Everyone has the same 24 hours, but how to use them to achieve the highest efficiency is a difficult question to answer. A person who knows how to manage time well often achieves more success in work and life.

So let’s find out the methods to organize the most effective time in the article below.

In simple terms, personal time management is the arrangement and division of tasks that need to be completed within a certain time. Our detailed planning will help optimize work performance. Besides, depending on your purpose, you can completely plan your work by day, by week or by month or year.

5 benefits of time management

There are many benefits of smart time management, but we haven’t covered the details yet. With this in mind, we will share in detail the important roles this skill plays in an individual’s life.

Increase productivity and work efficiency

It is a fact that time management will help you improve productivity and achieve a higher quality of work. Because in the same job and in the same time period, the work efficiency of each person will be different.

People who know how to utilize and manage their time better will complete the task comfortably and on schedule. And vice versa, people who do not know smart time management will easily fall into a state of stress, “racing” with deadlines.

Reduce work pressure

An important benefit that should be mentioned of time management is how you reduce the pressure on every job. That is, dividing and performing work in a scientific and reasonable manner according to a pre-planned plan will help you solve all problems quickly. Especially with a relaxed mind will help you to be more effective in handling problems.

Soon to achieve success

You are a person who knows how to properly organize the work, the ability to complete the work sooner and more accurately. Because of that, you can easily achieve success at each stage in life and work.

In contrast, people who work on emotions, without arrangement will often fail because they do not meet deadlines or forget assigned tasks.

Balanced life

The importance of a scientific time arrangement will help a reasonable life balance. We all have the same amount of time, 24 hours a day, for ourselves, family and work.

Reasonable time management is that you can both focus on completing your work well, and have enough time to relax, take care of your loved ones and yourself.

Banish bad habits

Do you know, why organizing your time scientifically contributes to eliminating your bad habits? That’s because procrastinating not only lowers your capacity, but also affects the overall progress of the assigned work.

6 common time management skills

Have you found yourself a plan to build scientific time management yet? Do not worry! We’ll share with you basic skills to make it easier for you to better manage your own time. Let’s follow along!

Determine the level of work

The first skill you need to do is determine your job level. Distinguishing the right levels of work helps you know how to manage your time management that works for you.

The advice is that you should divide the work into two levels including:

• Urgency level
• Critical level

These amounts of “urgent work” will require your immediate attention to complete. And whether you have to do it right away will depend on other factors.

Besides, for “important work”, if you do not complete it, it will cause many consequences for you later. Therefore, the leveling factor is quite important before embarking on the next steps.

Set goals

Setting specific goals for yourself is considered an extremely effective time management skill. How to identify the right goals will help you be more motivated to try harder every day.

However, you also need to establish a precise and achievable goal. You can refer to how to set up smart goals – SMART below:

• Specific: Define specific and clear goals from the outset.
• Measurable: Goals need to be measured to see if you can achieve them or if they are impossible.
• Attainable: The goal is achievable and you need to choose the one that suits your ability.
• Relevant: Goals should be related to life and work to make you more motivated.
• Time-bound: Break down big goals into small ones for best completion.

Make an implementation plan

After you have set a specific goal, you need to know how to plan your work. Building a detailed plan will help you make the best use of your time and work efficiently. Here are the planning skills we share that you can refer to:

• Step 1: Set big goals for yourself
• Step 2: Develop a detailed plan by identifying the small tasks that need to be completed to achieve the big goal
• Step 3: Prepare enough knowledge and skills to perform well the steps outlined in the plan
• Step 4: Calculate a reasonable time for the work you set out
• Step 5: Identify specific methods to track goal achievement

Avoid doing many things at once

Manage time and avoid multitasking aka “Multitasking”. In case you do not have enough professional capacity, “Multitasking” is really not suitable for you.

Better yet, you need to break the task down to complete it step by step. Besides, the fact that you only focus on single tasks will increase work efficiency.

Mental mastery

Keeping yourself comfortable is one of the best ways to be effective at work. Because it is certain that if you have a relaxed, stress-free spirit, you will make more correct, accurate and reasonable decisions. Here are some ways to help you adjust your mind:

• Laugh: This act of “laughing” helps you reduce stress hormones and increase your happiness
• Meditation: According to research, meditating for at least 10 minutes helps relieve stress
• Eat dark chocolate: This dark chocolate food helps you reduce stress, fatigue has been scientifically proven
• Listen to music: Enjoy a favorite song that will make you more relaxed and comfortable
• Dancing: An activity that is both uplifting and healthy

Dealing with “time thieves”

There are always “time thieves” in your efforts to accomplish your goals. Indeed, you will likely encounter people or factors that distract you from performing your tasks.

Calling “time thieves” can be personal matters, colleagues asking questions, surfing the web… And best of all, you need to solve this problem thoroughly, making sure it doesn’t affect the quality of your work.

