We all have experience working under tight deadlines and handling multiple tasks.
Most of us hate it because it’s stressful,and we do not know “what to do when” or what’s important.
But some people do it like professionals as if they were born with the skills.
How do you become one of them? That’s what we’d like to tell you.
In the next three minutes, we will discuss time management and how you can become a wizard at it. Keep reading.
There Are ONLY 24 Hours In A Day
No matter who it is—You, me, your boss, the President of the United States, or his pet hamster—all of us only get 24 hours.
Time is a scarce resource. You cannot increase your time in a day; you can only work around it.
We all have urgent tasks. Sometimes we know it beforehand, and sometimes it’s sudden. But we also have important things that we MUST do.
This means we must focus on what matters most for the “right” duration. Too little, and you’ll end up missing your deadline. Too much work, and you’ll end up burnt out.
To avoid both problems, there’s an easy 2-step trick that helps you get it right. This way, you’ll never have to worry about missing deadlines, stress, and multitasking.
Let’s get on to the steps:
1. Identify When You’re Most Productive
We all have different times during the day when we have “peak performance.” It’s like turning a switch on in your brain.
It’s unique to everyone when it happens since we’re all different.
This is when you must do the most demanding tasks, like analytics, reports, deployments, etc. Save all the “difficult” stuff for the time when your mind is strongest to finish them faster and more accurately.
And you’ll still have time for the boring tasks, like updating spreadsheets or catching up on emails.
2. Prioritize Like Your Life Is On The Line
Picture this: It’s Monday morning. Your boss gives you five tasks, on top of five existing tasks, and tells you that they’re “urgent and high priority.”
Now you immediately feel this whole thing is a scam.
If every task is high-priority, then nothing is. Which means, nothing gets done on time.
But, if the same boss comes to you and says, “Hey, A, B, and C are a bit urgent. Can you do them first, and then go to the others?” Isn’t it a lot easier to see which ones to focus on? Isn’t it easier for you to say yes and get straight to work?
This is why prioritization helps you.
It gives you an idea of what to do “right now,” what to do “next,” and how important things are.
We’ll give you an easy, classic setup to prioritize. It’s called the Eisenhower Matrix.
Every day, start with a review of the tasks you need to do. Then, place all your tasks in their respective areas and proceed like this:
- Urgent + Important – Do these right away.
- Urgent + Not Important – Try delegating these tasks; use your team to your advantage. If you’re a one-man show, do these after #1.
- Not Urgent + Important – Schedule these for later, once you finish #1 and #2.
- Not Urgent + Not Important – Keep these on hold, and only work on them if they become important.
With these two steps, you can do your most important tasks when you’re most productive.
You’ll never have to worry about missing deadlines or stress again, since you know exactly what to do and when to do it.
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P.S. You can prioritize work in just a couple of minutes using Astravue, saving you time and hassle.
Easily create a task, and a priority is assigned to it by default. Change it if needed.
You can then assign a due date, so you know how urgent it is.
What’s next? Just look at the list and get to work.
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