Superior time management skills come naturally for some people. For others, it requires a lot of patience and hard work. Most successful business people wear several hats and struggle to find enough time in the day to get everything done. We aren’t able to add more hours to each day, but we can take a look at how we are managing our time throughout the day. Managing your time is crucial for continued success and will help avoid burnout, leaving you feeling accomplished at the close of each day. Here are few tried and true tricks worth trying to improve time management:
Morning routine
You’ve probably heard of the saying “the early bird gets the worm.” As it turns out, there is actually a lot of truth behind this phrase. Many high achieving individuals find that creating structure at the start of their day allows them to be more productive throughout the rest of the day. Morning routines will vary depending on the person, but consider waking up early and eating a healthy breakfast. Exercising, practicing mindfulness, and reading the news is also worth considering when structuring your routine. Often, once a more structured early routine is put into effect, people will be in a better headspace to tackle their most important projects.
Have you ever felt like you spent the entire day answering emails? Since email can take up a considerable part of our day, it’s essential to learn different techniques to better utilize your time. If your inbox gives you anxiety just looking at it, it’s worth spending time organizing your emails by creating separate folders and deleting all emails you’ll never need to read again. If you find yourself composing the same emails, save a draft to use for future use. Lastly, dedicate a chunk of the day towards responding to emails, or save any non-urgent emails for the next day. Take a look at apps like Boomerang for Gmail, which helps create schedules and reminders for emails.
Meetings
Spending half your day anticipating or prepping for your next meeting not only will kill your productivity levels but will waste a decent amount of time that could be better utilized. While there are many benefits of scheduling meetings, and they are certainly not always something that can be completely ignored, its best to schedule as few meetings as possible. If you must have a meeting, keep it short and stick to a planned agenda.
Time management is something almost everyone can continue to improve upon. Once you master managing your time, you’ll be much more successful in both your professional and personal endeavors.