Surely among us, every one of us has once been in a race against the deadline. The inability to manage time is what pushes people into this "breathless" situation. Lack of time management skills also causes a lot of impact on work quality, health... So are there any simple but effective time management methods? Let's explore with Thien Nam Building right in the article below!
What is time management?
Time management is the process of organizing and planning to divide your time between different activities. Following this plan will help you work smart, being able to get more done in less time – even when time is tight and pressure is high.
Why time management?
If you’ve ever been racing against a deadline all night, waking up lazily in the morning with a tired body, going to bed early the next night and not meeting the deadline for that day, then you must have realized the importance of management. it’s time right? Effective time management skills are vital to job performance. The benefits of time management skills include:
It doesn’t take much to get the job done: research shows that if you use your time effectively, you’ll get an extra 250 hours of work a year.
Getting things done on time, life becomes more meaningful: the frustrating feeling of spending all day working without being productive is gone. Plus, you’ll get things done better, and at the same time release your mental energy.
Achieving goals faster: many people set big goals to achieve but quickly fall behind, frustrating and leading to abandonment. Effective time management not only helps you reach your destination faster, but also motivates you to maintain your original goal.
Increased self-confidence: you are more likely to take care of yourself, feel more valuable.
Get more energy to conquer new goals from the momentum of old successes.
There is plenty of time to take care of and fulfill personal interests: you will have the opportunity to develop yourself, spend time with family, friends…
Reduce stress and overload, improve mental health.
Limit hesitation when making decisions: sometimes you spend a lot of time making a decision for a small, not really urgent task. This is a waste of time and you need to fix it to execute the plan effectively.
Time management skills
Identify the difference between “important”, “necessary”, “not yet necessary” and “urgent”.
“Important”, “necessary”, “not yet necessary”, “urgent”, … are words that indicate the degree of necessity of a job. The important thing here is that you need to identify the tasks corresponding to these levels, thereby dividing the work in the most effective way. The “urgent” jobs need to be put in the first place for immediate handling.
Goal Setting
Goals are the motivation to help you get things done, especially long-term jobs. Goals set should be in line with ability, ensuring effective use of time. You can refer to SMART principles for effective work management, specifically:
S – Specific: A clear, specific, defined goal from the beginning.
M – Measurable: A measurable goal.
A – Attainable: An achievable goal.
R-Relevant: Are goals that are relevant and have a direct impact on your life and career.
T – Time-bound: It is the division of the goal and the time limit for implementation.
SMART principles in time management
Planning
In any job, planning is an indispensable element. The established plan ensures that you will achieve your goals quickly, with the best quality; Minimize stress and apply effective time management methods.
Workflow management
Task management requires you to use the tasks associated with the necessary level in the most intelligent and scientific way, helping to use time effectively. There are a lot of people at this stage who have already devised a plan to multitask. This has a negative effect on work efficiency, such as losing time to switch focus between tasks, reducing productivity, reducing IQ & EQ.
Mental health and wellness management
Mental health plays a very important role in any job. Besides, physical factors also affect the process of completing your plan. Physical problems for example: high blood pressure, heart disease, stomach problems, headaches, etc. Mental problems include depression, anxiety, thoughts of death and other stressful conditions. These situations should be handled immediately, to avoid affecting the original plan.
Eliminate factors that affect the original plan
For example, if you’re concentrating on an assignment, then you’re distracted by Facebook messages, then Facebook is the factor that affects the original plan. These influencers can be social networks, a phone call, text messages, netflix, etc. You need to clearly identify the influencers and eliminate them to ensure the plan takes place. on schedule.
A mistake we often make during this stage is to quickly take measures to completely eliminate the influence. Often these agents develop into “triggers” due to the excessive use of each person. Therefore, eliminating the whole leaves us vulnerable to discomfort, demoralization, and abandonment. Therefore, you should plan in stages and slowly to prepare mentally.
4D . time management method
4D is an abbreviation for Do – Dump – Delegate – Defer time management, in which:
Do – do the important work at hand. Make sure it’s completely resolved before moving on to the next task.
Dump – eliminate pointless work to save time
Delegate – assign work to someone who can do better than you
Defer – if you can’t do the work right away, write it down in your notebook and schedule a time to do it.
Method 40 – 30 – 20 – 10
This is a smart time management method that is applied in quite a few fields. Accordingly, this time management method helps you to allocate time in a very reasonable way as follows:
- Time spent on the most important tasks: 40%
- Time for the second most important things: 30%
- Time for the third most important things: 20%
- Time to combine everything: 10%
When applying this time management method, you only have one reasonable choice that is to focus on 3 priorities, namely: Do it in order of priority from first to third and only Spend some time on other things. This over time will help the original plan be completed in the most complete way.
80/20 (Pareto) Method
The 80/20 (Pareto) method is a way of time management meaning that 20% of the causes make up 80% of the results. For example, 80% of results are generated by 20% of workers; 80% of revenue is contributed by 20% of customers.
In fact, the number 80/20 is not an absolute constant in this time management method. What we learn from the 80/20 rule of time management is that we work to solve 20% of the work but bring good results instead of spending resources to solve the other 80%. Flexible application of this method to each different specific job will save you considerable effort, cost and time.
Eisenhower Time Management Method
What is the Eisenhower Time Management Matrix?
“I have two kinds of problems, urgent and important. What is urgent is not important, and what is important is not urgent.” The Eisenhower matrix is used when we need to make a decision about a particular action. This matrix helps us to distinguish between important and urgent tasks, thereby making the best time management.
The Eisenhower Matrix was created and named after the 34th president of the United States – Dwight D. Eisenhower. It’s by no means a perfect strategy, but it’s proven to be a powerful tool to increase productivity and remove influencers in a positive way.
How to Apply the Eisenhower Time Management Matrix
The Eisenhower strategy is applied according to the tasks associated with the level of urgency to be completed. Specifically, list all the tasks you have to do, including the unimportant but time-consuming tasks. Then you sort them based on urgency:
- Urgent and important (tasks that need to be done immediately).
- Important but not urgent (tasks scheduled for later).
- Urgent but not important (task should be handed over to someone else).
- Neither urgent nor important (the task must be eliminated).
Any rule that is put in place is for the sake of executing the plan and helping people to get into a good habit of time management. However, the principles of time management need to be appropriate and reasonable for each different task, not too harsh. Because the rules of time management are too harsh, not only does the performer decrease morale, but it also affects the overall progress if this is a group work, increasing the pressure and affecting the overall efficiency.
Thien Nam Building hopes the above information will help you find the most suitable time management method for you and don’t forget to share with Thien Nam Building about your time management method!
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