The way you manage your time has a direct effect on how you manage your life, both career-wise and personally. Often people cry over not having enough time. What if we tell you that it’s an excuse?
In the last article, we discussed time management at length and various techniques and strategies that could be implemented to manage time.
In this article, we step a little ahead and talk about how we can focus on developing healthy habits for effective time management.
Developing Healthy Time Management Habits
Developing healthy time management habits can alleviate stress caused by a lack of it. All that you need to inculcate those habits is discipline. It takes a disciplined and focused mind to develop healthy time management habits.
We will discuss some of those habits here.
Regular Routine is Consistency
Start by figuring out where you spend your time. Take note of how many hours you spend working, in school, doing house chores, commuting, checking social media, and others. Use the Eisenhower Matrix to set your priorities (discussed in the previous article).
- Decide what needs to be in your routine
- Set small goals
- Layout a plan
- Be consistent with time
- Be prepared
- Make it fun
- Track your progress
- Reward your achievements.
Breaks & Downtime
Giving small breaks to yourself can ease off the monotony of the work and help manage burnout. In fact, it is a good idea to reward yourself with a well-deserved short holiday after a rigorous project wraps up or treat yourself to a relaxing massage over the weekend. The idea is to relax and prepare yourself for the next stint. You can refer to the Pomodoro technique discussed in the previous article.
Strategies for Overcoming Procrastination
Piers Steel, author of The Procrastination Equation, once said that nearly 95% of people have confessed to procrastinating. When a person finds a task boring, dull, ambiguous, difficult, unstructured, frustrating, not intrinsically rewarding, and lacking any personal meaning, he/she tries to procrastinate. If all these adjectives were reversed, would we still procrastinate? Definitely not. Hence, to avoid procrastination, we have to find ways to make it worth doing. Procrastination could also be caused by acute stress.
Here are a few tried and tested strategies that may assist you to overcome procrastination:
- Disconnect: Identify if you are using any device (mobile, tab, TV, etc) to procrastinate. Let’s assume, it’s your phone, then keep your phone out of your reach in a room and disconnect from WiFi while working.
- List the consequences of procrastination: Is it really worth it? The price that you may have to pay for putting off the task - ask yourself.
- Start small: Break up big tasks into teeny-tiny pieces that are easier to cope with, and choose one you can do now, so you're off and running without even realizing it!
- Plan a little: Add times or dates to the important tasks on your list, so you know when to focus your efforts.
- Finish things: When you see a task nearly done, push it over the line. Don’t leave them in a state of ‘almost done’: feel the satisfaction of ticking them off your list!
- Treat yourself kindly: Nobody ever accomplishes the end of their list! You’re your deadlines; celebrate successes, but be realistic. You will always have more to do than there are hours in your day.
The Finer Balance Between Work and Personal Life
A work-life balance is concerned with how you distribute the requirements of work or study with personal life, things useful in de-stressing you and making you a happy and relaxed individual.
Good work-life balance means you can be happy and effective at work, and have time for yourself and your family.
Tips for a healthy work-life balance
Conscious planning can help you to strike the much-needed balance; here's what you can do:
Know your values
Figure out what truly matters to you, reflect on your passions and interests, and schedule activities that align with them. If you already have this in practice then how much time do you spend doing what you value most?
Practice time management
If you keep chasing time and still wonder how the day just went by then you need to be a little more cautious with managing your time. Try to use the calendars, apps, and to-do lists to keep, shop online instead of visiting stores, and get into the hybrid mode for work - two-to-three-day work from the office instead of five days a week and cut down on social media and the likes.
Set boundaries
If you cannot say ‘no’, then maybe you can set boundaries on how many hours you will invest in work and schedule other things. Let others know about your downtime, create space between yourself and your phone; cancel the work email, or go internet-free for a few hours. Is there someone you can share the load with? Can you take the pressure off yourself and feel enough for what you have done for the day?
Enjoy your work
'Do what you love and love what you do' is a magic word that can transform energy within a moment but jobs can be pretty boring and stressful at times. If your job is making life too difficult then consider speaking to your employer to see if any work arrangements can be made, or if you can relocate to another unit. You can also consider a side hustle to experiment with trying out a new way of earning money.
