Important of Time Management Skills Techniques for Students

So we kick off this article with a quote from William Penan that says time is what we want most but what we use worst and that is very true. You can never get more time. You can always have more money but you can never get more time. So most people think that time management is about arriving for work on time or leaving on time.

But for those of us who want to be truly productive and successful. Time management is a skill which is to be learned and then improved upon these skills are about managing time that you have said that is not wasted and that for every one of the 1440 minutes that you get in a day you can look back and say I didn’t waste a single one in this lecture.

I’m going to outline some of my top time management skills.

I won’t expect everybody to agree with these skills and if not please you’re more than welcome to leave a discussion leave a comment in the discussion section and I can get back to you and we can discuss

what you think should read this article. We start with the big one.

Time management

So for me time management is like financial management and the first thing you do when getting a handle on your finances is you start to track every penny so you know where it’s being spent and it’s the exact same time management.

You need to know where your time is being spent and if it’s being spent wastefully or productively and to help me know where I’ve been spending my time I use a tool called Rescue time so you can go to their web site and download the free version and the premium version. I use the free version.

So when I first installed rescue time I set myself to goves spend more than four hours per day on work projects and spend less than one hour per day on distractions and distractions I mean reading the news Facebook for personal use and checking Twitter for example, things that are things that everybody has different distractions some people might use Twitter on Facebook for work. But for me, I don’t. So they are distractions.

So when you first said it best you time it ask you to categorize some items. For example, my CRM system is categorized as productive. And Facebook is categorized as distracting. So you can go through the list at rescue time gives you all of the Web sites that you’ve been visiting and spending time on and then label them as productive or distracting. And then at the end of the week you’ll know exactly where your time is going.

And also what I love about rescue time is that I can see exactly where I’ve been spending my time and I can tell immediately by looking at their charts and graphs if I’ve been spending too much time on distracting activities and I know what to call out.

So for example again if I’m spending too much time on Facebook I know that I need to download little to block Facebook when I’m trying to be focused and get something done. So like I said there’s a free version and a premium version and it’s up to you which one to choose.

I used the free version and a premium version offers tools such as blocking Web sites such as Facebook which you might find too distracting if you can’t install rescue time then good old fashioned pen and paper will work just as well.

I use used this method and every morning I would open my diary make a note of the task I had just completed and how long it took to complete I would do this others on Facebook or writing a business proposal. Then at the end of each day or week I would go through my diary and see where my time had been spent and where I could spend it better.

Do With Planning and Goals

Now that you know where your time is being spent you need to plan out your day so that you can make the most of the time that you do have. This is one of my absolute must do tasks every evening. There’s no point in sitting down at your desk and spending an hour or two trying to figure out what you should be doing that day.

Article About Goal Setting

Start on Sunday evening and I write down everything that I would like to get done for the next day not everything that I would get done but everything that I would like to get done. So this is not a to-do list. It is a like to-do list and also now is a good time for me to say something that you will hear me repeatedly say throughout this article. You must accept that you cannot do everything. So there will be times when you can’t get everything on your list done.

So last Sunday my To-Do list for Monday morning was 44 45 items long after I’d written them all down. I picked my top three for the next day and highlighted them. I know and I know that if I get those trade on everything else after that is a bonus. And how do I put that list together.

Well you’ll know that I set about my physical and digital inbox to create my To-Do list.

I go through what I filed on their actions and I added to my list to simple as that as I create my To-Do list. I find that some tasks rely on getting Autozone forest and that’s OK. Simply Mattos as your first priority after have completed the task and make sure to put a green big green tick mark beside it because that makes me feel good and like I’m moving to my list. Planning your day is essential to being productive.

There is no point in getting up in the morning and as I said spending two hours trying to figure out what needs to be done instead of you planned the night before you can hit the ground running the next day. Also clears up your mind. How do you sleep better.

Another advantage of doing this is for those days when you just can’t get motivated when you find yourself sitting at your computer with zero motivation and believe you.

