by Suman Agarwal, co-founder of Image Consulting Business Institute
Time management is the process of organizing and planning how to divide your time between specific activities effectively. It involves setting goals, prioritizing tasks, allocating time for each task, and using techniques to work more efficiently. It’s necessary to develop time management skills for enhanced productivity, reduced stress, and a balanced work-life.
5 Best Time Management Techniques
Being one of the most essential soft skills to learn, time management is something everyone should master without fail. Here are six of the best time management techniques to help you get better:
1. Time Blocking.
An age-old technique for developing time management skills is time blocking. Here, you can assign a fixed time period to all the tasks. This helps you avoid distractions while performing the activities or tasks and fully enables you to focus on one task at a time, which in turn is great for completing tasks on time.
Further, this effective time management technique sets boundaries by doing one task at a time, promoting efficiency, and eliminating procrastination.
2. Prioritising.
Prioritization is not just a classic time management technique; it’s a powerful tool that can significantly boost your productivity and reduce procrastination. Focusing on the most important tasks first ensures that you’re making the most of your time and achieving your goals more effectively.
Complete the most important tasks from your to-do list first. It’s ideal to pick the tasks that stand tall on the priority list for meeting deadlines. Prioritising will reduce the burden of doing important tasks at the last minute and help you improve your performance.
3. Soft Skills Activities.
Many soft-skill activities involve prioritizing tasks or activities based on their importance and urgency. While some soft-skill activities involve planning and scheduling to achieve specific goals or objectives, improving your time management skills. Here are some ways in which these activities can contribute to the development of time management skills:
- Team-building exercises: Engaging in team-building activities fosters collaboration and strengthens relationships among team members, leading to smoother workflow and efficient task delegation.
- Communication workshops: Effective communication is essential for clear task delegation, minimizing misunderstandings, and maximizing productivity. Workshops focused on communication skills can improve time management by streamlining information exchange.
- Conflict resolution training: Conflict is inevitable in any workplace, but learning how to handle it constructively through training programs can prevent time wastage on unnecessary disputes and promote a positive work environment.
- Mindfulness practices: Mindfulness activities, such as meditation and breathing exercises, cultivate focus and reduce stress, enabling individuals to manage their time more effectively by staying present and attentive to tasks.
4. Pomodoro Technique.
The Pomodoro Technique is about breaking down huge tasks into shorter and more manageable ones to complete them easily. Ideally, the task is broken down into 25-minute intervals with five minutes of break between them. After four such five-minute breaks, the interval of the break time is increased.
With this time management technique, your brain is trained to stay focused on the given task without causing it to burn out.
5. Eisenhower Matrix.
The Eisenhower Matrix, also known as the Eisenhower Box or Eisenhower Decision Matrix, is a time management tool that helps prioritise tasks based on their urgency and importance. It’s named after Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States.
In this time management technique, there are four categories:
- Urgent and Important: These tasks are urgent and essential, requiring immediate attention. They are usually deadlines or important tasks that you cannot postpone.
- Important But Not Urgent: These are tasks that are important for your long-term goals, personal development, or the success of your projects, but they are not urgent.
- Urgent But Not Important: Tasks in this quadrant are urgent but contribute little to your long-term goals or priorities. They are often distractions, interruptions, or tasks that can be delegated or eliminated.
- Not Urgent and Not Important: These tasks are time-wasters, trivial activities, or distractions that provide little or no value. Hence, they should be eliminated.
Plan Daily.
Time management skills are essential to develop not only to reduce your workload but also to bring a sense of peace to mind, helping you be stress-free. These skills are necessary to help you outshine in your career as well as your personal life.
Apart from the above effective tips, it is also important to spare a few minutes of your morning to plan your entire day’s activities and tasks. This gives you a clear agenda and helps lower stress.
Suman Agarwal is an award-winning image management professional. She has helped students, home-makers, women on sabbatical as well as people seeking second career alternatives to explore Image Management and Soft Skill Training as a vibrant professional choice. She frequently writes blog posts about the urgent need of image consulting professionals and soft skill trainers in the 21st century and loves guiding people in exploring lucrative career options. Write to her at sumanagarwal@imageconsultinginstitute.com to seek advanced career guidance.
