Effective Time Management Strategies for Work and Students

Effective time management strategies are the means to the most valuable resource on earth, time. Time waits for no man but a stitch in time saves nine. Here are effective time management strategies for students and work.

Effective Time Management Strategies

• Create a checklist

Checklists may seem long and you just might forget to actually check the list but it is one of the most effective time management strategies. A checklist will help you keep track of the things you need to do and those you have accomplished.

All you need to do is create a list of things you need to do for the day or the week, the satisfaction you feel when you check things off the list will motivate you to do more.

• Create a schedule

Sometimes, we waste our time not knowing what to do and when. Another one of the great effective time management strategies is creating a schedule. A schedule is a rundown of things you need to do and when, within a given period. It could be done daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or even yearly.

Schedules are grown up time tables. It helps us allot the right time and enough time to tasks. Schedules are great for managing time.

• Have a back-up plan

When you fail to plan, you plan to fail, as the saying goes. However, you can’t always foresee circumstances,, hence, we must have a backup plan. This is one of the effective time management strategies nobody ever tells you about. They seem to skip their back up plan in their success stories.

An unforeseen circumstance can cause you to lose time you did not bargain to lose. The absence of a back-up plan will double that time lost because you will be too busy being emotional about it. Want to know how to manage time for students or work? Create a back-up plan.

• Use a timer

A timer might be the most overlooked app feature on our phone clocks. A good number of people only focus on timers in the kitchen, on the run and alarms they snooze in the morning.  A timer will help you pick up your speed, learn how long it takes you to complete specific tasks and effective ways to manage this time the best. A timer is a great time management strategy

• Prioritise

Prioritising will help you arrange your task in order of the most important task to the least important one.  By so doing you’re deploying an effective time management strategy such that you can now devote enough time to more important tasks and also throw in some less important ones in between as you progress. This saves you from rushing and instant blow blacks.

How to Manage Time for Students

• Create a timetable

The 18 to 20 years you spend in school is guided by carefully drafted timetables. From lesson timetables to school calendars. If you look closely, a calendar is just a grand timetable. Time management for students starts with your timetable. It’s not enough to have a lesson timetable; you need your own personal timetable. This timetable will help you manage our spare time and fulfil your needs.

• Do not procrastinate

Procrastination is the thief of time.  Procrastination just leaves you with a ton of time wasted, lots of undone work and probably all shabby work is done. Time management for students requires that you do not procrastinate. Do your work as at the time you get it or the initial time you planned to do it. You just might get better grades or awards.

• Set aside your social media

Social media platforms release new updates like news every day. With each update comes a more engaging feature that causes people to drown their time in it. The content online can be just as educative, however, too much exciting content can distracting. This makes setting aside social media is good time management for students. The favourite Instagrammers and YouTubers will be glad you learned your own craft undistracted like they did.

• Get organised

Most of the time we lose as students is from not knowing what needs to be done at a given time or not having all your resources organised to execute these tasks within the allotted time. Time management for students begins and ends with getting organised.

For instance, a disorganised closet will keep you from having a great and easy view of all you have at the same time. This will cause you to shovel through clothes, which takes time. Disorganised books will have you doing the same and taking the wrong lesson notes. A disorganised schedule will have you forgetting things thus, losing time.

• Plan your day ahead

The night before, pack your school bags and your needed passes and IDs for the following day. Meal prep for lunch or breakfast will save some time in the morning. Also, picking out your next day’s outfit or possible choices will save you the trial and error feud you engage in with yourself after you bathe. This is what you call time management for students.

Time Management for Work

• Set goals

Set goals to improve productivity as productivity can easily be converted to time management for work. An improved productivity level saves time like a stitch in nine. Having goals to work towards motivates you to finish and a motivated person does work faster and better than a counterpart who is not motivated at all.

• Say no

Sometimes, time management for work only requires that you say no to things you did not bargain for and cannot be accommodated or should not be accommodated. For instance, say no to your colleagues who want you to try out a new restaurant at break time when you could be getting spilt work done, or catching up on some rest time to help you regain energy to complete the day. Time management for work is saying no to a work night of fun knowing full well it will leave you messed up in the morning.

• Batch similar tasks together

Batching similar tasks together saves time as you can multitask by doing them simultaneously.  Similar tasks can be done along the lines of each other.  Sort the work reports in their appropriate folders as you write the reports.  This will help you save new reports in their assigned folders and categorise the mixed files.

• Set reminders, mark your calendar

Humans are imperfect and bound to forget. Forgetfulness costs us time. It is an effective time management strategy to set reminders. These reminders will ring at the time you are to do certain tasks. If you are already on course of a different task, this reminder will allow you a lot a different but still comfortable time to carry out this task.