Base Resources  –  Shared 24 hours a day, some people always seem to have enough time to do everything they want – while others hustle from task to task, struggling to get things done. into anything.

The difference here lies in each person’s time management and use skills. Poor time management reduces work performance, quality of work and creates unnecessary mental stress.

First, to see if you are currently managing your time effectively, try answering the following questions:

• Do you have time to do the things you love?
• Are you always in a hurry and often late?
• Do you often cancel enjoyable activities outside of work because you are too busy?
• Do you always feel like there’s not enough time in the day?
• Are you frustrated and impatient?

If 3/5 of the answer is “No”, this article is for you!

Poor time management reduces work performance and quality of work 

Figuring out time management is like finding the right shoes for you – you have to try on a few pairs before you find the right fit. Everyone has a different management style. This article provides some helpful suggestions if you want to get started with Time Management right now.

6 SKILLS YOU MUST NOT NEED IF YOU WANT TIME MANAGEMENT

1. Know the difference between “urgent” and “important”

The distinction between urgent and important is key to prioritizing your time and workload.

– “Urgent work” requires your immediate attention, but whether you do it right away is not necessarily the point.

– “Important work” is if not done – they can have serious consequences for you or others.

For example:

• Answering the phone is urgent: If you don’t pick up the phone, the caller won’t fulfill your purpose and you won’t know why they’re calling. However, it could be a call from an insurance or real estate agent – usually unimportant.

• Seeing your dentist regularly is very important: Failure to do this can lead to gum disease or other oral health problems. However, going to the dentist is not an emergency. But if left too long it can become urgent, because you can have a toothache and interfere with everything else right away.

• Picking up your kids from school is both urgent and important: If you don’t show up on time, they’ll wait at the playground or classroom and worry about where you are. You also cannot control the dangers around if you leave your child alone for too long.

• Reading funny emails or scrolling through Facebook is neither urgent nor important: It can be completely ignored without hesitation.

2. Know how to set goals

Goal setting is perhaps the most important time management skill – because goals are the driving force that forces you to tackle work and work hard along the way.

Make sure the goals set are true and motivating, or you will lose control and may give up as soon as you encounter obstacles on the road. The inevitable consequence is that you will not complete your work and will also completely waste the time used to pursue said goal.

How to set goals: SMART is one of the most effective ways to set goals:

• Specific: Goals are specific, clear, and because they’re well-defined from the start, you know what you’ll need to do to achieve them.
• Measurable: Goals should be measurable, allowing you to track results and decide if you’ve achieved them.
• Attainable: Attainable. No one persists in working on a list of 30 tasks, but there are 20 that don’t get done. Your goals should be within your reach, but also need a little challenge to motivate yourself to do your best.
• Relevant: Goals must relate to or directly impact your life and career. Creating positive change when achieving your goals is the motivation for you to always work hard. 
• Time-bound: Breaking down goals and limiting time helps you organize your work well and gives a sense of urgency to focus more on work.

3. Effective planning

Once a goal is set, the next management skill to implement is planning – you will have to learn how to plan your actions to achieve your goals quickly and efficiently, minimizing stress and stress. waste of time.

Why are so many people aware of the need to make an action plan but cannot succeed?

• Don’t know what you want: No one can find a way to go if they don’t know what their destination is. Clearly define your goals first and then the steps in your plan will become clearer.
• Not properly analyzing the situation: Not knowing where you stand will greatly affect the plan – you may not know what you need to do to get started and continue. Analyze the situation first, then decide what steps will take you to your goals and include them in the plan.
• Don’t know where to focus: You’re trying to do too many things at once, and as a result, they’re not very effective. Focus on priority tasks and eliminate anything unimportant or urgent.
• Lack of creative thinking: every problem has a solution, every schedule has a best way to do it. Before planning, invest some time thinking about the best and fastest ways to achieve your goals. 

The suggested steps below will guide you on how to make an effective plan, especially at work, without the deviations taking up your time:

Step 1: Set goals: these should be your biggest goals.

