If you feel frustrated at the end of each day because you didn’t complete everything, or if you start new projects but rarely complete them, then a simple solution is to manage your time better.
Time management is an art and a science.
It’s a science because researchers have extensively studied the efficacy of time management principles and developed a set of proven principles.
It’s also an art because the principles are not always easy to put into practice.
In this article, we will look at five well-established time management principles to help you complete your project:
1. Planning Your Work
When you plan your work, you will have a far better chance of getting everything you want done. Usually you can plan effectively for the week, which will then allow you to plan each day. If you try to plan for longer than a week, you will often revise your plans because unexpected things always turn up.
While you can, of course, set project goals for the month, the four quarters in a year, the year, or even beyond, it’s difficult to clearly outline the best action to take during that time. Our ability to predict outcomes gets worse the further ahead we plan. Reality is far too volatile for our intellects to anticipate future events.
So, while you can set project goals for as far ahead as you like, realize that your planning will become increasingly inaccurate the longer the timeline. Usually people are fairly good at predicting events for the day ahead and possibly even the week ahead. It’s a good place to start.
2. Prioritizing Your Tasks
If you don’t set priorities, then you will quickly get overwhelmed by all the things you need to do.
A popular time management system called the Eisenhower Matrix uses a four-tier system for organizing priorities,
First, do what is important and urgent.
Second, do what is important (but not urgent)
Third, do what is urgent (but not important)
Fourth, do what is neither important nor urgent.
Focusing on One Thing at a Time
Most time management researchers have concluded that the much-heralded management technique of multitasking is a dangerous idea.
First, it’s an illusion. You can’t do many things at the same time. What you actually do is rapidly switch your attention from one thing to another.
Unfortunately, as your attention flits from one task to another in quick succession, you become increasingly tired, distracted, and ineffective. If persist long enough, things become increasingly chaotic.
So, the best way to manage your time and to complete each task well is to just focus on one thing at a time. This is not as easy as it sounds, but one effective method to do this is to use the Pomodoro Technique, which involves working in 25-minute spurts and then taking a 5-minute break. After you do 4 Pomodoro’s in a row, then you’re entitled to a 15-, 20-, or 30-minute break.
3. Controlling Your Environment
Your plans can quickly go awry if you don’t control your environment.
Distraction comes in two flavors:
You distract yourself: If you get bored, you do something unrelated for a sense of relief. Visiting Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, for instance, are popular ways to get a dopamine fix to assuage pangs of boredom.
People interrupt you: People may interrupt your work by calling, emailing, texting, or stopping by your office.
While you may not get complete control of your feelings and environment, make a list of the most common distractions that show up for you and find some practical ways to either minimize or eliminate them.
4. Summarizing Your Progress
When you follow these time management principles, you will make rapid progress. However, it’s possible to lose track of how much progress you’ve made and when you didn’t complete your tasks as planned. By summarizing the highlights of each day and each week in a report, you’ll be able to notice what’s working and what’s not working.
In conclusion, effective principles of time management are easy enough to understand, but not easy to follow through on. So, you will only get good at completing all your projects on time and within budget with a minimal amount of scope creep if you keep on fine tuning your practice of time management.
