Time Management: What Is It, Why It's Important, Tools & Strategies
We all have the same 24 hours in a day.
But if that's true, then why do some people get more things done than others?
It all boils down to time management.
How you manage your time will determine the results that you get in life – thus, it's important to manage your time wisely.
In this blog post, l will quickly discuss about the different aspects of time management i.e.
Without further ado, let me jump straight into more detail.
What Is Time Management?
In simple terms, it refers to how you allocate your time amongst different activities.
As humans, we have an infinite amount of things to do in our lives – but the problem is that, we have a finite amount of time to do those things.
We only have 24 hours in a day and there's nothing that we can do to expand that.
But what determines your accomplishments is how you use your time i.e. you can either spend your time doing unproductive things, or you can use that same time to do things that have a positive impact on your life – the choice is yours to make!
Thus, it's important to manage your time wisely – so that you can direct your energy towards more important things – and ignore those which are less important.
Why Is Time Management Important?
Effective time management allows you to get more things done in less amount of time.
If you practice time management, you'll be very deliberate/intentional with your actions – because you'll be forced to allocate your time accordingly i.e. based on the level of importance of different tasks.
For example, if you have 16 hours of active time, you can be very deliberate with it i.e. through allocating 2/3 of that time to things that are more important – then spend the remaining 1/3 to other things which are less important to your life/business.
Thus, time management is crucial if you want to achieve more things in less time.
Time Management Tools
• ActiveCollab
• ProofHub
• Scoro
• Harvest
• Timecamp
• Bill4Time
Time Management Strategies
(i) Create A To-Do List
The most effective strategy by far is creating a to-do list.
One of the main reasons why most people wastes so much time on unproductive things is that, they don't know what to do & when to do those things.
If you don't have a clear plan for your day, you might waste the whole day scrolling through social media – thus, wasting a lot of valuable time which can be used for other productive things.
But if you want to be productive, it's important to create a to-do list – so that you can become deliberate with how you spend your time.
Also, a to-do list allows you to stay on track – since it guides you on what to do at any given period of time.
Of course, it doesn't have to be precise like a minute by minute guide.
But it should at least provide an overall guide on what needs to be done & when to complete those tasks.
Personally, l like to plan my days in advance – or at least, ‘plan tomorrow the night before'.
That way, l will wake up in the morning knowing exactly what l need to do during that particular day.
(ii) Set Deadlines
Another important strategy for time management is setting deadlines.
Deadlines forces you to be very deliberate with your time – since you'll be forced to stay on track in order to meet those deadlines.
Let's say that you want to create 30 blog posts within a month, you'll be forced to sit down and write a blog post each and every day of the month – because that's the only way in which you can reach that goal.
If you skip a day, then you'll be forced to compensate for that lost day through writing 2 blog posts the next day – which is quite stressful.
Most people sets future deadlines but they forget to stay on track – only to realise it towards the set deadline.
If you're that kind of person, then you might need to come up with short term goals i.e. daily targets, weekly targets, monthly targets, etc.
That way, you'll be able to stay on track – since these short term goals will force you to keep on track.
(iii) Outsource Some Tasks
As l mentioned earlier, we only have 24 hours in a day – which limits the amount of tasks that we can do as humans.
Let's say that you're a blogger who spends 2 hours writing a single blog post, it means that you can only produce 12 blog posts in a day i.e. assuming that you work during each and every hour of the day – which is not practical by the way.
However, if you choose to outsource the writing process to freelance writers, you can be able to come up with more blog posts in that same 24 hour period – because you'll be leveraging other people's time to create more content.
In this scenario, there's no cap on the amount of content that you can produce – because you can easily scale up your efforts through hiring more writers.
Thus, instead of doing all tasks by yourself, you can buy other people’s time – thus, allowing you to focus your attention on things that matters the most.
(iv) Leverage Technology/Systems
Another way of managing your time effectively is through leveraging technology or systems.
This allows you to eliminate yourself from your business – because the system will be responsible for doing all the work for you – allowing you to focus on other things.
For example, if you offer 1 on 1 consultation services & you charge an hourly rate, there's a maximum cap on the amount of money that you can make – because we only have a finite amount of hours in a day.
But if you package your knowledge into an online course, you can be able to serve more clients in the same amount of time.
Instead of working with clients 1 on 1, you can sell your knowledge through an automated course – which can be automatically delivered using softwares like Teachable.
Thus, instead of taking one client per hour, the course can enrol an infinite number of clients – and the sales process can be automated – thus, allowing you to eliminate yourself from the whole system.
(v) Prioritization
Last but not least, you must prioritize your daily tasks if you want to get the most out of your time.
As mentioned earlier, we all have the same 24 hours in a day – but what separates the successful from the unsuccessful is how they choose to use their time.
Prioritization is key since it determines how you allocate your time amongst different things.
You can either spend 2 hours scrolling through social media/watching Netflix– or you can utilize that same 2 hours doing productive tasks which have a positive impact on your life – the choice is yours!
Wrapping Up
So that's pretty much it on the topic of time management.
The key takeaway from this blog post is that, you should manage your time wisely – since we have a finite amount of time in a day.
If you see other people succeeding, you should ask yourself;
‘How are these people achieving more things when they have the same 24 hours as me?'
Once you ask yourself that question, you'll start to utilize your time effectively i.e. you wont waste your time doing unproductive things.
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