Bilal Ahmed 
Having Trouble in Managing your Time
We’ve all had trouble managing our time at work. You get out of bed feeling upbeat and confident that you’ll not only fulfil all of your deadlines but also go to the gym and prepare a nutritious home-cooked lunch.
Then life takes place. You are already irritated with the world when you arrive at your workstation since you left late and got stuck in traffic. When you sit down to complete the project you’ve been putting off for weeks, you learn you have back-to-back meetings scheduled until noon, and you’re already running behind schedule. After finally leaving the last meeting, you begin to sift through your emails when you are summoned to the vice president’s meeting. He has to ask you something urgently. He estimates that it will only take an hour. And that takes three.
The good news is that there are strategies for recovering those ephemeral lost daylight hours. Personal time management is key; take control of your schedule rather than allowing it rule your life. To get you started, here are five suggestions for time management at work.
1. Assess Your Present Time Management Practises
You must first determine where the time is going in order to maximise your own time management. Try documenting your daily activities and attentively recording your time for a week. You will benefit from this audit if:
Find out how much you can actually get done in a day.
Recognize timesucks.
Concentrate your efforts on ventures that yield the best results.
It will become very obvious as you go through this time audit how much of your time is spent on useless thoughts, discussions, and activities.
You’ll develop a more accurate idea of how long you need to complete particular jobs (which will be very helpful for executing on a later tip). You can use this exercise to figure out when time of day you are most productive so that you can schedule your time to work on tasks that need the greatest concentration and imagination.
A Pro Tip Examine how accurately you estimate your time. Compare the time it took you to complete specific tasks or projects to the time you anticipated it would take at the conclusion of your audit. We frequently overestimate our ability to complete tasks quickly. If there is a large discrepancy, factor that into your future schedule planning so that you can more precisely budget your time and stay clear of bottlenecks and missed deadlines.
2. Planned Timetable
For understanding how to manage time at work, this phase is vitally essential. Never even consider beginning the day without a well-organized to-do list. Make a list of the top priorities for the following day before you leave work for the day. You can start working as soon as you arrive at the workplace thanks to this step.
Putting everything down on paper will save you from tossing and turning in bed at night worrying about the tasks racing through your mind. Instead, while you are sleeping, your subconscious is working on your goals, so when you wake up in the morning, you’ll have fresh ideas for the day’s job.
Make sure to write out your list first thing in the morning if you can’t do it the day before. When compared to the time you’ll waste switching between tasks if you don’t have a clear plan, you’ll realise that the time spent preparing one is insignificant.
3. Set Wise Priorities
Setting priorities when you structure your to-do list is essential for effective time management at work. Eliminate tasks that you shouldn’t have been undertaking to begin with. Then decide which three or four chores are the most crucial, and complete those first to ensure that you have completed the most vital duties.
Make sure your to-do list is ordered according to the importance of each item rather than the haste with which it must be completed. While urgent duties call for immediate attention and are connected to someone else’s ambitions, important responsibilities promote the attainment of your goals. When we ought to be concentrating on tasks that advance our corporate objectives, we have a tendency to let the urgent take precedence.
Use one of the time management strategies for work from Stephen Covey’s book First Things First to avoid falling into this trap. He provides the Eisenhower matrix, a time management matrix, as an organisational tool for setting work priorities based on these concepts of importance and urgency.
4. Compile Related Jobs Into Groups
Try to finish all items on one sort of to-do list before moving on to the next to save time and mental effort. For instance, schedule different time slots for filing, making calls, and responding to emails. Responding to emails and texts as they arrive is the best kind of distraction, so avoid doing it. To entirely remove the temptation to check your email or phone at an unforeseen moment, turn off both.
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5. Refrain From Multitasking
Even though it is one of the most straightforward time management advice for the workplace, it can be challenging to implement. Block off any distractions and keep your attention on the subject at hand. Although multitasking can be alluring, when you do it, you only end up hurting yourself. When you move from one task to another, you waste time and become less productive.
Don’t let a mile-long list of tasks overwhelm you, either. Breathe in and out, and focus on one activity at a time. Stressing about it won’t make it go faster.
6. Give Tasks a Time Restriction
Instead of just completing things until they are finished, you should set time restrictions as part of your schedule-making process. To-do lists are fantastic, but occasionally you could feel as though you never cross anything off.
The Pomodoro Technique can help you complete your to-do list in manageable 25-minute increments, with brief pauses in between each stint and a longer rest after finishing four. By balancing regular breaks with a concentrated focus, this strategy lessens mental fatigue and preserves drive.
7. Create Buffers
Even if it seems paradoxical, breaks are crucial for effective time management.
According to research, taking regular breaks improves memory, decision-making, mental health, and productivity. Moreover, skipping breaks can cause stress and burnout to occur more quickly.
What relevance does this have to time management, then?
Energy, weariness, cognition, productivity, and involvement at work are all impacted by higher levels of stress. Thus, working less (by taking more breaks) can paradoxically help you do more in less time.
Include breaks in your schedule. Give yourself some time to relax after completing a task. Consider taking quick breaks to refuel, such as a quick stroll, a game of ping pong, some meditation, etc.
8. Say No
If you don’t learn how to say no, you’ll never be able to manage your time effectively at work. Only you actually know what you have time for, so don’t be afraid to say no if it would help you concentrate on more crucial duties. Additionally, don’t be scared to abandon a project that is clearly doomed if you take it on.
Complete fewer tasks that produce more value rather than completing many things that produce little or no value. Always keep in mind that 80% of your output will come from 20% of your inputs. Put your energy in the right place.
Delegate it if you are unable to say no. Even though it can be a challenging discipline to master, delegation can significantly improve your personal time management. Choose the jobs you can delegate now that your staff is talented.
9. Organize Yourself
This advice needs to be put on your to-do list in order to practise successful time management. Finding the specific document you need will be difficult if there are mounds of papers strewn over your desk. Few things are as annoying as wasting time on pointless searches for lost objects. In addition, clutter can make it difficult to concentrate.
Make sure your documents are organised by using a file system. Stop receiving emails that you don’t need. Where possible, automate routine chores or procedures. To be more effective, develop processes for planning and completing activities. Consider this: You only need to do it once to reap the rewards eternally.
10. Take Away All Distractions
The distractions at work can be countless and include social media, web browsing, colleagues, text messages, and instant messaging. Being proactive in getting rid of them is essential to effective time management. Close the door to prevent disruptions. All tabs but the one you’re working on should be closed. Disable your personal phone calls and text notifications while you are eating lunch.
Take it slow. For two weeks, concentrate on controlling your top two distractions. Also keep in mind that getting adequate rest, staying hydrated, and eating a healthy diet will all help you maintain your focus throughout the day—especially when the midday slump strikes.
