Get more work done in less time so you can spend more time with yourself and your family.
For many working people, their entire day is chaos. The kids, clients, emails, phone calls, deadlines, bills to pay, meetings to attend and family obligations, achieving a work-life balance can get really overwhelming.
There are people who seem to manage all this and seem like they have all the time in the world. But remember, all of us only have 24 hours a day. Some of us manage this time well, many of us don’t. So let’s learn from the people who manage their time well.
I have been on both sides of the table and can pretty much connect with both these groups of people.
#1 Focus on one task at a time
Corporate America seems to appreciate and even consider multi-tasking an adorable skill. Let me tell you multi tasking is one of the worst things you can do.
Time to give multi tasking the boot and focus on one task at a time. If you are checking emails, you only check emails and that’s it. If you are interacting on social media you only interact on social media and that’s it. If you are spending time with family or kids, you only spend time with family. That’s it! No work related phone calls.
For many people this may look like a new habit and may feel strange at first. But eventually you will get used to it and start enjoying the additional time and focus you achieve from this habit.
When this new habit got instilled in me for the first time, I was so used to chaos that I felt I wasn’t doing any work. But the truth was I was doing more work than I previously did in much lesser time.
#2 Don’t go to bed without making a schedule
I always make a schedule the night or the evening before I go to bed. When you make a schedule, assign a block of time for each task. One block of time for one task only. If you are checking emails, you assign say 30 minutes for checking emails and you only check emails during that time. If you assign 30 minutes for social media, you do your social media tasks in those 30 minutes only.
Remember, you do not need to check your emails every hour. There are people who check their emails only once a day.
Social media is taking up so much of people’s time because of unnecessary chit chatting, so you schedule let’s say 30 minutes a day for social media and stop once that 30 minutes is done. Use a timer if you think it helps. Most cell phones nowadays have a timer in them.
#3 Delegate or eliminate tasks
Almost every person has some task or the other that isn’t getting him towards his goals. Eliminate that task or if it is a task that has to be done, try to delegate it to somebody.
#4 Write down your goals
This is another very crucial part of being productive. Most people have no idea what they want out of their lives. So they just keep jumping from one thing to the other without knowing why they are doing what they are doing.
A famous Guru once said “If you want to go to Mount Everest, make sure every step you take is towards Mount Everest.”
So write down your goals and make sure that every task you do takes you towards your goal.
Feel free to email me if you have any questions.