The following is an article “Time Management Tips for the Modern Entrepreneur” by Marc Primo.
Accomplishing things at work can be pretty challenging during most days and coming up with a time management plan is always necessary to do so. However, multitasking is widely different from determining the right mindset, approach, and perspective in doing what needs to be done first according to priority. In short, time management can be more effective these days if you focus on the important things first rather than doing everything all at once just to meet deadlines.
Paying time and attention to what truly matters in your “in” tray is the way to do things in today’s business age when quality and productivity matters more than the volume of work done. Coming up with a realistic schedule and strategies that let you do things properly from the important ones to the least gets the ball rolling faster.
Here are a few tips that can help you manage your work time more effectively.
Make an Eisenhower Matrix. Former US president Dwight Eisenhower came up with an effective matrix that can give professionals a proper perspective of their workload. By determining which tasks are the most urgent and working on those first rather than the ones that can be shelved to a later time, you can sustain your productivity and help you with your decision-making. This simple organization tool simply separates action guides into four columns namely: urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, and neither urgent nor important. This way, you can easily plot out how you’d best spend your workweek by coming up with smaller daily plans wherein you can do things yourself, delegate, decide, or delete. Try it out now here.
Don’t procrastinate. In some Asian countries, there is such a thing as the ‘Mañana Habit’-- a dreaded and toxic office habit where employees put off things they should do now for later or in other words, voluntary procrastination. Having the proper mindset in taking on a new challenge as an opportunity to learn new things gets your gears going as opposed to how procrastination can employ its power of suggestion that you’re busy, tired, or overwhelmed to do anything. Psychology experts have also labeled procrastination as a form of self-harm in how it rots our mindset to not consider the negative consequences of putting things off when you can do it right away. Practice better judgment by taking your urgent and important tasks from your Eisenhower Box and getting the job done the soonest time possible. Besides, avoiding procrastination can give you more time for yourself once you’ve accomplished everything you’ve set out to do at the office.
Apply the Deep Work strategy. Remember those hard hours back in college when you were drafting your thesis? More things can be learned other than what you’ve researched from that practice which you can apply in your professional life such as Deep Work. Deep Work is simply defined as giving your full attention to one particular demanding task without being distracted by another at a given timeframe. That means putting away all your devices for a moment and immersing yourself in cognitively accomplishing something by avoiding context switches. You should religiously observe your schedule when in Deep Work and master complicated information so you can produce quality work in the fastest time possible.
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