HOW TO MANAGE YOUR TIME EFFECTIVELY

Time management is probably one of the most ‘thrown around’ terminologies when it comes to productivity. We even add it to the list of soft skills when writing a resumé. But what does it mean?

‘Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity.’- Wikipedia.

Managing your time effectively simply refers to using this limited resource wisely in order to get things done optimally. I like to see it as manipulating this same 24 hours to achieve the most important things.

This post will focus on some unconventional ideas to ‘create’ more time for yourself, while next week’s will discuss how to manage the time you now have for all your tasks.

Reduce.

You don’t have to do everything. And you don’t have to do perfectly the ones you choose to do.

Now your perfectionist mindset may make you read that again and cringe a little bit more. But it’s true.

Trying to do everything and to the most perfect degree every single time is not only unrealistic, but also unnecessary. Today’s hustle culture has so influenced (and pressured) us that we try to do ‘more’ just for the sake of doing more.

You wake up one day and you decide to learn a new skill with no goal in mind, put out more content with no strategy, start a new business or take up more jobs even when you’re already making enough.

Just because.

Maintaining your current position, being content there and growing slowly while taking on only what you’re capable of at the moment is not a bad thing!

For example, it already takes enough of my time to write and manage a blog post every week, work part-time, serve in church and learn UX while trying to consistently do well in school.

It would be unreasonable to start a YouTube channel or podcast or start learning coding at this point in my life. I simply can’t afford that time while being devoted to my current engagements. And those things are really not essential at the moment.

If you have fulfilled your goal, or you are fulfilling it, there is absolutely no need to mindlessly add new chores to the list just to fit in or have something to boast about.

Furthermore, you don’t have to dedicate an equal amount of time to everything in life. It may be hard to accept, but you will sometimes need to decide the level to which you do a task. Good. Great. Perfect.

For example, some school courses only need to be passed while others will determine your grades. You wouldn’t want to waste time perfecting an assignment that will not matter eventually when you can spend time studying something more important.

Besides, some things will eventually not reach perfection no matter how hard you try. Investing more time/energy doesn’t always equal better results. In fact, you may as well be wasting your time.

You must learn that it is much better to spread your time doing a number of necessary things rather than focusing on just one task that is just not that important.

Learn to start with what you have and improve gradually. Learn to do your best and leave the rest. This is a call neither to laziness nor mediocrity, but to mindful, quality commitment.

Determining what is essential and what is not will probably take some time and a lot of practice. But the sooner you get a hang of this, the easier it will be for you to spend your time on relatively more valuable work.

This way, you’ll give yourself more grace and avoid burnout and that familiar feeling of being overwhelmed. Being busy and being productive are not necessarily the same.

Be gentle and kind to yourself as you grow.