By: Natasha Archary
Effective time management skills can benefit anyone, regardless of age and designation.
Whether you’re a student, a child, working or not it boils down to organizing your life to make the most out of every hour of the day.
Get it right and it means that you work smarter, not harder, getting more done in less time, even when it’s crunch time.
Some of the most successful people are those who prioritize their time.
Author Robin Sharma detailed how the world’s wealthiest and most influential people rise early and map out their day.
In his book, The 5 am Club, Sharma shared how the 20/20/20 structure can be beneficial to consistency and optimal productivity.
The concept is to spend the first 20-minutes after you wake up at 05h00 on exercise, the next-minutes on planning and then 20-minutes to study or read.
This sets the foundation for how your day will run, maintaining your focus and drive.
Midday Joy listeners share their time management shortfalls:
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Improve your time management skills
If you’ve ever wondered how some people seem to have enough time to get stuff done, instead of rushing from task to task, then the below list of skills is for you:
- Prioritize
If you feel overwhelmed with everything you have to achieve in a day, the first step is to ask yourself which tasks are urgent and most important. Those are the tasks you start with.
- Scheduling
Now that you know what you need to do, work out deadlines for each one. Giving yourself sufficient time for each one.
- To-do lists
Having a daily list of expectations will help you stay organized. Having a visual outline of what you have on your plate for the day also means you don’t forget anything.
- Don’t procrastinate
There’s nothing worse than leaving things to the last minute because that’s when you find everything piles up. Get through your to-do list, ticking them off one by one.
- Set alarms
Use your smartphone to set reminders throughout the day. Setting alarms 15-minutes before meetings, looming deadlines or important engagements means you’ll always be 15-minutes ahead in everything you do.
We all have the same hours in a day and time management is a skill that can become habitual with practice. It takes constant work to instill better time management skills.
Also read: 3 Tips for parents to reach the perfect work-life balance


