7 Tips for Improving Time Management For A Better Work-Life Balance

If you’re like most people, your life is probably full of activities that need to get done. There’s work, school, family—and then there are all those little tasks you must complete daily. And if you don’t prioritize them correctly, before long, everything starts to fall apart.

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That’s why it’s essential to effectively manage your time and create systems that make it easier for you to get things done efficiently.

So this guide will share some of the best tips for improving your time management skills. That will help you live a better work-life balance.

With that said, let’s begin!

Top 7 Tips To Improve Your Time Management Skills

Make A To-Do List And Check It Twice

Creating a to-do list is the first step toward becoming more organized. Write down as many tasks as possible without worrying about how long they will take or their priority.

This exercise is called “brain dumping.” It’s important to get everything out of your head so that you can focus on what needs immediate attention.

Next, rank your list by importance and prioritize the items within each category based on the same criteria (if possible).

Finally, assign a deadline for each task. That way, you’ll know when a task should be completed if other impromptu activities happen, causing the delay of the main task. Then, if there are still some tasks remaining on your list at the end of the day, cross them off.

However, leave them in place until tomorrow so you can remember them when planning tomorrow’s schedule. And don’t forget to check them off once completed!

Find The Best Time Tracking And Project Management Tools

Time tracking software is a convenient tool for keeping tabs on how much time is spent on various tasks. These time tracker with screenshots allow you to:

plan your work,
monitor your progress, and
look back at your past work to see how long each activity actually took.

Setting a time estimate for each activity and subtask can help you better manage your time while working on a project, for instance.

Trello and Asana are other useful tools for simultaneously keeping track of multiple projects and tasks. As a result, you can coordinate your personal and work time in a centralized place and juggle multiple tasks.

Because of this, you can avoid getting sidetracked from your regular tasks and instead concentrate on what really matters.

Get Your Priorities In Order

You must learn how to prioritize important tasks to get your priorities in order. The first step is recognizing what really matters and what does not. In fact, there are three types of things that you can do:

Things that are urgent but unimportant (for example, responding to emails)
Things that are important but not urgent (for example, training for a marathon)
Things that are urgent and important (for example, filing your taxes on time).

The second step is knowing how much time each activity requires to fit it into your schedule while still getting everything else done.

The third step is deciding which task will give you the best results in terms of productivity and energy levels—and then doing it first!

Recognize Your Productivity Peaks And Valleys

It’s essential to recognize your productivity peaks and valleys. For example, some people are more productive in the morning, while others get their best work done in the afternoon or at night.

If you are a morning person, you may be tempted to do all your tasks early in the day. However, if you’re not getting as much done as you think, you might consider scheduling some of those tasks later.

For example, let’s say you tend to fall asleep during meetings or find yourself distracted during meetings. Maybe scheduling them one or two hours earlier would help give you time for restorative activities before starting work again.

Take Meaningful Breaks

Breaks are essential for your health, so take them as often as you need to. It’s easy to get lost in your work and work for hours without a break. As a result, you might not notice how tired and stressed you are until it’s time for lunch.

So make sure to set the alarm or use a timer app, so you don’t spend too much time on breaks.

Here are some guidelines to help you take breaks:

Take 10-minute breaks every hour or two; don’t go longer than 2 hours without a break.
Do something light and fun, like playing video games or watching YouTube videos. Do anything that helps reduce stress by engaging your brain in a completely different activity than work.

Focus On The Time You Spend On Social Media

Social media is just a distraction, and you can waste a lot of time on it. The problem with social media is that it’s addictive; it’s difficult to reduce how much you use it. But you can control how much time you spend on social media.

If you spend hours on Facebook or Instagram throughout your day, find other ways to use this time. And also, make sure that the hours add up at the end of each week or month to be productive for yourself or others.

Avoid Multitasking; Concentrate On Quality

Here’s some bad news if you like multitasking. Studies show that just about 2% can multitask effectively. Almost everyone else (98%) wastes their time and is less productive when multitasking.

It’s better to concentrate on one thing at a time and really take it in than to split your attention between three things. You can use timeboxing to increase efficiency. It’s the practice of setting deadlines for work, which has been shown to enhance productivity.

Conclusion

The value of time management can be summed up in one word: balance. When you manage your time effectively, you’ll find room for everything that matters most to you: work, personal relationships, hobbies, and self-care.

If you feel like the demands of your job are making it difficult to maintain this balance, then it may be time for a change.

The key here is finding ways to make yourself more productive at work while increasing your relaxation time outside work hours.

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Dan Dunn

Executive Managing editor

Editor and Admin at MarkMeets since Nov 2012. Columnist, reviewer and entertainment writer and oversees all of the section's news, features and interviews. During his career, he has written for numerous magazines.

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