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Time management is one of the essential strategies of planning out your available time and controlling the amount of time you spend on specific tasks in order to work more efficiently. Effective time management might seem to be easier to achieve for some people than for others, but everyone can develop habits to improve their time management skills. Without strong time management, your work and wellbeing can suffer, and it can lead to:
Missing Deadlines
Producing Poor Quality Work
Increasing Your Stress Levels
Harming Your Professional Reputation
Ruining Your Work-Life Balance
Learning how to manage your time efficiently allows you to accomplish your goals in a shorter period of time and there are a lot of benefits that would come along with it such as, having more free time for yourself, helping you focus better, allowing you to be more productive, lowering your stress, and giving you more time to spend with the people that matter most more time freedom, helps you focus better, allows you to be more productive, lowers your stress and gives you more time to spend with the people that matter most. Better time management will not only help increase your productivity but reduce potential distractions and procrastination.
That being said, you can then get to prioritize and finish the most important or pressing tasks first in the most efficient way. And most importantly following a task schedule reduces anxiety which would help build up a healthier and more comfortable working environment or mentality. As you check off items on your “to-do” list, you can see that you are making tangible progress. This helps you avoid feeling stressed out worrying about whether you’re getting things done.
After considering the benefits of time management, let’s look at some ways to manage time effectively:
Prioritize Wisely
Prioritize each task based on importance and urgency. If you’ve got too much to do, no amount of time management will help you accomplish it all. Now that you’ve created a time audit, you’ll be able to see if you simply need to better manage your time or if you simply just got too much on your plate and you would want to adjust your workload.
Important And Urgent: Do it right away.
Important But Not Urgent: Decide when to do it.
Urgent But Not Important: Delegate it if possible.
Not Urgent And Not Important: Set it aside to do later.
Organize Yourself
Utilize your calendar for more long-term time management. Write down the deadlines and set notifications for projects, or you can also create a checklist that consists of all the tasks that should be done to complete the project. Lastly, think about how you can better prioritize the different tasks and when might be the best time for you to perform each of these tasks.
Plan Ahead
Make sure you start every day with a clear idea of what you need to do and what needs to get done THAT DAY. Consider making it a habit to, at the end of each workday, go ahead and write out your “to-do” list for the next workday. That way you can hit the ground running the next morning.
Put a Time Limit On Tasks
If you give yourself 2 hours or unlimited time to finish a one-hour-work, you would undoubtedly end up taking more than 2 hours getting it done. Put a time limit on each of your tasks to prevent procrastination and possible distraction that might decrease your productivity. And also, always pay attention to the tasks that always take longer than you expected. However, you still find yourself going beyond these time limits, examining your workflow, and determining if you should assign more time to those tasks in the future. You can also try eliminating time-wasters like unscheduled breaks.
Be One Day Early
Many people believe they work best under the intense pressure of a deadline and will put off work until the day before it’s due. However, for most this isn’t actually the case. As we all know, most of the time, we would just spend more time and effort on finishing the project than we previously thought. It is always safer to set it earlier.
Set an earlier deadline for yourself and stick to it. Plan to submit your work one day ahead of schedule.
Batch Similar Tasks Together
When you have related works, batch them together. For example, don’t answer your emails and phone calls throughout the day. Schedule a specific time to handle these tasks. Different tasks demand different types of thinking. By batching related tasks together, your brain doesn’t really have to switch gear while doing them- which means you cut out that time reorienting.
Establish Routine
While at work, create a routine that makes the most sense for your position. Why is this important? For starters, if a chaotic day comes along, you can still work through the issue while adhering to your routine. By sticking to your routine, you won’t be able to procrastinate. Most importantly, your mental health and stress levels will thank you.
Being a virtual assistant can be very fulfilling for self-motivated people, so long as you manage your time effectively. Those are my top tips for enhancing productivity and managing your time wisely. Have you used some of these techniques as a virtual assistant to improve your workflow? Are there other strategies you prefer? I invite you to join us here in Virtudesk and follow us on our social media accounts- it is jam-packed with great tips that anyone can benefit from.
If you are interested in becoming an excellent virtual assistant, submit your resume and fill out this form. We offer paid training and operational support to our pool of virtual assistants. You’ll also get access to our client profile instead of looking everywhere for the right client whose needs match your services.
We are hiring for the Executive Virtual Assistant (EVA) and Inside Sales Associate (ISA) roles. Previous virtual assistant experience is not required, but at least six months of call center experience is required.
Recommended Reading:
- Critical Skills Every Virtual Assistant Should Possess
- Virtual Assistant Checklist
- Beat Background Noise with These Free Apps
- Qualities Of A Competitive Virtual Assistant
