Akin to fire, time is a great servant but a cruel master. When time bends its will, it is an endless font of creativity and productivity. Inversely, if you fail to quell the tempestuous nature of time, it becomes a fleeting phenomenon; it vanishes in the blink of an eye! As described in previous Hippo features, time went, can never be retrieved from the ether. The illustrious bodybuilder, Frank Zane, once said: “the present is a micro-second fiction, I can’t even begin to put it into diction. The past won’t stay, as time slips away.” Therefore, as an ambitious go-getter, it is vital that you use the time afforded to you wisely. But where does one start?
Initially, the challenge may seem overwhelming, so take it one step at a time! Today, we’ll be discussing the importance of time management, and novel practices to bring order and structure to your life!
The “Importance” Index
This is arguably, the easiest step to implement, and it is highly applicable to occupations of all industries. Firstly, refer to your “to-do list”. Naturally, some hierarchies soon start to emerge, and some tasks take precedence over others. If you’re a tradie, bricklaying at a construction site is a far more significant task than say, replenishing the stationery for your home office. Conversely, if you’re a manager, competing business activities would rank as more urgent than others. Some tasks are and should be prioritised over others.
That’s where the importance index comes in. Using a colour-coded system (red being the most important, yellow medium, and green the least important), organize your tasks based on their respective levels of importance. This is a highly encouraged practise prior to mapping out your schedule, placing the urgent tasks at the forefront. And this neatly ties into the following section:
Time Blocks within “Time Blocks”
There’s always a prescient temptation to say yes to every profit-producing opportunity before realising that your schedule is stuffed to the brim. Reneging on your obligations would permanently tarnish your reputation as a working professional. Breaking down your workdays into time-blocks is one such way to tackle your workload without being overwhelmed.
Essentially, Time-Blocking entails breaking down your workday into blocks of time, with each block representing a different achievable. Broadly speaking, that’s how most people schedule their day-to-day activities! So why repeat what is already known?
Unfortunately, sometimes competing deliverables may have to be pushed forward. A rigid schedule would not have the elbow room to accommodate sudden changes. When “large” blocks of time are used as units of measure, tasks that are pushed backed may encroach into these “large blocks”, already assigned to another important activity. Juggling confounding responsibilities is, therefore, an erratic process that is constantly evolving as conditions change.
To bypass these structural limitations, further reduce larger time-blocks into smaller, fixed units of time to account for spontaneous changes. For example, imagine task B having to be pushed forward, eating into your allocated time for Task A. Task B is a task that requires an hour of your time, whereas Task A requires 3 hours. If the “smaller” unit of time being used here is “1 hour”, Task B can be squeezed within the time designated for Task A. However, this requires you to multi-task, switching between tasks; a practice that will take some time (no pun intended) to grow accustomed to. But practice makes perfect. This is a wonderful tool for navigating a tight schedule, whilst taking Murphy’s Law into account.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, imparting much-needed breaks in between tasks is another wonderful way to replenish lost energy. Give yourself ample time to catch a short breather or two!
Play Now, Work Later:
In behavioural economics, there is a psychological heuristic called present-day bias. It captures our wanton desire for instant gratification. If it benefits us, we want it now!
Picture yourself working in an office, and you receive a digital notification informing you that the Star Wars IX trailer had just been released. The temptation to watch it is palpable, but you’re in the midst of an important zoom meeting. You try to resist, but ten minutes down the line, you capitulate and fall down the rabbit hole of obsessing over Star Wars lore. Your present-day desire to see it immediately sidestepped your task discipline. That’s how distractions operate. Ironically, if you had watched it earlier, the likelihood of you getting further distracted by additional material would have been lowered!
In different circumstances, people with present-day biases are either self-aware or un-self-aware. Now that I made you privy to this knowledge, give yourself a reasonable amount of wiggle room to be distracted earlier. Doing so reinforces your adherence to your work tasks. The intuition behind such a model is similar to the Pomodoro Timer, but this approach considers your personal limitations.
Instead of constantly blaming yourself, incorporate timed distractions as a moment’s respite from work. Accept what you are, and what you are not. Instead of trying to work beyond your limitations, work around them!
But Why?
If you still remain unconvinced, ask yourself this: how would you like to spend the 10 hours in your workday? If your answer is “productively”, then time management is clearly relevant to you! Attached below is a downloadable checklist that covers additional steps to efficacious time management. Meet its criteria, and you’ll become a master of time management in no time (pun intended)!
But should you find yourself short on time after implementing the steps above, consider hiring a virtual assistant (VA)!
There’s only so much time in the world, and no one is meant to tackle such a voluminous workload alone; hiring a VA allows you to systemise backdoor operations, freeing adequate time for you to manage an ever-growing list of projects. The cost-to-entry is nothing compared to the return-on-investment from employing a VA!
Contact our team at HIPPO today, and we’ll respond to your queries as soon as possible!