Step 2: Identify the tasks that need to be done to achieve those goals: these are the steps you need to include in your plan.

Step 3: Prepare the resources: are the skills, knowledge and expertise you need to successfully handle the steps in the plan.

Step 4: Calculate the time and schedule: this is crucial in how you handle the steps of the plan. It requires an understanding of project timelines, lifecycles, and any roadblocks you may encounter in the future.

Step 5: Determine the tracking method: this is the factor to conclude whether you have achieved the goal or not. 

4. Immediately stop the idea of ​​working “multitasking”

“Multitask” means multi-tasking, doing many things at the same time. Many people think it would be great to be able to get more done at the same time, but it’s actually not the right and most efficient way to do it. 

According to a University of Sussex synthesis , there are many negative effects of multitasking that show that this practice is not as good as you think: lower IQ and EQ; time consuming because, according to research, the cost of switching focus lasts up to 25 minutes between tasks; reduces overall productivity;…

So your only option is to do each single task efficiently. Here are a few tips to help you focus on single tasks to be more productive:

• Eliminate ambient distractions: Put on headphones, to block out outside noises and co-workers chatting. Put your phone on silent or just put it in another room where you can’t reach for it every 5 minutes.
• Set deadlines for each task, big or small: it’s much easier to stay focused on a task when you know how long you have to stay focused. 
• Apply Pomodoro – a famous time management technique: Its principle is quite simple:

– In 1 Pomodoro (process 25 minutes, rest 5 minutes), if you are forced to interrupt, the Pomodoro will be recalculated from the beginning.

– Focus on doing only one thing with 100% of the time.

– If the work is done before the Pomodoro is finished, you need to use the remaining time to check and optimize the work until the end of that Pomodoro.

– During breaks, you need to really rest: close your eyes, relax, listen to music, get a massage, meditate, organize your desk, go for a walk in the office – simple things that don’t need to use your thoughts. only many. Absolutely avoid everything related to the Internet, Facebook… because although they may stimulate your excitement, nature still makes the brain more tired.

Not only is it inefficient, multitasking also brings many negative effects

5. Manage stress 

Managing stress in the workplace is one of those secondary time management skills you should know. The pressures and stress at work overwhelm your spirit will make you significantly affect your work performance and work quality.

Proactively managing stress helps you avoid falling out of control by reducing many physical and emotional risks:

• Physical problems include heart disease, high blood pressure, stomach upset, migraines, frequent headaches.
• Mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression

To learn how to manage stress at work, you’ll need to learn how to cope with and reduce stress and anxiety. Luckily, I have a few fun and simple relief activity suggestions you can try:

• Laugh: even if it’s a forced laugh. Studies show that laughter lowers the levels of stress hormones in your body, such as epinephrine and cortisol.

• Meditate: for at least 10 minutes. A Harvard study found that meditation helps you relax and reduce stress.
• Eat some dark chocolate: This healthy sweetener is a superfood that lowers levels of glucocorticoid, a stress-related hormone in your body.
• Listen to music: A favorite song not only relieves stress, but also significantly increases productivity without you even knowing it.
• Dance to music: Studies show that dancing reduces anxiety, even more than regular exercise. It also increases endorphins – chemicals in the brain that increase your pain tolerance, satisfaction, and arousal.

6. Dealing with Time Thieves

What is a time thief? 

No, they are not the characters that appear in the sci-fi or animated movies that you are thinking, time thieves actually exist around life and are much more difficult to deal with than we think. 

While you are trying to accomplish the goals you set earlier, there will be people or factors that will distract you from time to time. These time thieves can be anything like customers stopping by to ask questions, answering useless calls, having to do personal things during business hours, etc. This mess seems small but extremely time consuming?

• First, determine who and what your time stealers are.

• Imagine what your life would be like if these time thieves were eliminated.
• Create a strategy to deal with each problem
• Last and most importantly: you must commit to dealing with these time thieves. This commitment is the key to really getting your time back and in control.

EFFECTIVE TIME MANAGEMENT METHODS

4D Method: Do – Dump – Delegate – Defer

Focusing on the highest possible, this is a method that is easy to remember even for the most forgetful – with only 4 short words.

