The wrath of ill time management creates havoc in our personal and professional lives. Life happens, you woke up late, you hit traffic at a snail’s pace, arrive late at the morning meeting already frustrated with the tiny world you’re living in.

Alternatively, you wake up one day randomly on time, hitting office before time, making yourself a strong cappuccino, and meeting deadlines one after the another. That could be a rare day to occur.

It can be your day-to-day life as there are ways to reclaim those seemingly elusive lost hours of the day, week, and year. That’s what time management is – manage your time instead of letting it manage you.

We got 10 easily executed tips that let you hit the right spot every minute, every hour. Let’s get started –

Figure out what?

If you need to optimize personal time management, you need to figure out what daily activities you are doing, and how much time you’re giving it to them. Simply log your time for a week by tracking your daily activities. This audit reveals –

1. How much time you’re giving to the important task of the day?

2. Feasibility level to accomplish your particular task in a day.

3. Identify distractions

4. Focus on activities that offer the greatest returns monetarily or personally.

This activity will help you seek clarity on time spent on unproductive thoughts and activities of the particular day.

Stick to your daily schedule

This tip is crucial that help you manage your time effectively at work and home. Before you leave home, create a list of the most pressing tasks of the day. This step allows you to subconsciously indulge in the task as soon as you get to the office.

Putting everything on paper will prevent you from lying awake at night tossing and turning over the tasks running through your brain.

Prioritize

After organizing your to-do list prioritize is the key to the effective execution of your daily work schedule. You eliminate the task that shouldn’t be performing in the first place. Rather than focusing on the one or two important tasks that need to be fixed now.

Read Steven Covey’s book First Thing First where he gives insights on prioritizing the tasks based on importance and urgency.

Club Similar Tasks

Save yourself from stress and mental exhaustion by trying to accomplish similar kinds of tasks before moving on to the heterogeneous ones. For example, schedule a separate time to read all the newsletters that you have subscribed to.

Do not multitask

Avoid the urge to multitask as it breeds all the unwanted distractions. It is definitely a tempted move, in the long run, you’re losing time, and cut loose your productivity when switching from one task to another.

Include timely breathers

The most rewarding part of time management is when uniform breaks between work become part of your schedule. When you’re through with your task, it’s time to breathe and go for an easy stroll to recharge some meditation, or for a table tennis quickie.

Stand up to Say NO!

You would never ever be able to execute the most important things and work and home if you don’t learn to say how to say no.

For instance, if your boss calls you on weekends to give you more work, you can very creatively say no. You may be important at your workplace, but not so much that the company would fall down.

You need to get organized!

Little things make a difference. Solve your day-to-day problems or for say, tiny problems to move to the bigger ones. If you want to be effective at time management, hit everything on time, or unsubscribe to the things that are creating a huddle. You only have to do this once. In the long run, there would only be benefits and nothing else.

Kill Distractions!

Social media, messages, texts, emails – there are no boundaries to distractions. Shut that digital door to multi interruptions. A key to time management is being proactive about getting rid of all things that block productivity.