How to improve your time management
Improve your time management
Are you feeling drained by long working hours?
Is your ‘to do’ list getting longer?
Do you feel there are not enough hours in the day?
What is your relationship with time?
Your relationship with time impacts on how productive you are, how much pressure you feel under and how easily you find yourself in the red zone of stress.
You might be someone who works well under pressure and enjoys working close to a deadline. Working in this way can improve your drive to succeed and give you that flush of pleasure when you achieve.
You might be an avid planner but reach the end of a day only to find that things that were not on your plan have taken priority, leaving you feeling that you have underachieved and wasted a day.
However you work, there is scope to improve your relationship with time and avoid burn out.
Four steps to improve your time management.
1. Plan
Action plan on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to help you to manage your time and achieve your business goals.
Set boundaries for your working hours, let other people know when you will be working and stick to it.
Think about when you hold meetings, how long you need between meetings to take action and whether each meeting will be most efficient online, on the telephone or in person.
Use a task-based approach for your planning to make the best use of your time and energy.
2. Focus
Multi-tasking is out. Focus your energy on the task you are doing.
Do you really need to see every email as soon as it arrives? If you turn your email alert off and plan some email check-in times throughout the day, you will be more focussed and more productive.
The aim is to reduce your reactive firefighting and increase the quality of your work and of the attention you give to people.
If you prioritise your work at the start and end of each day, you will be better equipped to deal with incoming items and achieve more of what you planned.
3. Be
Are you always in ‘doing’ mode?
To be always switched on, thinking, planning and worrying can increase the likeliness of you hitting the stress red zone without even realising.
Take some time for yourself throughout the day and just ‘be’.
Breathe deeply, rest your eyes or take a walk. Even a short break can re-energise you.
Work with your natural circadian rhythm as it shapes your energy levels throughout the day. Plan your tasks according to the energy you will need.
Try the 20:20:20 rule to rest your mind and your eyes. Every 20 minutes take a break and look at something at least 20 feet away for 20 seconds.
4. Permission
You may feel that you’re never doing enough. Perhaps you want to please someone else. You might be worried about losing your job.
A good first step to manage your concerns is to be clear on what is expected of you so you can realistically plan and prioritise.
Work on your self-belief so you know your worth and can stop comparing yourself to other people.
When you have confidence in your abilities you can manage your need for perfectionism and let go of the things you cannot control.
You can give yourself permission.
Plan
Focus
Let Go
Be
Find out how coaching can help you to improve your time management.