Everyone wants more time, but there are only so many hours in the day. Imagine if you could add more hours to your day – that’s the magic of time efficiency.
Managing time efficiently isn’t about cramming as many tasks as possible into your day. It’s about simplifying and speeding up your daily habits while relieving stress by using a couple of time management skills and techniques.
The following tips will teach you how to work smarter, not harder.
Prioritize Your Agenda
You’ve probably heard this a few times – it’s the golden rule of time management. Each day, you should identify two or three crucial tasks that deserve your full attention and make them a priority. Slow down, only concentrate on these things.
You’ll create more value by doing less work at full concentration than doing more and giving only half of your attention. Once those core tasks are completed, your day is a success and you can move on to other things.
Use Productivity Tools
Increasing your productivity is a sure-fire way to save time. The best part is that organizing yourself doesn’t have to require any effort on your end. There are a lot of tools out there to make you more productive, such as route planners and smart calendars. Try to use these systems without deviation and you’ll be surprised how much it boosts your productivity. Badger Maps is a great example of this. This application allows you to optimize your time each day by displaying all of your accounts on a map. You can even identify nearby leads and keep organized with check-in and note features.
Condense Related Information Together
Instead of using multiple databases and platforms for your daily activities, try to find and use applications that are built to consolidate the information and have features that you really need while doing your job. Condensing things will reduce your start-up and slow-down time and improves the routine. Focus on the important information. You’ll hold onto your focus for longer if you avoid switching between dozens of applications every day.
Follow the “Two-Minute Rule”
This is the best way to make the most out of your spare time between daily tasks. The idea is simple: If you see or think about a task you know you can finish in two minutes or less, you handle it immediately.
According to entrepreneur and influencer Steve Olenski, completing the task right away takes less time than planning to do it later. Avoid procrastination. It results in wasted essential time and energy.
Build a Routine
Build a routine into your daily and weekly schedule. Select a daily time for you to check emails, return phone calls, and manage your social media presence. Stick with those times and avoid distractions.
Delegate
Not everyone is good at everything. In fact, very few people are good at more than a few things. When it comes to productivity, for a team or an individual, outsourcing is essential.
You want to ensure that all of the important work gets done, but that doesn’t mean you have to be the one who does it. If somebody else has a skill set that suits the task better than you, you should really consider delegating it to him or her. This is one of the most important time management skills: knowing whether you are or aren’t the right person to perform the task.
Remember the 80/20 Rule
It’s impossible to get everything you want to finish done. Remember that odds are good that 20 percent of your thoughts and activities produce 80 percent of your results. You can’t do everything. Learning to recognize and then focus on that 20 percent is the key to making the most effective use of your time.
Also, take a good look at the people around you. Twenty percent of your coworkers, customers and leads probably give you 80 percent of the support and satisfaction you need.
Avoid Multitasking
Doing less means accomplishing more. While a lot of people out there think that multitasking is an efficient way of getting things done, it really isn’t. The truth is that we do way better when we focus and concentrate on one job at a time. You’ll do it faster with fewer mistakes and less rework. Make sure you finish tasks to closure before starting the next one.
Reward Yourself
Staying self-motivated is really important. If you free up 1 hour a day by improving your time management skills, well done! But don’t fill this up with busywork – reward yourself with a little time off and enjoy the advantages you have earned.
Grow and Improve
You need to keep improving yourself. When you improve at certain tasks, you’ll find out that they go faster each time. Keep growing, keep improving, keep training yourself. Always try to do things in a more efficient way each time so you keep developing yourself.
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