Have you noticed that time management plays a significant role in your life? Are you working on your time management skills?
If you find it hard to manage time properly, no worries. Today, in this blog post we talk about time management secrets to help you out.
Time management is not a rocket science. It just requires some discipline to work on it. And taking action immediately is your best friend in getting used to time management secrets.
Sharing time management tips with others can be also helpful for you, because you remind yourself of things you may not think about daily.
Ultimately, the goal of this post is to make you familiar with time management secrets that will help you insanely in improving your time management skills.
Why is time management hard?
Usually, time management is considered sometimes hard. But mainly, there are couple of reasons why this happens:
1) You don’t have enough knowledge about proper time management skills and time management secrets to use
2) You don’t take action and lack prioritizing
3) You try to multitask instead of focusing on tasks one by one
If you never prioritize important actions first, or you want to complete a lot of things at once, it is natural to be disorganized because handling a bunch of things at once is bad.
Moreover, it harms your ability to manage time. Managing time becomes easier when you work on tasks with singular focus.
10 Time Management Secrets
Now, let’s jump into the most exciting part of this blog post – discovering the time management secrets for better results in less time.
1. Never multitask
If you know you multitask daily, that’s absolutely a terrible idea in terms of time management.
Brushing your teeth, sending an e-mail and scrolling social media at the same time just doesn’t work…
When you multitask, you don’t only split your focus a few actions at a same time, but you are also less likely to finish the tasks well.
There are no good aspects of multitasking. It fools you that you are productive, when in reality you are just being busy with your tasks because you lack prioritizing.
If you are able to quit multitasking, you will instantly become more productive and see better results in less time. That’s why I think this is one of the keys in time management secrets.
2. Always prioritize
When we talk about time management secrets and general improvement in time management skills, it is important to learn to prioritize.
Prioritizing means you work on tasks that are important. Generally, work on important tasks effectively. This means the tasks that have the biggest impact on reaching your goals.
Working for long on something unimportant will not make it important! Remember that!
You are just being efficient instead of effective.
However, both, efficiency and effectiveness are extremely great when working on relevant actions.
3. Plan your day
If you want to make your time management easier, one of the best time management secrets I can give you is to plan your day and stick to your plan.
There is no reason to plan the day if you don’t follow the plan.
The point of the plan is to keep you organized and help to prioritize the right actions during the day.
Writing a plan is a step towards more productive and organized results. And forget about writing your plan on electronic devices.
Simply use a basic piece of paper folded in half three times. This will ensure you only write down the essential things you have to do that day.
In addition, you can’t grow your list because of the limited size, whereas on electronic devices you could expand your tasks for unlimited number, theoretically.
4. Set a timer
Setting a timer works as a controller. You have pressure because of limited time, which helps you to work on tasks more productively.
Eventually, it helps you to manage time properly. Setting a timer is one of the most effective time management secrets in my experience.
If you set a timer for 30 minutes, make sure to only work on needed task for those 30 minutes without distractions.
Basically, setting a timer is a good way of ensuring you don’t multitask or do any pointless actions such scrolling social media.
5. Two important tasks
If you are ready to get familiar with simply one of the best time management secrets, then here it is.
Two most important tasks for each day. There should be no more than 2 to 3 most important tasks everyday that will make you feel accomplished at the end of the day.
Ensure you get them done, and also plan them for each day the night before.
The main idea is to complete these 2 most important tasks before you have your lunch. This ensures that if the rest of your day doesn’t go as planned, you have still made progress.
You have worked on tasks that matter the most for your future.
Realizing this will make time management more exciting because you generally have something you are striving towards.
6. Prepare in advance
The next of these time management secrets is simply easy and extremely practical.
Preparing. Are you preparing anything for your upcoming day for example? Trying this can save you a huge amount of time as well as reduce unwanted stress.
When we talk about preparing, you can include anything into that category whether it is preparing meals, clothes for the next day or packing your gym bag.
Preparing in advance is one of the best and easiest ways to upgrade your time management skills instantly and that’s why it is one of the best time management secrets in my opinion.
7. Short deadlines
Having short and concise deadlines can help you rapidly with time management.
Pay close attention!
Here is an practical example: Think about a task you have to do and imagine two deadlines; one is 2 days away, and second one is 2 weeks away.
Now, if you chose 2 week deadline, it is worse for proper time management. The reason is, you are most likely to take action on the task only during the last few days.
Whereas, if you chose 2 day deadline, you have to take action on your task immediately in order to finish it before deadline. This will also make you more productive and organized.
Hopefully this makes sense. This by far one of the best time management secrets I have learned.
8. Scheduling
This might not belong exactly to time management secrets but is definitely an powerful aspect of proper time management.
When you schedule your tasks and day, you are much less likely to spend time on unnecessary things.
Scheduling should be based on your plan or to-do list. Below you can see a simple example:
8-9 AM morning routine
9-11.30 AM work on most important tasks
12-12.30 PM lunch
1-5 PM work, gym
6-9 PM evening routine, prepare meals, read
9. Time management books
This is quite obvious, but still a lot of people neglect reading content and books in general about the topic they are working on.
In this case, reading time management books will help you to establish a mindset for effective time management.
Meaning, you learn how to prioritize important actions and additionally some practical tips for great time management.
This isn’t part of time management secrets even though it could be added there because of lack of reading in modern society.
In general, I assume you are on your self-improvement journey, meaning you should invest in your learning as well.
10. Experience
This is probably one of the most valuable time management secrets but it requires that you have been managing time for quite some time.
What I try to tell here is that nothing teaches you better than experience and your own mistakes.
In this case, if you were not able to complete daily goals, you will learn what you could have done differently in terms of time management.
Time management works as a teacher when you are not able to complete daily tasks or you struggle with staying organized.
Invest in experience – in other words, try to learn and try to fail.
Fact about time management secrets
To be completely honest, these so called “time management secrets” are extremely good for learning and leveling up time management skills.
However, remember that they will only work if you take action and put them in practice. It won’t help you if you only read about them.
Time management is such a skill everyone should work on. It is so common to hear these days that “I don’t have enough time”.
The truth is that people simply lack prioritizing and therefore also have poor time management skills.
Remember this about time management
Time management is a crucial skill that enables individuals to meet deadlines, accomplish tasks efficiently, and live a more productive life.
Remember to prioritize tasks, manage distractions, stay organized, set goals, and take breaks. Successful time management requires discipline, focus, and a proactive mindset.
By following these tips, you can effectively manage your time and achieve your goals.
Ultimately, you will notice that there is no actual time management secrets.