Revise your budget
Before making any new purchase ask yourself whether you really need it or not. Income and happiness have little connection beyond merely meeting our basic needs. Live more frugally and you may work fewer hours and have more time for yourself.
Strengthen relationships
A good support system is crucial for coping with stress; it could be a good relationship with family members, friends, or social circle. To nurture your relationships, spend quality time with your family, friends, neighbors, and loved ones.
Committed to better health
Exercise regularly; studies have proven that it reduces stress, anxiety, and depression. Ensure that you sleep well at night. If you have had a taxing week at work, take the weekend to unwind and rest. Eat healthily, drink alcohol in moderation, and do not smoke.
Have some downtime
You need time to retreat and replenish yourself. Schedule time to take days off every week to relax, read, play a sport, spend time in nature, or do nothing at all. You need that break to sustain.
Addressing Common Time Management Challenges
Interruptions are the most common and difficult challenge that you may face while trying to manage your time. Dealing with interruptions is quite tough but doable. One easy way to boost your personal productivity and well-being is to distinguish between valid and invalid interruptions.
Valid interruption is just one of those things that belong in your job or is otherwise unavoidable. So, you have to attend to it without losing any time. However, you can always ignore invalid interruptions.
An invalid interruption is a distraction you are not required to attend to right away or at all.
There are 3 typical varieties of distractions you would be dealing with regularly:
- From other people
- From your devices
- From within yourself
Interruptions from people
Set clear boundaries: Inform your colleagues about your availability and how urgent the assignment is, and request with politeness but with assertiveness. Choose informal office hours when you can make yourself available to discuss or brainstorm according to the need.
Tell boss: Talk to your boss that you need a few distraction-free hours to focus on any particular job that you are struggling with. Seek their opinion, and clear all your doubts. Ask if there is anything that they may be requiring or concerns that need attention at the moment.
Have short morning sync meetings: It's a way to get everybody on top of tasks and projects. Make it short: 15 minutes is a good enough time for it. Make it habitual: Keep it at the same time every day to make it a routine.
Interruptions from devices
Constant bombardment with emails, texts, social media notifications, and phone calls is a distraction, for sure and we give in most of the time. To deal with these you can try these:
Disable notifications: Turn off notifications from unimportant apps, and keep your phone on silent mode.
Set a schedule to check your messages: Set a time when you will check your email and messages instead of constantly checking them.
Create an environment for work to flourish: Have a workplace free of visual and aural distractions. If your work environment is too noisy or busy, noise-canceling headsets can be the perfect distraction from distractions. Keep your workplace organized and clutter-free.
Internal Distractions
Obsessive thoughts, self-doubts, and mental exhaustion can be just as potent in undermining your productivity as any external interruption. These are often very hard to control because they are mostly created by the self and spiral out of hand so easily.
Remember there’s nothing that you cannot overcome; for dealing with internal distractions you can try these:
Meditate using mindfulness techniques: This simply means paying attention to your thoughts, feelings, and sensations without judgment and distraction. Mindfulness helps you to be in the present moment and thus get clarity in what you do.
Set break times: Frequent breaks will clear your mind, energize you, and thus improve your overall performance. This is also referred to in the Pomorodo technique.
Take care of yourself: Stay hydrated, eat healthy food, get good rest and sleep, and keep the mind and body focused on the task.
Implementing Time Management Strategies to Reduce Stress
It is very important to inculcate discipline and mindfulness to reach our desired goal. At the same time, it is important to develop healthy time management strategies and implement the same for reducing stress that results from poor time management.
Apart from that, it is important to review your plan periodically, check if it is working for you, and update it periodically. Track distractions and try to eliminate them to advance towards perfection.
So, what can we take back from here?
- Investing the right amount of time into things that are important and urgent is what time management is
- It demands strong decision-making, thoughtful planning, and effective self-control to act out your intentions
- Focus on prioritizing, scheduling, goal setting, and inculcate discipline to stick to your plan
- Use time-management tools to use your time more effectively, and productively, and enjoy the process
- When you can manage time effectively, you will be able to enjoy these benefits:
- Increased productivity and effectiveness
- Less stress
- More goal accomplishments
- Better professional reputation
- More opportunities to advance your life and career.