Most of us think that we’re good at managing our time. We put our fantastic time management skills on our CV and talk about it in interviews. But, in reality, it’s often much harder than we think. For many home workers, time management, is one of the biggest problems. They procrastinate, they spend too long on tasks that aren’t important and not long enough on ones that are. They are so bad at managing their time that they never have enough of it. They have to work long hours, and never take time off, just to keep up with everything that they have to do. If time management is something that you are struggling with, and it’s starting to affect both your health and your business, here are some tips to help you.
Get Help
One of the reasons that we struggle to manage our time well is that we aren’t good at everything. There might be tasks that shouldn’t take long, or that aren’t worth substantial time commitments, but they take us more time than we’d like because we just don’t have the skills or experience. Get help from a seo specialist if you need it. Hire freelancers for projects that take you too long and get help with anything that you don’t understand.
Set Daily Goals
You might have big goals for your business. But, while these can be effective, it’s easy to get lost and go off track. Set daily goals and intentions to give each day focus.
Write To-Do Lists
(Image Soure: CC0 Licence – Pixabay.com)
Old-fashioned as a list might be in the world of modern apps and gadgets, they are often the most effective ways to manage your time. Write to-do lists every day so that you know what you need to do. You might want to use these lists to assign each task a time limit, or to break your day into chunks of time.
Plan Ahead
Writing your to-do list the evening before, or on your commute to work, can be a big help. It helps you to organize your mind and get into the right mindset for work. It means that you know what you need to do as soon as you sit down at your desk and that you can hit the ground running.
Take Regular Breaks
Our productivity often suffers when we try to do too much. You might find that you can only focus fully for an hour or so, and after that, your mind starts to wander, you become distracted more easily and that it takes you a lot longer to get things done. Regular breaks throughout the day can help time management.
Work in a Way that Suits You
Are you a morning person? Do you wake up early, feeling alert and ready to go? If so, work earlier in the day. But, if you are a night owl that takes ages to wake up, adjust your workday accordingly.
Get the Important Tasks Out of the Way
If you know that you are a procrastinator, make sure you get the most important jobs out of the way early in the day, so that you don’t have a chance to put them off. Another method is doing the tasks that you don’t like first, to get them out of the way.
(Cover image source: Pixabay.com)