Prioritizing and managing time happen to be the most difficult things for an entrepreneur, especially it is a start-up. However, proper time management strategies not only give you a stress-free schedule but also benefit you with increased productivity as well. Apart from that, there are numerous benefits of time management, that we’re going to discuss in this article. Before that, let’s indulge in some of the time management techniques.
1. Set Goals
To need to experience the advantages of time management, you need to have a realistic picture of how to best utilize the time. You can start by setting some weekly goals.
In order to set the goals, you should –
- Keep the to-do list crisp and focused (Maintain a daily list along with a weekly list)
- Do not set 3-4 goals a day and keep those realistic, focused, and manageable
- Keep provision for some unexpected incident like a computer problem, network error, or unexpected illness and adapt these into the plan
- Set a bigger goal that would keep you motivated and focused to the daily & weekly goals
2. Time Assessment
You need to pause for a moment and ponder how you are actually spending the time. You have to align your daily priorities with the activities and then see whether you are free to take additional work
You can assess this time management by –
- Use a planner or a diary to note down all your daily activities in detail. Then compare and keep track whether you have been able to stick to your daily plan, giving yourself ample time for relaxing, studying, socializing, apart from your professional work. If not, then find out the pitfall.
Image source: Pixabay - Find out whether you are investing adequate time for your most important priorities. If not, think what you need to shift. If there are some habits that need to be uncovered that are giving you no quality output, then stop those and instead focus on some quality work, even if it means taking a power nap to de-stress the mind.
3. Prioritize Tasks
You need to prioritize tasks and start with the most difficult one first.
Prioritizing and managing time can be done by-
- Creating a 2×2 table, and mark the first column as ‘important’ and the second one as ‘less important’. Similarly, mark the first row as ‘urgent’ and the second row as ‘less urgent’.
2. Naturally, you need to complete the task(s) that are both urgent & important and keep this quadrant empty, as soon as it gets completed. If there are several ‘important & urgent’ tasks, you can increase the table columns and rows to ‘most urgent’ and ‘most important’ as well.
3. If you are running out of time, you can disregard the task that is neither important nor urgent and re-schedule it for another day.
4. Plan & Monitor
Mark the deadlines and time commitments in your planner and block the time and dates for your exercise, breaks, sleep, socializing, and so on.
The focus on the set goals and at the end of the week or mid-week monitor the progress, whether you have successfully managed everything as planned.
Advantages of Time Management:
But before you apply these aforementioned strategies, it’s imperative to know about some points that’ll help you to focus on getting work done more efficiently.
- Reduced stress
- Good work-life balance
- Increased focus
- Less procrastination
- More energy
- Increased productivity
- Elevated efficiency
Knowledge of time management is essential for each and every individual’s life, especially for entrepreneurs. Leverage is another word for time management, that is, leverage time, leverage focus, and leverage energy. Being focused on small things can invite big changes for the ultimate good of the individual. And the application of the above-mentioned techniques helps to achieve bigger and quicker results.
