Life

How to Properly Manage Your Time So You Can Fit More Into Your Day

Published

3 years ago

Feb 19, 2019

Image Credit: Unsplash

Time is the only actual resource that matters. Yet, as with the majority of things that people should take care of, most of us run short on time. No matter if you’re a busy entrepreneur trying to get your business tasks organized, programmist who’s working 9-to-5 and tries to get the most out of after-work time or even a university student who strives to harness his schedule.

We all need to organize our work to get things done on time. Without planning, we get lost, which leads to further panicking over our helplessness.

Below, you’ll learn how to properly manage your schedule so you can fit more into your day and be efficient with your time:

Materialize it

First, you have to make it all visible regardless of if it’s creating to-do lists or writing down a simple tasks list. Studies show that you’re much more likely to finish the task when you write it down.

Begin with whatever comes to your mind such as: laundry, grocery shopping, a programming class, or reading a new book. Then, group tasks into appropriate categories. I prefer to use three time-wise categories and five sub-categories for each of the tasks.

The three time-wise categories are: Before work, during work and after work.

Of course, this approach assumes that you’re working 9-to-5 but let’s be honest, most of the people who struggle to organize their time are the people who work standard eight hours a day.

After you’re done with the above, proceed to the next five subcategories: Low-result, manager, creative and learning, fun and health and exercise.

Low-result tasks – Everything that needs to be done but would gladly be outsourced. Things like commuting, shopping, cleaning, etc. Strive to limit the number of low-result tasks to the bare minimum.

Manager tasks – Everything related to planning, organizing, sending, or responding to people. You’ll want to fill it with meetings, replying to emails, and browsing through the inbox.

Creative and learning tasks – All creative, so-called “new tasks” like writing an article or coding. It can be anything from trying to learn a new language as well as doing courses, attending webinars, and reading books.

Fun tasks – What I also tend to call social tasks. It can be anything from a date to going out with friends and watching movies. Treat this time as a moment to relax and – yes – actually have fun.

Health and exercise – Everything from running, gym, eating. Group here everything that directly corresponds to your physical state of being.

At this point, you might be asking “Is it necessary to do all of that listing and grouping?” It might seem like overkill or a futile task, but believe me, there is no reason to plan things out if you’re planning to lose. Always plan to win and put necessary work upfront.

“Make use of time, let not advantage slip.” – William Shakespeare

Materializing and grouping what you want to do is the first step to harness your schedule and get things done on time. The next step, shown below, is to put them in the right place and order:

Map it out

After you’re done with listing your tasks and grouping them into appropriate categories and subcategories, go ahead and proceed to map them out. Here, it’ll be handy to use a task-planning tool like Google Calendar. The main purpose of using such a solution is to get all of the tasks in one place, sorted, and well-arranged.

Also, you’ll get push and email notifications that will help you stay on track with everything you’ve planned. Let’s proceed to the doing part. Start from the top to the bottom, whereas the top is the beginning of the day and bottom is its end.

Grab your “before work” tasks and put them into certain timeframes. At first, it will be a guessing game as you may not know how long your morning bathroom fun takes. The first week or even a month will be all about tweaking and adjusting your schedule until it will reach its final form.

Now, to visually get a hint of which tasks relate to which subcategory you have to color code them. If you’re using Google Calendar you can right click on a certain event and choose the color.

Of course, you can use any color pattern you want. Just remember which color relates to which category. To save time you can use my framework which goes as follows:

Low-result – Tomato
Manager – Tangerine
Creative and learning – Basil
Fun tasks – Lavender
Health and exercise – Grape

No, I’m not making it up. All of the colors in Google Calendar are described as veggies, fruits, and herbs. Thanks to color coding you’ll see how much time you spend on particular tasks. Your goal will be to lower the amount of tomato-red and tangerine-orange. Strive to have a grape-violet time each day as well as the basil-green as the most frequent events.

When you’re done with before work tasks, go ahead and fill the calendar with during work and after work activities. Some of you won’t be able to map out the entire work time due to the character of your job. In such a case, don’t try to come up with imaginary tasks, just plan what you can. Put placeholders if you’re not sure and fill in the gaps when you know what you’re about to do.

Next, focus on what you’d like to do during your after-work time. Be realistic, but fill it with tasks that you’d really want to do. Use this time to read a new book you’ve wanted to read or to start the course that would accelerate your career.

“Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year – and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!” – Tony Robbins

Adjust and upgrade

Equipped with a calendar full of color-coded events is just the beginning of the road to getting things done on time. Now that the hard part is done, you can focus on adjusting the calendar to your actual needs.

As time goes by, you’ll see how much time certain things take you, what can be optimized, and what can be outsourced. Use that feedback to optimize the way you spend your time and upgrade your calendar every week and every month.

Remember that the hardest thing is always to start. Most people avoid doing these two things: Planning their time and goals and taking care of their money.

People simply fear to look into how they actually spend their time and money while these are one of the most important aspects of their lives! Don’t be that guy who doesn’t know where his last three hours had vanished. Take care of your time and use it to achieve your dreams.

How do you make sure you’re managing your time correctly? Do you have any tips for not wasting time? Let us know in the comments below!

