We all have 24 hours with us. Some wish they had more because of their piled up work, whereas some manage to check off all the items in their check list.
All that makes the difference is time management.
Management of time is a skill we all need to excel to be able to stay satisfied in our lives and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
As a Technaukrat, that’s what we call ourselves at Naukri, we have learnt a few skills to improve productivity and time management skills, and would like to share the same with you.
Here are a few tips that will help one use time judicially and live a stress free life.
• Make a checklist
List down the tasks to be done and start checking them out as soon as they are done. This way, you will set your targets to be achieved and get a feeling of achievement when all your to-dos will be done at the end of the day. This also helps you know what can be achieved realistically within the given time limit.
• Prioritize
Remember to ensure that not everything can come in your checklist, so prioritize!
Not everything can have the highest priority. It’s all relative. Figure out what’s high in priority for now and get it doing.
• Start checking off the tasks from your checklist.
This will give you a feeling of achievement and eventually you will plan better.
Before you start your day at office, devote 15 minutes of your time on deciding what all things are to be done and make a checklist of those items. Later at the end of the day, looking at all the tasks been ticked down, will not only make you feel joyous but also contented.
• Schedule your day.
You need to plan your day for your to-dos and meetings. However, having too many meetings in a day isn’t good. Meetings which are not fruitful can act like interruptions which will eat up your time.
Naukri has come up with an interesting concept of fixing ‘No meeting days’ for its techies. This will give you dedicated and disturbance free time to concentrate upon your work. Try it out and feel the difference.
• Learn to say NO
Just imagine your plight, when you have a well-planned day to start with, you are feeling good, things are on track and then comes up a surprise. Someone asks you to also accommodate an unplanned task!
We often try to adjust things, jiggle around with our updated checklist and become anxious.
Sometimes we just have to say no to any unplanned thing that comes up. We need to say NO to whatever hampers our concentration. Adjusting unscheduled will not only add stress to your life but will also make you frustrated. This would hamper everything.
However, if the new task is urgent, you may re-prioritize your to-dos or delegate it to others.
• Take short breaks
Taking short breaks is essential. It improves productivity.
Whenever struck with a piece of code, just lock your system, and go away to sip a cup of coffee for 5 minutes. When you will be back, you will find yourself energetic and be able concentrate on your problem even better. You would be left wondering how silly the problem was. These 5 minutes breaks work as magic.
However, turning these short breaks into long ones will affect you. Avoid unnecessary net surfing, constant checking of emails and those useless water cooler talks. These are time wasters.
• No multitasking.
One performs better, if focuses on one task at a time. You may write an email and simultaneously have a discussion with someone. But had there been critical tasks, and you thought to multi task, you will run into the risk of haphazard mess.
Remember FOCUS – Follow one course until success.
• Raise a timely alarm if things are getting out of control.
Raising an alarm is better than messing up everything and then sobbing! But do remember, winners don’t give up easily. So next time when you see everything in mess and out of control, ask a question to yourself first, ‘Is it really high time to raise an alarm? ’. If yes, go ahead.
• Have a ‘My Time’
After working hard and completing all your tasks, you certainly deserve time for yourself. Do whatever you love to do. Just for yourself. Reward yourself and motivate yourself.
Someone has rightly said,
“The bad news is time flies,
The good news is you’re the pilot.”
Time once wasted will never come back. Manage it well and make the best out of it.
The All-New Naukri iOS App (6.0)
Excellent Blog. The Trouble is you think you have time