Have you experienced too many non productive days in routine and you donot find any time to access the cause of the same? See occasionally this happen with all of us; but if it is happening with you more often then you should find time to access and note down the changes you need to do in your daily routine. Most, if not all, time management failures can be traced to four root causes:
- Procrastination—If you have adopted the mantra, “Never do today what you can postpone until tomorrow,” or if you view tomorrow as an acceptable labor-saving device, you have a procrastination problem. Unfulfilled tasks are a distraction that interfere with our ability to be productive individuals. They turn our focus from the task at hand to those tasks not done.
- Poor Organisational Skills: Organizing work is a prerequisite for productivity. A simple to-do-list will sort out your priorities and will save your time.
- All work and no play: A well-rested person is a more productive person, but beyond rest, make time for recreation.
- Work with your body clock: Everybody has a set of working nature. For better productivity we should follow our internal clock.
Here are 10 useful tips and suggestions you can use to enhance your time management skills and make every day productive:
- Make Your To-Do List: Organise your work is first key to make yourself productive. Make a daily to do list and complete your task. This will keep your things sorted and you will be at peace in your mind to take better decisions.
- Prioritize Your work : Tackle the most challenging tasks during your peak productive time and schedule less challenging tasks for off-peak times.
- Take a proactive approach to your work : Be a planner, not a cop. Planners shape the future and cops react to crisis. Proactive habits will minimize the development of crises and maximize your productivity.
- Guard against perfectionism: Donot stick to perfectionism keep a room for corrections and mistaks. Give people benefit of doubts. Keep thing simple for you and others.
- Train yourself to be disciplined: One way to create discipline may be to reward yourself when you complete a task, maybe with a snack or a short walk.
- Learn to delegate effectively: There are work suits to other’s skills, they can better perform the task on the same and save your time. So learn to delegate.
- Learn to say no : Not necessary to say yes every time, you need to learn to say no to save your time many times; but gently and purposefully .
- Focus on one task at one time: Multi-tasking is a figment of the imagination. No one can truly focus on multiple tasks at one time! Doing something well demands focus and single-tasking is the only way to achieve that focus.
- Clearly communicate: You need to communicate your goals and objectives clearly in order to achieve the same.
- Step down your work: You should step down your work in small pieces to break the pressure and achieve small destinations, effectively and timely.
Each of us has been granted a twenty-four hour day. How we manage those twenty-four hours will be the most important factor in determining our success or failure.