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Jakub Kliszczak

Jakub Kliszczak is a Marketing Specialist at CrazyCall; cloud-based calling app which provides sales teams with essential tools reach their customers worldwide. He’s passionate about digital marketing, developing new businesses, and turning new ideas into real ventures. In his “free time”, he prefers to read non-fiction and hit the gym.

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5 Life Tips You Didn’t Know You Needed to Hear

Published

3 weeks ago

Apr 29, 2022

TheThrives

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Life is a battleground, we need to keep fighting until our appointed time on earth comes. So, in this post, you will see the best of the best life tips you have never heard before. These tips are life-changing and can change you immediately. Let’s go!

1. Be independent

Hundreds of millions of people make this mistake. We depend on people like us. “he will get it done for me, she will get it done for me”. You rely heavily on people and guess what, you are making a big mistake.

There are a lot of people that have helped others and perhaps time changes for them, they become poor and rely on the people they have helped, guess what comes out at the end of this reliance? Disappointment, promises backed by failures, etc.

Who are you depending on? Who is that person you can’t do without when getting things in your life done? If there is anyone, you are making a big mistake. And starting today, all you have to do is add a prefix – what if!

“What if my friend stops helping me, what if I get disappointed by people I trust with my life, what if they neglect me and turn me down”.

A man or woman that depends on people like him is equal to a feeble pillar holding the four corners of a house. What happens when the feeble pillar falls? The man’s house falls down super-flat. Your trust should only be in Jesus. Man can fail us at any time but God is always faithful till his Kingdom comes.

2. Love your neighbor as yourself

The gravity of this word is enough to shatter the whole earth into pieces.

Only if the whole world just kept this simple commandment Christ Jesus gave then, there will be no murders, poverty, greediness, anger, envy, betrayal, disappointment, etc.

Why are there such things in the world? Because we hate ourselves. As long as you are fine all is well. You care about yourself only, selfish, you have and yet you cannot give.

Those are the characteristics of over 90% of the 7.6 billion humans on earth. Why can’t you do to others what you would have them do to you? Why can’t you help that suffering neighbor who needs food? Then, a lot of people will say

“Go away from here beggar, what did you do with your youth, I can’t give you a dime, beggar”. Why are we so cruel? This is the best tip you must dear to your heart.

No matter what you have, no matter how little or in whatever way you can help. Help people, show them love, love them as you love yourself. Don’t forget this, today’s beggar, uneducated, debtor, poor person, etc can later become the greatest person in the world tomorrow.

“Don’t settle for what life gives you; make life better and build something.” — Ashton Kutcher

3. Have a growth mindset

A growth mindset is what makes one successful and go far in life. However, a fixed and stagnated mindset throws one into jeopardy of life.

A lot of people have a fixed mindset, what they believe is what they believe, nothing you say on earth can change their mindset, they are the most educated in the world so they don’t need to learn any further. Did you have a fixed or growth mindset?

A growth mindset leads to success, achievements, happiness, learning more, and becoming better. On the other hand, a fixed mindset leads to complacency, pride, lack of achievement, ignorance, the stagnancy of the mind, etc.

Let’s see an example of someone with a fixed mindset:

Cait tells Alice: Alice stop being so proud it’s annoying.

And Alice responds:

“How dare you say I am proud, I am not. I am the most humble woman on earth”. In the example, Alice with a fixed mindset has a fixed mindset. However, what she does not know is that she is in the darkness of her ignorance. She is ignorant of the fact that she is a proud person thus, she can’t see it.

People with a fixed mindset are ignorant. You must never have a fixed mindset. Always be willing to learn and to grow with humility. Pride can take you nowhere.

4. Forgive everyone and give as many second chances as you can

A lot of people have done all they could to be happy and have peace. But, they find out that happiness is not just there and that peace of mind is absent.

Why is that? It is because you have a lot of grudge against people that have offended you. Yes, we know, it pained you to your heart, and what next? Keep malice? But, do you know what that unforgiveness does to you?

I call it the seed of unforgiveness because it plants a seed in your heart and this seed further grows to become hatred, depression, lack of freedom, zero peace, etc.

If in only one person’s heart are all these things, then a person like that can never know peace and happiness. For example, if you were to go to a party with your friends and you hear that perhaps the other friend that you keep malice with is coming to the same party.

Naturally, the only thing you would think of is not going to the party anymore because you want to avoid the person at all costs. And what does that add to you? It doesn’t add instead, it subtracts from your life because you could have gone to the party, had fun, and even have new friends or even new opportunities.

If not for anything will you forgive people, forgive them for the sake of God, for the sake of Christ Jesus. Because if you cannot forget the trespass of people, don’t expect God to forgive you. Forgive everyone, give them as many second chances as possible.

Mind you, they can still mess up and make terrible mistakes all you have to do is keep forgiving them. This may not be so easy to the flesh. However, it is only The Spirit of God that can make you forgive the trespass of people. Without The Holy Spirit, it is impossible to do so.

5. Love God

Do you love God? Are you a child of God? Do you believe in Christ Jesus? Even if the rest of the tips on these lists do not resonate with you, I want you to hold this very important to your heart which is to Love God with all your heart, soul, and strength.

And you can do that only by being a child of God. This life is too short. It is like a vapor, it is nothing. Life is more like an empty barrel that makes noise. You will grow old, your strength will leave you and you will die but, what happens after that? Where are you going to spend the rest of your eternity?