Practical Time Management Tips That Work - Organize Your Time

I'm opening up another page on this blog, i.e., cleaning up and organizing your life and work. Decluttering and organization are skills that span through every facet of our lives; hence I'm excited to put more effort into this type of content. We each have 24 hours in the day, so organizing one's time is crucial to achieving peace of mind and productivity. Let's start with these practical time management tips that work in the home, business, or place of employment:

10+ Time-Saving Tips That Work

If you have more to do than you have time to do it in, you're not alone. Unfortunately, regardless of how much society advances with new technology that's supposed to enable us to do more in less time, there never seems to be enough time to do everything you need.

But what if you could essentially add another hour or two to your day? How would you use that time?

While you can't add time, you can free up additional time with these techniques:

1. Eliminate unnecessary tasks

Maybe you have too many things to do! Take a detailed look at your life and determine if there are any tasks that you're doing that are simply unnecessary. There are bound to be a few things you can eliminate from your life without suffering any negative impact. Ask yourself if it's necessary to vacuum your home daily (for example).

2. Delete social media accounts

Social media platforms can be valuable, but they are also great timewasters. There's also a lot of evidence that social media use can be harmful to your mental health.

Consider deleting your social media accounts and picking up the phone once in a while to check in on your friends and family the old-fashioned way.

I have this hack that works for me, whereby I don't include some social media apps on my mobile phone but reserve them solely for use when I'm on my laptop. That saves me a lot of time once these are no longer in the palm of my hand.

3. Don't bring your mobile phone to the bathroom

The principle applies to newspapers and magazines as well. The time spent in the bathroom browsing the internet, chatting, or reading while on your porcelain throne adds to the clutter in your life. Do your business, and come out to attend to the business of the day.

4. Disable notifications

Do you need to be notified of every text, email, and app activity in real-time? Turn all of it off and take a quick peek every few hours to see if you're missing something important. Chat groups on apps like Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, and Telegram have this nifty function that allows you to mute certain groups. Take advantage of that and declutter the noise.

5. Avoid perfection 

Some tasks require a high level of attention. Others do not. It's unnecessary to clean out your closet with the same level of perfection as a surgeon performing a liver transplant. Ask yourself how well a task needs to be done and perform it at an appropriate level of effort and detail.

6. Ask yourself how you can do this task better and faster

Are you sure you're taking the best route to work? Are you cleaning your house efficiently? Think about every task you do regularly and search for a more efficient way of doing it.

7. Outsource 

It's possible to outsource much of your life. No one can eat, sleep, or exercise for you, but you can pay others to do many things for you. 

● Some people will clean, do laundry, mow grass, drive, shop, cook, do your taxes, and build your new deck for you. You don't need to do all these things by yourself. Outsource one of them, and you will free up valuable time that you could spend doing something with a higher return or reward.

● If you live with your spouse and children, split the chores to free up more of your time to do other tasks.

8. Schedule your day 

A decent plan is lightyears better than no plan at all. Think about what you need to accomplish and make a list. Stick to your list, and you're bound to get more done in less time each day. I'm a chronic procrastinator, so time blocking works the best for me, i.e., I allow a certain amount of time to start and finish a task before starting it (be it home or work-related tasks). Time blocking also helps me to dedicate a particular block of time to a given task only.

9. Track your time

Where are you wasting time? How are you spending all of your time? You might be surprised where your time is going if you've never taken a hard look at it.

● Spend a couple of days logging your tasks and how much time you spend on them. Pay particular attention to the time spent on electronic devices and other amusing activities.

You could be spending too much time in the bath every morning. Why not switch to the shower and reserve the tub for the evenings? How much time do you spend watching television, chatting online, etc.?

10. Mealtimes & Preparation

Meals and their preparation take more time than we realize. You have to shop for the food, cook it, eat it, and clean up afterward. If you eat three meals a day and prepare them from scratch every day, that's a lot of time. Plan the meals (a week or month, even) and try to cook in big batches that you can freeze ahead of time. With the correct food storage containers, this is will as easy as pie.

Some meals are much quicker than others. A sandwich and a piece of fruit is less time and work than roasting a chicken, making mashed potatoes and washing pots and pans. Reserve the intricate cooking for your less busy days.

Shop for foods that are easy to prepare and have minimal cleanup. Also, shop as infrequently as possible. Each trip to the store can take an hour or more.

You can't make a day last longer, but you create additional hours by being more effective, more efficient, and reducing unnecessary tasks and responsibilities. The time saved by dropping some various activities will allow you to achieve higher productivity in other areas.

I hope these time management tips will work for you, as they do for me. What time management techniques work for you, be it at home, work, or school?