The most valuable thing in your life is your time.
Your time is free but is priceless.
You need time to achieve everything in your life.
Instead money or your skills, you can’t earn or built time but the only power you have is choosing how you spend every second that you have in your day.
3 Things You Need to Manage Your Time Effectively
To update your time management strategy, you need these three things:
- Clarity on roles.
- Skills for managing one’s attention (not just time)
- A system for managing workflow
….And then put it Into Practice
- Decide what your priorities are.
Knowing what your priorities are makes easy for you to determine what you need to say yes or no to.
To help you clarify your priorities, ask yourself these questions:
- What are my long-term and short-term priorities? What are my priorities this year/this month/this day?
- What actions will help me accomplish my priorities?
- What can I turn down or what can I not turn down in relation to my priorities?
- What are the consequences of not responding to requests or interruptions?
- Manage your energy.
When you have a lot of responsibilities and task at your day plan the usual response is to get stressed and put in more hours at work and give up rest, exercise, or recreation time. This results in loss of focus and not achieving your tasks!
Take a break, follow a healthy diet and find time to exercise. Exercise is proven to enhance memory, concentration, and brain health.
- Manage your attention.
In reality, you can’t really manage time because time just keeps moving, but you can manage your attention and your ability to focus.
- The first thing you need to check is where your attention currently goes. Make a detailed list of all the activities you do in a day and beside each activity, take note how much time you spend working and focusing on them. You’d be surprised how much attention goes to activities that are keeps you back from your goals and priorities.
- The second thing you need to consider is your work environment. Do you have a workplace that encourages you to focus on your work? Or are you surrounded by distractions like clutter, smartphones, access to social media, etc… Remove distractions that rob you of your time.
- Divide your work day into segments.
Don’t work for more than two hours straight. The Atlantic reports that the formula for focused, productive work is 52 minutes, followed by a 17-minute break. SO work for 50 minutes to an hour then schedule 20 minutes in between to recharge your mental energy.
Time is an important but limited resource.
Whatever way you choose to spend it now will affect your future and you must invest your time wisely because it can never been replaced.
