Have you ever thought, ‘If only there were more hours in a day?’ We sure have. When life gets busy with work, family, and personal matters, it can seem like time is passing by. Unfortunately, a twenty-five-hour day isn’t an option. However, with a bit of skill and cleverness, it is possible to add more hours to your day. How? We explain this in the article below.
Asses how you spend your day
A major factor in mastering time management is understanding how you spend your day. By keeping a time log, you can become aware of any unproductive moments (like constantly refreshing your Instagram feed).
Simply jot down your daily activities and the time they take in a spreadsheet or your Cloudberry journal. You might discover, for instance, that you spend an entire hour fetching takeout for dinner while cooking a meal at home would only require 30 minutes.
Make use of the time management quadrant
Whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed with all the tasks on your calendar, it’s a good idea to categorize all your responsibilities into four groups. Here’s how to do it:
- Quadrant one: important and urgent tasks (like paying your bills or getting to work on time).
- Quadrant two: important but not urgent tasks (such as spending quality time with children or friends).
- Quadrant three: tasks that are urgent but not important (for example, answering the phone when it rings).
- Quadrant four: tasks that are neither important nor urgent (like watching Netflix or scrolling through TikTok).
With this method (created by the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Corvey), it will be easier to manage your time and focus on what truly matters to you.
Try the two-minute rule Prioritize tasks that have a bigger impact
A good hack to improve your productivity is to follow the two-minute rule. It’s simple – whenever you have a task that would take less than two minutes to finish, do it (even if there’s a project that would take four hours to finish). This will give you a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.
When you’re putting together your to-do list, prioritize tasks that have a bigger impact. For instance, remember to make your bed. This chore doesn’t take much time and effort but will have a huge effect on your room’s overall appearance.
As you go through your responsibilities and tasks, you’
Avoid interruptions
Interruptions are what steal our valuable time. If you have a tight deadline or are working on a time-sensitive project, try to limit them as possible.
For instance, put your phone on silent. Put a ‘do not disturb’ sign on your door. Log out of your email. Even a seamlessly innocent interruption can distract you from your responsibilities, making the project take much longer than necessary.
End notes
Time management is simple in theory but harder to put into practice. However, once you learn how to make the most of your time, you’ll see how much more you’ll accomplish.
And if you ever feel like doing nothing – remember – that’s okay too. You can be a productivity queen one day and a Netflix princess the other day.
