Time is money in the business world. When you believe that profit margins are a prime concern for you then time management should be your priority. This will lead you to more work balance and fulfillment in your life. Cut down your bottom line expense by simply streamlining your operations and enhancing your productivity. You might have also spent a lot of bucks on time tracking apps, but unless and until you don’t understand the importance of Time Blocking, these apps and lists aren’t going to help you. Wise time management can lead you to find time for what you desire and for what you need to do.
Let’s Quickly Roll On To What Is Time Blocking?
Time Blocking is dedicating a certain number of hours to just one task, and you “block-off” your time (and your mind) from other projects. Say, for example, if you are spending an ample amount of time answering the calls, emails, messages, etc, then you can set a fixed time for these tasks. The best idea is to keep a voice message that communicates your “Office Hours”. The same strategy can be followed while dropping an email and adding a digital signature below that states your availability and the country to match your time zones. So that they don’t have to keep on guessing how busy your day is or when will you finally get time to answer their call or email.
Various Planning Factors
Fixed Time vs. Flexi Time
Here, fixed time relates to the Clock Time working group whereas Flexi Time refers to Event Time working personalities.
There are many people who plan their schedules according to time. In a way, they would say I will work for 8 hours in a day (Clock Time). While there are others who promise to work for ‘N’ number of a task in the day, no matter how much time will they take to accomplish the task (Event Time).
If you recall, you might have heard your parents saying that they used to utilize the time after you go to school or you go to bed for their personal goals leaving all other household chores behind. So, in the same way, if you are surrounded by Clock Time people, you can utilize the time and work without any distractions.
Keep a habit of leaving office only when you’ve met your daily goals and not when the clock strikes and alerts you to leave the office. If you work on the task on the same day when you have a great flow of ideas, you will not only increase your productivity but also impress your supervisors, colleagues, etc and maintain motivating work ethics.
Planning Time vs. Implementation Time
You can use Time Tracking Tool to execute your Time Blocks in a perfect way. They will help you to maintain the balance with the actual work that you do.
Say for example if you utilize one day in a year to draw a long-term plan. Then you can plan it in a way that you take one day in a month to divide your long-term goal. Following with one day in a week to plan your weekly goal and a certain time in a day to plan your day. This will help you to schedule your big projects into daily time blocks.
How Can You Set Priorities?
In simple words, do the most important task first at the beginning of the day as you are full of energy. Gradually, as you loose down with the energy you can accomplish the rest of the low priority task.
So, in a similar manner when you are making an annual plan, decide which task or goal (if accomplished) will help you to smoothen the process of accomplishing other life goals? Put that particular task in priority in the initial working hours of the day. If you have a different work shift or morning is not the high energy time for you, relax! There are many personalities sailing in the same boat as you are. You can simply schedule your most important task at the best time you feel that would be productive for you.
But do make sure when you leave your home for work, ask a simple question to yourself every day. “Accomplishing which task will make my day before I leave the work premises?” Set a block time for these tasks and ride home with a satisfactory smile as you will have the day full of accomplishment and not regrets.
Maintaining Balance Between Goal-setting And Actual Work
Million dollar tip is to “Utilize your highest-productive time”
Please make sure that it is okay to plan, organize and note down minute details but all these are not done in your highest-productive time of the day. You can use some of the time tracking tools to figure out your best working speed time frame and when are you spending less productive hours.
Tips To Save Your Time Off
When you are noting down your yearly plan, keep some space on the calendar for YOU. As success can never be complete without “U”. Keep a time block for a long weekend and at least one long vacation in a year. If you have well planned your holidays or the long vacation, you would feel that you have deserved a well-earned break. You can also share your break plans in advance with your team and schedule your work.
What if you don’t plan your holidays? Well, the ball will not remain in your court as you would keep on feeling that you need a break but you do not have the opportunity. Let your boss know in advance that you would be on leave to avoid conflicts and maintain the high integrity of your time.
This thought process can also be useful for scheduling your daily planner. Keep a noise-cancellation policy where you let the people know that you will not be available for a certain time frame in the day.
What Would People Think On Your Holiday Planning?
When it comes to your time you have the right to draw boundaries with your friends, family, and coworkers. And definitely, for this, you do not need to have an apology. Because it is planned, well communicated in advance and the tasks have been scheduled accordingly. Keeping this practice will help you to maintain a perfect work-life balance.
Share them you care about your family. Their projects will be delivered at the end of your next time block.
How To Implement Time Blocking Successfully?
Stop being hard on yourself!
Notice that you stay away from doing low priority tasks during your peak-performance time of the day. If you do the reverse you will end up killing your precious time leading to a poor result and welcoming risk at your job.
Observe your goals and study your feelings. Do you quickly move away from your eyes from certain high priority tasks and jump to the other low priority tasks? If it is so, keep your time block heading pretty simple – avoid jargon while noting down the tasks.
Say for example if you are a Business Development Manager. Your top priority is to “Build Contacts” then instead you can write this in a more simple manner – “Create a list of leads and gather relevant information from potential clients’ website”
This will drive you to a peaceful breath with a thought of manageable tasks which will lead you to a great work feeling at the end of the day.
How To Find Time To Block Off Your Time
One instance that you’re reading this article shows that you have been going through a panic situation and you are eager to know the ways to come to an organized path. So on with a positive note and respect your willingness to bring the positive change in you, here are some tips that can be helpful to you in adopting a healthy time blocking strategy.
- Analyze your past working structure and find out the loopholes where you think you had spent your precious time doing non-productive activities.
- Say “STOP” to all those identified activities. Take a deep breath and think that you are now coming out of the circle of doing bits of a task in the project and ultimately finishing nothing.
- Lower down your gears, don’t be in a hurry to finish up the tasks. Work in slow motion and enjoy the good feelings along with releasing stress.
- Eliminate distractions and focus on one task at a time.
- Keep the target of finishing the task before hopping to a new task, leaving the prior one incomplete. Believe me, you will have a feeling of accomplishment. Once you’re done with one task, switch to the new task, and follow the same process. But prior to following step-5, DO REMEMBER, YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE THE HIGHEST PRIORITY TASK FIRST.
“We all have a limited time of 24 hours only, so plan your life wisely”
Well, all that stops today with Minterapp, an online time tracking and project management tool along with invoicing facility. It is the best solution for the timekeeping of your employees’ workflow. It is the perfect combination module that can be used to simplify tasks of Human Resource and Project Managers, project’s time management, etc. and more importantly it also works as the best tool for remote support.