Do (do): If the work is right in front of you and it’s important, do it now. It’s just that.

Dump (give up): Trash, trash – whatever you call it. Very simply, sometimes you need to give up some meaningless work, which will save a considerable amount of time. Ask: “Does it matter if you don’t do it?”

Delegate: If this work needs to be done but someone else can do it better than you, give it to that person right away. Remember that if you do it yourself, you will waste your precious time and make others lose the opportunity to learn from this work. So be generous and trust others with work

Defer : Can’t you do it now? Then get your notebook and plan a time when you will do it. Remember that postponing work is your last option. If the pile of deferred work is growing, then you need to go back and look at the 2nd and 3rd Ds (quit and delegate).

The trick here is, just focus on thoroughly solving one thing before moving on to the next. Spend your time focusing on the things that matter most, the things you think are the most important, the things that get you closer to your goals.

The Pareto Principle (80/20 Principle)

According to the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto and his Pareto principle: in most cases, 80% of the effects are due to 20% of the causes. 

This principle may include all of the following statements:

– 20% of workers produce 80% of the results

– 20% of customers contribute to 80% of revenue

– 20% defects cause 80% of failures

– 20% of features create 80% of usage

…

Of course the number 80 – 20 cannot be absolutely correct. The bottom line that Pareto wants to mention here is that most things in life are not evenly distributed, some contribute more than others. Focused efforts on solving 20% ​​of the work but making a difference instead of spending resources on 80% of the work. The flexible application of the 80/20 principle will contribute to cost savings and increase business efficiency significantly.

According to the Pareto principle, 80% of the effects are due to 20% of the causes

How to apply the Pareto principle : Using the Pareto principle in time management is very simple, just apply the following formula:

When making a to-do list, prioritize tasks according to the level of Effort devoted to that task (from 1 to 10, with 1 being the least amount of effort required) and Efficiency expected to be achieved (from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest efficiency). The priority number of the work is the result of Effort divided by Efficiency. Do the jobs with the lowest priority number first.

For example:

• Task 1: Write a meeting report.

Effort = 10, Efficiency = 2, Priority = 5

• Task 2: Prepare presentation for Marketing department

Effort = 4, Efficiency = 4, Priority = 1

• Task 3: Call customers for information

Effort = 1, Efficiency = 10, Priority = 0.1

You can now see the priority of the tasks that need to be done. You do task 3 first, then task 2, and then task 1.

Method 40 – 30 – 20 – 10

In addition to the 80/20 rule – one of the gold standards applied in all areas of life, the 40 – 30 – 20 – 10 rule is also the rule that many people apply to the most scientific time management.

You may have heard a lot of time management advice like spending more time on the most important things and less time on the small things because they can distract from the important. The main problem here is that this selection is not always clear black and white. The 40 – 30 – 20 – 10 rule will help you with that and give you a framework for allocating your time properly.

40 – 30 – 20 – 10 time management rules for work:

– 40% of the time on the most important things

– 30% of the time doing the second most important things

– 20% of the time doing the third most important things

– 10% of the time doing everything combined

Accordingly, you will have a single choice that makes a lot of sense: focus on your top three priorities, prioritize doing just these three things in turn, and spend some time doing other things – but not too much time. time.

Looking at the 40 – 30 – 20 – 10 rule we see that we should spend twice as much time solving the first priority problem than the third priority problem. In general, your top priority work will have a lot more impact than the other things you do. Shift from a theoretically important work mindset to one that gets the job done by investing time in it.

The 40 – 30 – 20 – 10 rule will give you a framework for allocating your time properly.

TIME IS THE MOST VALUE Commodity

A common thought in successful people is that they see time as an extremely valuable and necessary commodity, equivalent to the value of money. Once you waste time, it will never come back, and every minute that passes contributes to your change every day.

Therefore, time management is a necessary job if you want to complete the work in a certain order and time. That way, not only can you avoid waste, but you’ll even have more time to spend with family, friends, and yourself.