8 Powerful Time Management Strategies for More Productive Work

You are starting to create your empire, and sometimes you lack time management strategies to complete the assignment. The big picture is overwhelming, and every time you begin to sit down and start, you don’t know where the starting point is. Utilizing time management strategies and breaking down your project into individual steps will increase productivity. 

Each day has a maximum of 24 hours, so working hours are limited. Learning time management skills provides an additional resource for accomplishing tasks promptly while giving you as much time back to your day. Time management allows you to delegate spending your time wisely.

This post will describe 8 powerful time management strategies to produce more productive work.

Write out your tasks

Writing a to-do list helps you prioritize tasks. When you reflect on the priorities, you can put them in order from most to least important. 

Organizing essential tasks in an excellent thought-out to-do list reduces the chances of forgotten crucial tasks. 

Writing a well-thought-out plan puts your thoughts onto paper and motivates you. A written list helps get the ball rolling to begin essential assignments. It eases stress, delegates tasks, and helps reflect on finished projects. 

Order your tasks by priority

The big picture won’t seem overwhelming when you break down your business plan and see the little things.

Your business plan’s big, giant picture seems scary, but breaking it down into bite-size pieces makes the difficulty less frightening. You can build momentum for your project to increase motivation once you realize you have finished the smaller projects and work towards the bigger. 

Begin delegating            

Delegating is a learned skill giving responsibility to someone who has higher credentials to complete the tasks. Learning who is more qualified to complete an assignment in a shorter time can give time back to your business. 

Understanding how to delegate will increase your time and productivity. Sometimes learning how to trust will take a bit of patience because the best person to complete the job for your business isn’t always you. Taking the initiative to step down and allow someone else to handle the responsibility is an important skill. 

For example,

Henry Ford was a great businessman because he understood the power of delegating. Henry Ford surrounded himself and hired individuals who knew everything better than he could. He built a great business understanding of the responsibility and power of delegating. 

Your business can flourish just as much for managing time effectively by being open-minded and delegating accordingly. 

Set times on when you will respond to e-mails and calls

Customers and co-workers constantly send business e-mails throughout the workday. Continuously refreshing your inbox takes time out of your day. Setting a proper time each day when you check your outbox at a set time provides extra focus on communicating back thoroughly.

Assigning a set period provides extra time during the day to avoid being interrupted while responding to e-mails. If you have a fixed time to respond to everyone, it will save you more time to focus on more critical tasks. In addition, you can answer multiple questions and concerns while responding in one e-mail. 

Co-workers and customers will barely notice if you don’t check your inbox as often. If someone needs to get ahold of you, they will most likely call your number to reach you directly.  

Utilize technology and software programs

Automatic payments eliminate the stress of paying bills on time. Setting up automatic payments every billing cycle reduces the chances of missing a payment. It will also help reduce stress by eliminating the possibility of having a late payment and incurring a late fee. 

The advancement of technology allows getting rid of the pen and paper of most businesses. The internet is more accessible, allowing all business tools to be accessed anytime and anywhere. 

Create a business credit card and keep all business expenses on one card, instead of the traditional way of balancing a checkbook and analyzing costs spent. Utilize the expense statement sheet provided by your credit card company as an itemized expense sheet. Often, credit card statements list expenditures by category, so it’s easier to track your company’s spending habits.

Time management tools utilizing technology:

• Online calendar
• Time tracker
• Universal notebook for all team members
• Pay sheets
• Business expense trackers

Understanding where to dedicate your time can be challenging. There are online applications to help delegate where to put in the time. 

Loosen your schedule

Create a block schedule allowing “free-time” throughout your day. Allowing increments of free time reduces the feeling of burnout. Setting an open slot each day sets up the opportunity to fit in unpredicted work. 

Opening an extra free hour to the workday opens up an opportunity to finish tasks promptly that come up last minute. By having a plan for every scenario and allocating free time, you can come home at a reasonable time if needed. Not every business plan and project are perfect and will have bumps along the way. Nothing is ever perfect. Setting free time in the workday reduces burnout and gives you more time in the day for business hiccups.

Ivy Lee’s Method

The Ivy Lee Method is a tool to produce a higher productivity rate. It’s been a methodology used for over 100-years, improving how to prioritize tasks. Below is Ivy Lee’s method broken down: 

• Before going to bed each night, write down precisely six critical tasks to complete the following day. No more and no less than six.
• Order the tasks from most to least important. 
• The next day, strictly work on the most crucial task. Don’t move on to task two until you finish the first task.
• Repeat every day. 

Ivy Lee’s method is a simple strategy to do each day to decide what needs to be done each day without thinking too hard. It doesn’t take more than five minutes to create a priority list of the top 6 essential tasks to complete. It’s a quick and easy time management strategy. 

Understand the 80/20 rule

The 80/20 rule states 80% of your results are from 20% of your effort. As you begin writing out your to-do lists, consider that 20% of effort causes most of the results. Understanding what works to prioritize your specific goals will help manage your time. 

Not everything in your business can be perfect. Focusing exclusively on the most critical 20% of your business will help delegate time and resources in the appropriate areas. Not everything in your business can be one-hundred percent efficient; however, perfecting the top 20% will give you more significant outcomes. 

Concentrating on the most crucial business assignments will effectively increase your business results. 

Summary:

Time management is a learned skill to help reduce the feeling of burnout. Taking moments continuously each day practicing time management methodologies will advance your business. It relieves stress on you and your business.

Each day before you finish the workday, start a plan of how you will begin tomorrow. Ivy Lee’s method helps direct your prioritizing focus to the main tasks. Our guide to 8 effective time management strategies is a way to help solve your time management problems and improve your business strategies.