It happens to us all so don’t worry about it and don’t be too hard on yourself when you have those days. But what you can do is turn to your to-do list and start knocking them off one at a time. Just take the first one. Get through it. Then the next one and the next one and you’ll find out your motivation. Without you even really trying just working on your To-Do list starts to build a To-Do list. One of your most basic weapons in your battle to embellish writer creative.

Agendas

When I say agendas what do I mean. I’m talking about list for my cold’s in my meetings. So for example, if I have a call with my lawyer or somebody that I’m doing business with 15 minutes before the call I would pull a point call the questions that I want to ask. Everything that I want to know and that I want to get done on the call. So this way when I’m finished a call I’m confident and I’ve asked everything I need to.

So for example, last week I got a call my solicitor with my lawyer and I had five or six items just tick boxed on a piece of paper. And as we were discussing I just went through each item on the list and tick them off as I asked the question.

It saves both my time and either person’s time as I don’t have to repeatedly go backward follow questions follow up phone calls or emails and that advantage of doing this is that your agenda list will save you enormous amount of time and most likely money. Some professions charge per call per hour.

Accept what you don’t know

No matter how well you plan your day Ting’s will happen. The server will crash. A colleague will call in sick your new client will want revised the deadline whatever it is you need to realize that even the perfect plan cannot survive contact with the unknown. And that’s OK. There will be days when you won’t get everything from your list done. You may not even get a single thing from it done and that’s OK.

You need to make a commitment to yourself right now that when things get in the way you can let them go and when necessary. Forgive yourself.

Spending 20 minutes in the toilet chastising yourself will not make you more productive. Instead take a deep breath and know that it’s OK. When something unexpected happens experience direction is not upright a set of tools which you can use to forthwith eliminate you many cultivable.

Instead it is a set of acquired skills which you can develop forgiveness and patience are part of your skill set.

Take some time for yourself

Somebody you ever wished that you could withdraw the Do Not Move part domestic from a hotel shack and use it when things get combatant. I have more than once as I said previously. Time management is not just about tools we employ It’s also about developing the right mental skills. Another one of those skills is being able to take some time for yourself. One great tip for this is to some personal time your candor.

I have a shared office calendar with my team so that they always know where I am or who I am meeting with or occasionally I’ll add in a general out of the office meeting and use after time for myself. It could be as simple as sitting in a coffee shop relaxing or reading a book.

It doesn’t matter what matters is that every now and again it takes some time for yourself and it a great way to take some time yourself to meditate and I meditate every morning.

I use an app called Headspace which I get more into to later lectures. I won’t go into it now but you may want to start looking into it now.

Delegation

Delegation is not a great time management and productivity skill when you’re working for yourself as part of a team. You might be thinking what’s the point in delegating as it’s just me or just me and the other guy over there. I used to think like this until one day I pass the task over to a colleague and something completely unexpected happen to task got done. I updated declined and everybody was happy. Delegation is not most effective grouping what to do. It’s about trust.

Passing a task to someone else does not mean that you cannot do it. Rather it means that you have chosen not to do it. And that’s the distinction that you have to make to yourself as the owner of a small business or a leader of a team you have more important things to be doing. Do you really need to be the one that’s creating a spreadsheet of names to cold call to try and get the next sale. No. Rather you should be the one making the calls and getting the sales.

Let someone else do the things that someone else can do and free up your time to start concentrating on the things that will increase your revenue your turnover and help your business grow. Now many people are nervous about handing tasks over to someone else and understandably so. They’ve been on the own for so long that they don’t trust and you want to get things done or to land themselves.

Some people just feel like they have to do it themselves for it to be done right. But you cannot grow with this attitude and believe you me things will start to fall through the cracks. And before you know it runs and growing your business you are fighting to save us. So start small. Pick a non-critical task and delegate it. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results.

Time Management Skills

His record keeping and organization now for me this is a biggie because I am terrible at record keeping. I lose everything if I have a meeting with a client in a coffee shop I lose a receipt for my expenses every year.

