that recognizes that not every task on your to-do list is equally important. You can create multiple products for different aspects of your life and business. As you add items to your agenda, you can set priority levels and due dates. Todoist will then show you the essential tasks with the nearest due date first.

 

Toggl

 

Toggl is an app that shows you how much time different tasks take to complete. This is the perfect time tracking app for entrepreneurs. Toggl allows you to track various activities with the touch of a button, then adds up how much time you are spending on that activity each day, week, and month. This can allow entrepreneurs to know their average hourly profitability for each client and task.

 

RescueTime

 

RescueTime can help you stop distractions once and for all. It runs securely in the background of all your devices and tracks how much time you spend on different websites and applications throughout the day. It will give you an accurate picture of how long you are spending on Facebook, email, and other distractions. It will provide you with detailed reports on your productivity so that you can see where you need to improve.

 

Letterspace

 

Letterspace is a notetaking app that is perfect for the disorganized mind. The app allows you to use #hashtags and @mentions within your notes and then organizes your thoughts in the sidebar next to those tags. If you forget to tag your notes, the app also has full-text search capabilities so that you can find what you're looking for easily.

 

Instapaper

 

If you ever get distracted by an interesting video or article, Instapaper can help you stay on track. Whenever you come across something while browsing the Internet, Instapaper will send it to the app. This way you can read it later on any device. It also allows you to comment on and highlight text in an article so that you can save and retrieve information as well as share it on social media.

 

These five-time management apps will help you stay focused on what matters most so that you can quickly grow your business. Incorporate your favorite apps into your daily routine and see how much you can accomplish.

3 Simple Ways to Use a Calendar to Increase Your Productivity

There has been plenty of discussion about how a calendar can fit into one's productivity system. The general rule is that you add scheduled appointments to your calendar, and your tasks should be placed into the task management system that you use. However, what often isn't discussed is precisely what appointments you should be putting in your calendar to maximize your time best and ensure you're staying productive. Here are the three types of appointments you should add to your schedule to create an effective productivity system.

 

General Appointments

 

These are the regular appointments that you may schedule throughout your week. These would be appointments for the doctor or business lunches. They are relatively general regarding defining an appointment, so they need to be treated as such. These kinds of appointments can be moved if needed, given enough notice is provided, and both parties can make it happen, though you should try to avoid moving them in most cases.

 

Self-Appointments

 

These are the appointments that you make with yourself. They can be in the form of blocks of time that you schedule so that you can work on projects and tasks without interruption. You can transfer these kinds of appointments, but it is more beneficial if you can try to create a framework so that they stay as static as possible.

 

You want to pick a time during the day when you can work in 90-minute intervals on a regular basis so you can create a habit and improve your productivity. Break up the time with breaks where nothing is set in stone. You might even want to take larger blocks and break them down into smaller chunks using The Pomodoro Technique so that you can move from task to task. You want to keep these time blocks nimble enough that you can move them to other hours of the day if needed. 

 

Team Appointments

 

Team appointments are for when you need to bring a team together. The best way to get these scheduled is once you’ve already locked in the other two types of appointments on your calendar. While doing this can make it more difficult to plan these kinds of meetings, you can use tools like Doodle, Google Calendar or Tungle.me to pick optimal times where most of the team can be present.

 

When you can keep in mind the three types of appointments that you have at your disposal, your calendar will become a tremendous tool that will allow you to create time and space for yourself and improve your productivity. 

4 Reasons Why You Need to Utilize Time-Boxing to Improve Your Productivity

If you find it difficult to manage your time and get your tasks done during the day, you may need to start utilizing a time management technique known as time-boxing. Time-boxing requires you to allot chucks of time to each of your tasks. Once your allotted time for a task is up, then you need to move onto the next task. Here are four reasons why you need to utilize time-boxing if you want to become more productive. 

 

To Prioritize Your Tasks More Effectively

 

If you have trouble prioritizing your tasks, then time-boxing is a technique you'll want to utilize. Time-boxing forces you to decide how you will spend your time. Since your tasks are contained and can't be done at the same time you have to choose which tasks have to be completed today versus tomorrow, or even in a week.

 

To Increase Your Focus

 

Part of being more productive is finding your focus. Time-boxing is a great way to increase your focus. When you permit yourself to work without interruption, great things can happen. Time-boxing allows you to settle into your work, approach a problem, hone your skills, practice your creative thinking, and get more done.

 

Know How Much Time You’ve Spent on Something

 

Have you ever wondered how much time it took you to respond to your emails, write a blog post for your company, or to shop for your mom's birthday present? When you time-box your tasks, you not only create a finite set of tasks to accomplish within a specified period, but you also create a record of how you spent your time. This information can be beneficial if you need to enter detailed information into time sheets at work, or if you want to better manage your time in general.

 

Never Set a Deadline 

 

Deadlines drive the very nature of time-boxing. You set a specific timeframe for completing a task or project as you go. If you have trouble setting deadlines for larger projects and tasks, you might want to start out small by time-boxing your daily tasks. This will give you more and more practice reaching your deadlines on a regular basis, eventually allowing you to translate this towards completing your more significant projects and tasks.

 

Learning how to utilize time-boxing to complete your tasks can help you significantly increase your productivity.

 

5 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Setting Deadlines

Setting and meeting your deadlines is a huge part of whether or not you are productive or not. Setting deadlines and achieving them is an art that you can learn with some patience and practice. However, common mistakes can quickly derail your productivity and leave you struggling to meet your deadlines. Here are five common mistakes you want to try to avoid when setting deadlines.

 

Not Writing the Deadline Down

 

It's no big secret, that what we don't see, we often forget. It is vital if you want to meet your deadlines, to write them down on a calendar or somewhere you can see them on a daily basis. If you have a lot of deadlines to meet, it will work well for you to have a big calendar where you can write down the deadline on the day it is due. It is essential if you want this to work that you have to review your calendar daily.

 

Failing to Research the Options

 

If you have a deadline, you need to research all of your options before you finalize it. For example, if you have a big work presentation, make sure you do your research before you tell your boss when you can make the presentation. You might think that it will take you no more than a week, but after researching the topic, you may realize that it will take you more than two weeks to be thoroughly prepared.

 

Setting Unrealistic Deadlines

 

While you may have a ton of motivation, if you set deadlines that are unrealistic, you’ll do nothing but stress yourself out. When you have plenty of time to complete a task, there will be no need to rush. You will never be able to accomplish any tasks successfully if you are always rushing to finish it.

 

Having Too Many Deadlines

 

If you find yourself too stressed out, it may be because you have too many deadlines looming. You may have to take a look at each of your deadlines and either choose a different deadline or see if you can delegate the task. It is just not feasible, long-term, to be an overachiever because it is just too stressful. Learn to keep your goals balanced and create realistic deadlines for them.

 

Lacking the Steps to Reach Your Deadline

 

Divide your project into smaller chunks and mark a new deadline for each smaller task until the final project is completed. Dividing projects into smaller, bite-sized pieces is a much more feasible way to keep your momentum going.

 

Setting deadlines is an essential aspect of life. Without them, we tend to procrastinate. Take these tips into consideration so you can start to meet your deadlines and increase your productivity.