Time is an elusive commodity – always running, always ticking, always limiting the things we want to do. Considering the burden of responsibilities that most working people operate under, managing the time you have in a way that you fulfill your professional responsibilities and also have enough time for yourself and your family is absolutely crucial. How to manage your time, often going hand in hand with how to manage stress, is a core question for a successful life.

While we understand the importance of time management, a lot of people are actually lost when it comes to putting it in practice. No true personal development can take place without it - because personality development takes time. Should you complete one task and then go to the next, or should you try to multitask? Should you start with the most difficult task or the easiest one? In order to answer such questions and help you manage your time better, here are some practical and useful time management tips.

1. Get everything out of your head

The human brain is an exceptional organ, no doubt, but as we all know, it has a tendency at times to forget important things, only for it to remind us about it when we’re doing something completely different. Every day we cram our brains with so much information that it’s bound to get jumbled up. It is therefore important that at least once a day, you get everything that you have to do out of your head and write it on a piece of paper.

Whether it is a household chore or a workplace commitment, writing it down will give you the advantage to know exactly when and where you need to tackle it. It also helps you in making clear decisions as your mind will be effectively de-cluttered by this exercise.

2. Prioritise

Once you’ve dumped all the tasks that you can think of on paper, you need to prioritise. It is almost always impossible to do everything on your list in a single day – and sometimes it isn’t necessary too, as some tasks require immediate attention while others can wait.

Instead of prioritising based on the difficulty of the tasks, ask yourself which important task can be accomplished with the time and resources available to you at the moment. The importance of a task can be judged by who is it for, when is it expected to be finished and how much work do you need to put into it – based on these criterion you can identify the crucial tasks and bump them up or down on the priority list.

3. Take control of your time

Even though you might be a subordinate to your boss, you must make an effort to become the boss of your own time. Accepting tasks mutely from your seniors even when your day is jammed with things that you have to do does not highlight your discipline and work ethic – it is simply foolish.

If you keep on accepting newer tasks when you’re still finishing older ones, you will drown yourself in work. Be open and candid with your seniors – when they tell you to do something new, notify them of your existing responsibilities and clarify that the only way you can take up a new task is if you sacrifice an older one. Once they are aware of this, it is up to them to take a call whether the new task is urgent enough to be placed on the top of your list.

4. Plan Ahead

You might imagine that all of this planning and managing is itself time consuming; it is, as a matter of fact. That is why you need to plan ahead – plan what you’re going to do the next day on the previous night. It helps you save time when you’re at work and ensures that you hit the ground running as soon as you get to the office.

All of these suggestions will help you become more productive and use your precious time to accomplish tasks and not just worry about them. If you have some interesting time management techniques that you employ, do let us know!

Article source: http://www.ivyclique.in/article/Self-Help-&-Self-Improvement/How-To-Get-More-Out-Of-Your-Day---4-Practical-Time-Management-Tips/Mzg4OA==/MTg1

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