Life Hacks - Time Management

One of the most effective skills you can have in life is powerful and effective time management. If you're not managing your time well, there's no way you're going to reach your goals at work and the life outside of it. For people who squander and waste the precious little time they do have, they know all too well how difficult achieving even mildly difficult goals can be.

The truth is that time is the greatest equalizer in life. No matter who you are, your age, income, gender, race or religion, you have the same amount of time as the next person. Whether you're filthy rich or dirt poor, your time is the same. It's not about how much time you have. It's about how effectively you manage your time.

So if you're serious about achieving your goals, not only do you need to set those goals the right way, but you also have to get serious about avoiding distractions and becoming too immersed in the bad habits that you know you need to quit.

The trick? Find a good time management system and work it. There are many. It's entirely up to you on which one to choose. But if you don't want to become part of the people who fail to achieve their long-term goals, then you need pay attention to how you use the precious little time you do have in this world.

What are the best tips for managing your time?

    1. Set goals the right way

There's a right and wrong way to set goals. If you don't set your goals the right way, then you'll lack the proper targets, which will force you to fall off track. But when you set them the right way, the sky is the limit.

    

    2. Audit your time for seven days straight

Spend seven days straight assessing how you spend the time you do have right now. What are you doing? Record it in a journal or on your phone. Split this up into blocks of 30 minutes or an hour. What did you get done? Was it time wasted? Was it well spent? If you use the quadrant system, circle or log the quadrant that the activity was associated with. At the end of the seven days, tally up all the numbers. Where did you spend the most time? Which quadrants? The results might shock you.

    3. Spend your mornings on MITs

Mark Twain once said, "If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first." His point? Tackle your biggest tasks in the morning. These are your most important tasks (MITs) of the day. Accomplishing those will give you the biggest momentum to help you sail through the rest of the day.

    4. Eliminate bad habits

One of the biggest time-wasters we have are our bad habits. Whether it's Netflix binge-watching, excessively surfing social media, playing games, going out frequently to drink with friends, or so on, those bad habits take away the precious little time that we do have. Use your time wisely by eliminating your bad habits if you're serious about achieving big goals in life.

    5. Follow the 80-20 rule

Another great time management tip is to use the 80-20 Rule, also known as the Pareto Principle. This rule states that 80% of the efforts comes from 20 percent of the results. In sales, it also means that 80 percent of the sales come from 20 percent of the customers. The trick? Identify the 20 percent of the efforts that are producing 80 percent of the results and scale that out.

    6. Meditate or exercise every morning

You might not think that this will help to better manage your time, but meditating and exercising every single morning gives you balance. Cut the toxins out of your life and get serious by doing this and watch as your energy, stamina and mental focus takes a drastic shift.

    7. Stop procrastinating

If you have difficulties staying focused or tend to procrastinate, you may benefit from creating an external commitment for (deadline) yourself. For instance, schedule a meeting in two days’ time where you’ll be presenting your work and by which time your actions will have to be completed. It’s also very effective to complete the most unpleasant tasks early in the day and to allow yourself small rewards once you’ve completed them.

    8. Make to-do list in the night for the next day

Every single night before bed, make a list for the next day. Look at your goals and see what you can do to help move you closer. This doesn't happen overnight. It takes time. But by making to-do lists, you're effectively setting goals for the day. Daily goals are easier to achieve while helping to move us towards the longer and bigger goals.