I dread doing my end of year accounts Where’s the receipt for the client dinner last June. I have no idea where’s your receipt for that piece of software we purchased last week. I have no idea. So recordkeeping and organization is key. A clean desk means you can be more productive a clean mind means you have more time to focus on what really matters.

So keeping everything in a place where you know where it’ll be will free your mind up for more important tasks. I mean when you think about it do you really need to be wondering where you put this month’s rent invoice when you should be focused on the client presentation you have tomorrow. No, absolutely not.

To help with this tact to help with this skill I would recommend you start by reading Getting Things Done by David Allen. Now it’s a long read so you’ll have to stick with it.

But if you don’t have time to read it then one of the most important things you can do is this. Create an outside brain and I have several ways of doing this on my desk. I have a very simple entry into it. I put receipts invoices post-its and anything else noncritical put I will need to be filed away or I’ll need to remember at some stage at the NDA at the end of every week.

I call Trood process what needs to be done and then file it away. Sometimes things have become obsolete so I throw them out and away I keep a record of everything is my notebook. I carry a notebook everywhere no matter what. And it’s hot idea called return or to do goes into it. This way I can shine finished it and then touch what needs to be done. And finally I use Evernote for all things digital that need to be recorded.

I have never not set up as if it were a real filing cabinet notebooks from 8 to Z and then I simply dropped the digital files into them whenever I need to find something. All they have to do is type in the name and up it pops. They also tag everything for easier reference.

When you have your off line online filing system set up you can start to implement the philosophy of one touch only. Everything that you receive by physically or digitally should only ever need to be touched by you once. Just got emailed an invoice from a supplier.

File it under the cracked letter in Evernote and set a reminder when it’s due to be paid and that’s it. Setting up these processes correctly will free up your mind and time to focus on more important tasks.

Time is Gold

So although the title of this aritcle is time management. Managing time is not completely possible. You can exclusive deal how you use your term. There are one thousand four hundred forty minutes in every day and in his book 15 secrets. Successful people know that time management. Kevin Cruz tells us that is how you spend those 1440 minutes that count.

So the skills of time management skills you need to use your time effectively. How do you see. How do you decide to use your time. The answer lies in your goals when setting goals start and work backwards discourse. It’s not just about telling you how to become more productive. It’s also about giving you the benefit of my experience in the past.

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made when setting goals is not telling people about them and by people I mean your partner your parents or your friends. If you don’t tell people what you were doing and why then how can you expect them to understand. To help and to give you a time when you need it most as either Muska said people work better when they know the goal and the why.

So start telling people in your life what you’re up to. Trust me It’ll make things a lot easier.

Saying ‘No’

We are going to talk about one of the biggest problem pro-activity apps and I can start to save you time right now. If you read any time management or productivity book eventually you will come across a line that says Say no more often. And the reason this tape is mentioned so many times is because it is one of the most powerful tools to becoming more productive. Not only that it is also one of the quickest and easiest things that you can do right now to instantly increase your productivity. Think about it for every yes you give it and know to something else.

So before you say YES take a breath consider what you are saying yes to and then consider whether or not you should say no. Saying no. Frees you up for what tasks matter and believe you me. It is far better to say no than giving a yes when you dont mean it or when you have that saying no frees you up from other peoples expectations because when you say yes it is never something that is important to you for a long time.

Ive been unable to say no instead saying yes to almost everything my friends and colleagues would call me the yes man. To me does seemed like a good thing. I kept people happy and got stuff done put a house of cards that you cannot keep building on.

Eventually you will have a packed calendar and possible deadlines and burnout although by saying yes I might have temporarily kept people happy in the end it all came crashing down and I had to say no and let people down. So again before you say yes take a breath and consider what you were saying yes to give no a try. Youll be pleasantly surprised.

Priorities

Finally we’ll talk about your priorities me my priorities are linked my goals are broken down by day by week by month by quarter. Six months on yearly so every day I ask myself what do I need to do today that will help me complete my daily go. Thats my priority for today. My priorities are what move my goals forward. I usually try and keep my number of parodies below 1 degree per day. Today are my top time management tips.