There are a number of life hacks to increase your productivity and save your time both at work and at home. But not all of them really work. JiJi offers you a list of the best proven time management techniques that will help you cope with multiple tasks throughout the day and stay productive.
Set Your Goals and Priorities
For starters, set your top priority tasks and pay special attention to accomplishing them. Without strategic planning and setting your goals as much as 80% of your work will not bring you any benefit in the long run.
Eat, Sleep, Exercise
Eat well, get enough sleep and include physical exercise in your daily schedule to boost your productivity and energy, and increase your motivation.
Two Minutes Rule
This simple rule states that if you have a task that can be performed within 2 minutes (like answering an email, making a phone call or doing dishes) – you should do it immediately. Otherwise, it will either take longer, or you might not find time to accomplish it at all.
Five Minutes Rule
If you are facing a large and potentially time consuming task and just don’t feel like getting to it because it seems too complicated, use this simple trick. Tell yourself that you will only do it for five minutes and start doing it. The most important thing here is to start.
Seinfeld Rule
The key to achieving success at work is being a pro in what you’re doing. To really become a professional in your field of expertise you have to practice every day. Be it a holiday, your birthday or your parent’s anniversary day – make no exceptions.
Work on Your Habits
Developing good habits and dropping harmful ones will give you a huge amount of energy and help in achieving your goals.
Keep a Diary
You shouldn’t rely solely on your memory, even if you’re a genius. Keep a diary, compile lists of your tasks or use a task planner on your smartphone.
Use Only What You Need
There number of gadgets, devices, software solutions and apps is immense. If you want to save your time – use only the ones that you really need for accomplishing your tasks.
Discipline
Start your morning with writing down the list of the tasks and finish your day with writing a short list of accomplishments. This will help a lot in setting your priorities and eliminating insignificant tasks.
Pomodoro Technique
This technique implies that you should divide your working day into 25-minute intervals of productive work followed by 5-minute breaks.
Wear Headphones
When at work – use your headphones not to get distracted. You don’t necessarily have to listen to music.
Stop Checking Your Emails and Facebook Every Two Minutes
Don’t start your day with checking your inbox. Try to do it not more than 3 times a day (of course if your work allows you to). And remember – your inbox is not your task list. The same applies to your phone calls.
Allow Yourself to be Offline
Who said that you have to always be available to calls and online chats? Turn off your mobile phone once in a while. People who really need to talk to you will call you back. And the rest – well, they just won’t distract you.
MI3 Rule
MI3 stands for “The Most Important 3 Tasks.” This implies that you should start your day with accomplishing 3 most important tasks.
Make Important Decisions First
Try to make the most important decisions in the first half of the day. You’ll have the rest of the day to accomplish less important tasks. It’s also a good idea to try and delegate the latter to others.
What Really Matters
Always ask yourself – what is the most important task of your day and what can be done now. Then use rule #4.
Don’t Try to Reach Perfection
Don’t try to create something perfect and don’t waste too much time redesigning what has already been done. Of course you have to brush up your work for it to look great, but don’t try to make it perfect.
Plan Your Procrastination
Sometimes procrastination can actually be a good thing as it can bring you the energy you need. But your need to keep it under control or you might find that none of your tasks have been accomplished. Allow yourself to get some rest but don’t make procrastination your daily task #1.
Learn to Say “NO”
Live your life according to your own plan. Learn to say “no” to others if what they’re asking is inconvenient to you and doesn’t comply with your plans.
Group Small Tasks
Don’t spend your time accomplishing minute tasks such as checking your emails or Facebook. Group them and leave just a little time in your daily schedule for them.
