Are there never enough hours in the day?  With work, relationships and your own personal goals, how are you ever meant to fit in?  With our time management tips and tricks, you will be well on your way to succeeding in everything you dream of.

What common challenges do we face?

Before we begin our top tips, it is important to consider the challenges we face. Examples of this can include:

• No end game: How do we know the task is complete? With a clear start and finish, we know when one goal begins and another ends. For example, you may want to choose a new career.
• Not prioritising your tasks: If we always begin our list with the easier tasks, we never work our way to the bigger harder goals we want to complete.
• Disorganisation: A list here and a list there? With everything we need being everywhere, it is harder to tick things off our list.
• Inefficient planning: When we begin new goals, we need to have a clear roadmap to follow.
• Distractions: With the pinging of social media going off every 10 minutes, it is time to silence your distractions.
• No end game: How do we know the task is complete? With a clear start and finish we know when one goal begins and another ends.

Where do we begin?

Now we know our biggest challenges, we need to know how to tackle them. Let’s break it down:

Let’s Prioritise

What matters the most to you? To fit them big goals in we need to find where our time is spent now. Take a few days to track each task you complete; this will help you to uncover how you are really spending your time.

Once You have a list of tasks to tackle throughout the day, prioritise the highest and lowest of importance. Once you have done this you can schedule higher priority items earlier in the day when you are most focused.

For example, are you wanting to complete an English or Maths course? Try to find a flexible course you can take. Click here for our English and Maths course.

Organise your environment

Staying organised with a planner or task list is a great but what about the physical clutter around you? Get your files and paper in order Aswell as keeping the space around you clean and comfortable. Avoid the pileup of all different pieces of work being on lots of different pieces of paper, keep it all in one space. If you get rid of the cobwebs in your room, you will get rid of the cobwebs in your mins.

Plan ahead

Schedule times each week to write an agenda and a list of what you need to do in the days ahead. This could be a physical or online agenda. Work out any upcoming deadlines so you don’t have to panic and rush anything that needs to be done.

Time to focus

It’s time to mute the notifications, shut down the emails and block the websites that distract you. We need to advocate for ourselves sometimes and do the very annoying task of shutting down all our distractions. Throw in a pair of noise cancelling headphones and you should be in your own bubble.

Let’s make decisions easier

For smaller decisions use the 2 minute rule, do not think on it for more than 2 minutes. We also need to give ourselves less choice, for lunch is it a soup or sandwich?  Nope a salad Is not an option.

For bigger decisions, give yourself a reasonable time frame to weigh up the options. Maybe you want to sleep on the decision and decide in the morning how you feel.

Have a little wiggle room

Give your schedule some wiggle room for unexpected tasks. This will help you to not feel overloaded when a new task pops up .

For appointments allow extra travel time and in-between meeting breathers to allow you to refocus. This will give you time to re-centre yourself and go into a meeting with a fresh mind.

It’s time to say NO!

It can be difficult to say no when someone asks you for a favour and sometimes you may be happy to do it.  If it is going to overload your schedule, however. It is better to be upfront with your decision and say no.

If this feels hard for you, you might give a suggestion on how else they can delegate their task. Without affecting your time and schedule.

Review and Reflect

Make sure to have a look each week to see what is working for you and what is now. Input changes to your lists and schedules that would work better for you.

Everything is a work in progress so do not feel bed if you aren’t on top of everything straight ways. Consider what is important to you and how you can improve your week without making yourself fell overwhelmed.

Time Management Tools

Here are some extra time management tips and tricks that can help you on your time management journey:

Pomodoro – Break your tasks into 25-minute intervals and separate them by a 5-minute break.

A to do list – Track your schedules Daily and weekly.

Calanders – follow what events and deadlines you have.

Restrict social media – Limit this distraction throughout the day.

Energy management – More energy in the morning? Complete bigger tasks then.

How do I make it stick?

As with building all new habits, you must be consistent to make it stick. Here are some ways to help you continue your new and improved time management habits:

• Take baby steps – Avoid making big changes in your schedule all at once. Change one habit at a time.
• Fail forward – You’ll mess up. Think about why and try another approach.
• Review – Check-up, check-up, check-up – Time management techniques must bring results.
• Embrace flexibility – Knowing exactly how many minutes until we reach a destination can lead to frustration. Adjust as reasonable.
• Share your needs – Share with others that you’re practicing your time management skills. Seek support.
• Time – It takes time to see the payoff. Persist through challenges.

Managing your time is an excellent skill to learn and will reward you throughout your life. By learning these habits you will see what matters most to you, so you can do the things you enjoy and thrive by ticking one task off at a time.