Bad time management can be fatal to small or even larger businesses. As a business owner or manager, you should know how to manage your time properly to get the tasks done and prevent burnout.
Spending time outside of the business is also essential to our wellbeing. Getting enough sleep to function better is also an important aspect. How can you manage a business and your potential employees if your brain does not function at its best?
Let’s dive into the ways you can improve your time management and decrease the negative effects of poor time management.
Have clear deadlines
Deadlines are one way you can manage your time and increase your work efficiency. I have talked about this before, but time is in my opinion a bad indicator of work. If you measure your daily success by results instead of time, you can get much more done in less time.
Clear deadlines help you determine what tasks are the priority at a given time. The closer the deadline is, the more likely you are going to handle the task on hand on time. If the deadline is weeks away, you might work it “half-speed” without even acknowledging it.
On the other hand, urgency can improve your work efficiency. Short and accurate deadlines for different tasks can help.
Use calendar to clear things up
If you have a lot of different meetings, calls, tasks to be done on certain days, calendars could be your best friend. Having a clear schedule for the day filled with different tasks will help you keep on track of them, as well as help you prepare for them.
You can use a calendar app on your phone, a third-party calendar software, or just an old-fashioned paper calendar. This comes down to personal preference, whatever suits you the best.
Have time for your family
It is essential to spend time with your family and friends as well. What is the point of working all the time, if you have no time to enjoy the rewards of your hard work with people you love.
I know you might say, I love my work. That’s great, however; I still would suggest you spend enough time with the people you care about.
Remember to sleep
Sleep is an essential part of our wellbeing. If you do not get enough sleep, your efficiency will suffer. Caffeine can only get you so far, eventually you have to get enough sleep or you can not perform to the best of your ability.
Think about it this way. Let’s say you sleep only 4 hours a night, but due to lack of sleep, you will perform at 75% efficiency. If you increased your sleep to 6 hours for example, you could increase your efficiency to close to 100%.
If you work 10 hours a day, with 4% of sleep, your efficiency being at 75% you would really only work for 7,5 full efficient hours. Whereas if you slept 2 hours more, you would perform at higher efficiency and get the same work done in less time, including the time spent sleeping.
I hope you understand the point, working more is not always equal to achieving more. You have to keep yourself in good condition to perform to the best of your ability. Sleep should not be overlooked or sacrificed. Cutting too much on sleep often comes with consequences for health and performance.
You don’t have to time and schedule everything
All that being said, it is also important to keep in mind that there is no one-size fits all time management system. Some people can do just fine without deadlines, calendars and such. Others might need all the help to keep their time and tasks in order.
Create a system that suits the best for you. Balancing free time with work is essential for wellbeing. A simple rule, for example, that no work after six pm and no work on Sundays, for example, can be just fine. I personally use just that strategy and it has worked perfectly well for me.
I am not saying I work every day until six. If I get my tasks done earlier, I call it a day and have more free time. Of course, there can be exceptions if something important comes up, but in general, that is the rule I follow, and it has been working great.
Final words
Even though I wrote this for business purposes, the points can be used for other things as well. No matter if you are a student, employee or whatever your profession, I hope these things can help you manage your time better and perform to the best of your ability.
Other business-related posts can be found here.
Have a nice day.