6 Ways to Manage Time Smarter

Besides, smart time management methods will also be a factor to help you achieve more success in life. So what methods are reasonable and widely applied?

Quy tắc 4D: Do – Dump – Delegate – Defer

The secret of the 4D rule is very simple and easy to do, is to solve one task before another. 4D time management method includes 4 elements:

• Do (Do): It is asking you to do the important work right in front of you. It’s just that.
• Dump: The meaning of this word could be “Trash, trash” – you can call it whatever you want. But the meaning is very simple, sometimes you need to give up some meaningless work, this will save a considerable amount of time. Ask yourself frequently, “Does it matter if you don’t do it?”, and that saves time by giving up meaningless tasks.

• Delegate: Suppose this work needs to be done but someone else can do it better than you can. So give the job to that person right away and remember that if you do it yourself, you will waste a lot of your precious time and make others lose the opportunity to learn from this work. Therefore, you should be generous and trust others when they do better.
• Defer: Can’t you do it now? If so, get a notebook and plan the exact time that you will do it. Be aware that postponing the job is your last option. Where procrastination is on the rise, then you need to consider the 2nd and 3rd Ds (quit and delegate).

Thus, the meaning of this method is to only focus on thoroughly solving one important thing before moving on to the next. Always spend time focusing on the things that matter most, the things you think are the most important, the things that bring you closer to your goals.

80/20 (Pareto) Method

According to research by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto and his Pareto principle: “In most cases, 80% of the effects are due to 20% of the causes”.

This 80/20 rule can cover all of the following statements:

• 20% of workers produce 80% of the results
• 20% of customers contribute to 80% of revenue
• 20% defects cause 80% of failures
• 20% of features create 80% of usage

And of course the number 80-20 cannot be absolutely correct. The key point that Pareto wants to mention here is that most things in life are not evenly distributed, some contribute more than others.

You can focus your efforts on solving 20% ​​of the work, but make a better difference instead of spending resources on 80% of the work. The flexible application of the 80/20 principle will contribute to saving costs and increasing business efficiency in the most significant way.

Basically, this Pareto principle emphasizes that 80% of the results will be generated by 20% of the contributions. Therefore, you should apply this 80/20 method to identify 20% of your priorities to lead to the best results for yourself.

Method 40 – 30 – 20 – 10

The 40 – 30 – 20 – 10 method is also an effective time management method, one of the gold standards. The principle is applicable in almost all areas of life for individuals as well as businesses.

Applying this rule, you should spend 40% of your time doing the most important things, followed by 30% of the time doing the second most important things. Next, you need to spend 20% of your time doing the third most important things and 10% of the time doing everything that comes together last.

The 40 – 30 – 20 – 10 time management rule for work means:

• 40% of the time on the things that matter most
• 30% of the time doing the second most important things
• 20% of the time doing the most important things Tuesday
• 10% of the time it all comes together

With this rule, you’ll have a single choice that makes sense: to focus on your top three priorities. Prioritize doing just these three things in turn, and will spend some time doing other things – but not too much time.

Looking at this 40 – 30 – 20 – 10 rule, we see that we should spend twice as much time responding to the number one priority problem than the number three priority problem. As such, the top priority work will have a lot more impact than the other things you do.

Change the theoretically important work mindset to the practical completion mindset by investing time in it.

Pomodoro method

The Pomodoro Method – a well-known time management technique , this way will create time pressure so that you can focus on quality work. The principle of Pomodoro is quite simple:

• In 1 Pomodoro (25 minute work & 5 minute break), if you are forced to interrupt, the Pomodoro will be recalculated from the beginning.
• Focus on doing only one thing 100% of the time.
• Assuming the job is done before the Pomodoro is finished, you will need to use the remaining time to test and optimize the work until the end of that Pomodoro.

• During breaks, you’ll need real breaks: close your eyes, relax, listen to music, meditate, organize your desk, go for a walk in the office – things that are simple and don’t require the use of your mind. much. Should absolutely avoid everything related to the Internet, Facebook … because they may stimulate your excitement, but the nature still makes the brain more tired.

The Eisenhower . Matrix

The Eisenhower Matrix method is a model that includes the following four criteria:

• Urgent
• Not urgent
• Important
• Not important

That is, you should organize your work based on this Eisenhower model to prioritize the important tasks that need to be done right away. This Eisenhower Matrix will aid in your decision making and better use of your time.

The MIT . method

The MIT method means Most Important Tasks, it focuses on some of the most important things to do and get done during the day. This MIT method will support you to divide work scientifically and logically to save time. Prioritizing tasks should be urgent & important in the Eisenhower Matrix method.

Epilogue

With the above useful sharing on effective time management methods , we hope that you will apply those methods intelligently and rationally. Wishing you much success in work and life!