How to manage time: Tips to replace hard work with smart work

In this fast-paced world, where there are things happening around every second, how does one manage his or her time? At work, there may be enough and more on your plate as you try to attend a meeting, answer calls and texts, plan for the next thing on the list, manage people, et al. If this everyday hustle bustle leaves you thinking how to manage time, we can have some tips to help.

For starters, please accept that there isn’t a single easy hack, tip, or strategy that can make you a super-organized, very productive person overnight. Your ability to manage time and attention is a process, which has to continuously be reviewed and modified. It has to be a way of life even as you try to manage multi-tasking.

Here are a few reasons why people may find time management hard

* Consistent struggle to be a perfectionist
* Always over-thinking about tomorrow
* Lack of motivation
* Being busy instead of effective
* Not being a master of your skills and tools
* Failing to control distractions
* Not being able to cope with stress
* Not taking technology along
* Not saving your mental energy

Health Shots reached out to Shivam, an emotional intelligence life coach, to know more about time management.

He believes the lack of time management is more about mismanagement of emotions rather than of time.

Tips to improve time management skills:

1. Take control of your emotions

“Try regulating and understanding how you are feeling at the moment. Very often, unpleasant emotions stop us from starting the task altogether,” says Shivam. Therefore, maintaining a positive attitude towards your work with the promise of being focused and consistent is the first step towards managing your time. Here’s a little hack on how to stay focussed.

2. Set realistic goals

Unpleasant emotions come up when we have goals for ourselves which seem unrealistic at times. The best way to deal with such situations would be to focus on small realistic goals instead of large ones. “This would allow us to break down our goals into smaller fragments and make it easier to focus on them,” suggests the expert.

Rather than setting goals for a week, build goals for a day, and use that as a motivation. “Motivation is driven by action more than anything else. When you take the first step, you would get more momentum to keep going,” he adds.

3. Avoid procrastination

Procrastination roots from uneven emotional regulation. Through better understanding of emotions, we can take charge of what and how we do it.

4. Work smart

As it is rightly said, smart work is more essential than hard work. Working day and night is not what makes you more productive. Doing the most in the least possible time does.

5. Prioritize

Set your priorities right by removing the least essential tasks and setting a time limit to all of them.