Time is often misconstrued as being wasted, but this is incorrect. Time is infinite, you are the one who is wasting away. What you do with yourself is what matters. Time is the best currency you could ever have for yourself. You must invest it wisely, because we all know, it is like a river, once it has passed there is no getting it back. So what can you do with yourself to make sure that you manage your time the best you can, for the limited offer that you have with it? Check this out.
1. Set Goals
You obviously have a lot you want to do with your life. Some amazing works, some just relaxing and some just plain stupid, but you never plan for the latter, they just happen. You can do something to make sure that the amazing works happen.
You need to set goals. Write them down, preferably on a big piece like a vision board. Hang them out somewhere where in the morning when you wake up it is the first thing you see and the last thing you see when you sleep. This will keep you on your toes especially for days that you feel you are slipping away into procrastination.
2.Prioritize Effectively
You have your goals all written down and set up properly. But you need to prioritize and figure out which ones should happen first and which ones can afford to wait. Of course, you want to do them all, but you are only one person and you can only do so much. Don’t tire yourself out before the journey has begun.
Prioritize, start with the little goals first, the easily achievable ones, as you move on higher to the more onerous ones. This will give you motivation as you are able to strike off one goal at a time. And you will not notice as you get to the harder ones since you will have started getting used to it.
3. Organize
For you to be able to handle your goals effectively, you need to organize yourself. This will make doing the tasks at hand easier. For example, let’s say you organize your desk in such a way that you are able to get work done with fewer distractions. Maybe you have cleared your desk of everything, except your laptop.
Or maybe you want to get to the gym, you organize stuff at work so that you are able to leave by a certain time. So that you can go to the gym and be back at the house in time to cook dinner. The organization also helps in the sense that you are able to tell which works can be grouped and done simultaneously. Instead of doing each work on its own which would take a considerably longer time.
4. Delegate
Not all things require your immediate attention, but they are urgent and still need to be done, delegate. In your time you have figured out someone who can do it as well as you and who is as dedicated to it as you are. Trust them with this task and don’t micro-manage. Not only will this make them feel good but they will know that you trust them and will make sure not to disappoint you. Delegation frees up your time to do the things that are more pressing to your goals and achievements.
5. Use Alarm Clocks & Reminders
Time can seem to get away from us, sometimes you are working on something and you are so engrossed in it. You never seem to notice that you don’t have as much time as you thought you did. By the time you notice, you feel like you have no time for anything else. I use my alarm clock even when I am awake.
Label them so that I can know what I was supposed to do at that specific time. I will not lie, it has saved me a lot of time. Because sometimes you need to be jolted to kickstart your mind back to overdrive. Sometimes the thing you were supposed to do would not even take a lot of your time, but it has to be done by a particular time. So make use of your alarm clock. This will also help you when you are doing your audit of the day.
6. Audit Yourself Every day
For you to make sure you are making the most of the time you have in a day, you need to audit yourself, and you need to do it daily. Make sure you have utilized your precious time to the fullest potential. You can do this by having a list of your times.
You can group them in sets, together with your to-do-list. Then compare, did you do your work well, to completion and within the stipulated time it was allocated. If not what will you do differently to make sure that this is effected? Such questions help you make the most of your time.
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7. Turn Off Social Media Alerts
The internet was created as a way to help us save time. But unfortunately for social media, it has had the exact opposite effect. People spend a good amount of their quality time on social media just looking at pictures and messaging and not doing much with the productivity of their time.
You can curb the time you spend on social media by turning off the alerts. Have an allocated time for social media, and when that time is over, shut it off and do what you are supposed to do. Remember no one ever made their dreams come true by only imagining them, you need to work on them as well.
8. Identify Your Keystone Habits
A keystone habit is the habit that you form and having formed this one habit, you are able to continuously form other habits that depend on this one habit. If you have a bad keystone habit, you will continuously form bad habits. So if you want to form good habits, you need to form one good keystone habit. Examples of these are:
Exercising, meditating, going to bed early with no distractions, these are just but a few examples. You will find when you stick close to the keystone habit you form, other aspects of your life will start falling into place. If you decide to sleep early, you will be well-rested for you to wake up early in the morning and maybe have a workout. With the workout, you have more energy throughout the day, hence your day is productive, such sort of a thing.
9. Exercise Often
My keystone habit is exercising, I feel I have more energy once I exercise. You may feel like you are getting tired in the first few days. But once your body adjusts, it is the best feeling in the world. You feel as though you cannot function if you have not had your workout. The advantage is that exercising is also good for your health. So you are basically hitting two birds with one stone.
10. Take Frequent Breaks
Your body and brain can only do so much, do not be overzealous and think that you can build Rome in one day. You need to give yourself breaks, even if you feel like you don’t need one, trust me you do. Divide your time into chunks and in the time you need to work, work yourself off.
In the time you need a break, take the break, do not skip it that you do not need it because it will cause problems for you later on. And you find that after the break you have some newfound energy. So the time you take breaks you find that you do so much more than if you would not have taken any breaks.
11. Make To-Do-Lists Every Evening For The Next Day
The importance of having to-do-lists is to make sure everything is done and within schedule. This method is even more effective if you go to sleep having laid out what you need to do. So that in the morning when you wake up you already have a purpose. Waking up with a purpose is more powerful and keeps you energized throughout the day. This combined with the everyday audit and you will be a walking powerhouse.
12. Look for Inspiration When You Are Feeling Low
We are only human, we have our good days and bad days, our ups and downs. When this happens, look for help because unfortunately for you even if you are feeling low, time has no such empathy. So you need to get back to your motivational speakers and gurus. Personally, I use Mindvalley.
The people who started you on this journey you are on. Remember why you started in the first place. Trust me when you are done you already have a fire inside of you. Use that fire to fire up the motivation and get back to doing the good and great things you were doing.
13. Set Same Sleep Times and Wake-up Times
This lets your body get into a rhythm. Allowing you to have a routine, this routine is where you set your habits. You could make this your keystone habit that will let all the rest of the habits that you want to form fall into place. This also makes waking up and going to sleep easier hence leading to decreased sleep deprivation. A well-rested body is able to do so much more in the day.
14. Get a Mentor To Guide You
This journey is never easy, it helps if you have someone who tried and conquered. Or who is still on this journey but at a further place than you. They will guide you as to what to expect, what is normal and what is not. What you need to work on more than any other thing. The best part is that they will encourage you to do it even when you don’t feel like doing it. And since you have respect for them, you will do as they say, and they will always want the best for you. So it’s a win-win situation.
15. Don’t Strive For Perfection
If you do, you will always keep beating yourself up and never see your accomplishments. Perfection has been the death of many great things. Instead strive to do your best, better than yesterday. It does not have to be perfect, it just has to be done, by you. And after a while, these small wins add up to something big. The one that you will be able to see and appreciate.
Time is precious, we should never waste it, sadly the people who know the importance of time are the ones that do not have much of it. Make it a habit to make the best use of your time even if you feel like you have a lot of it. Especially when you are young, your older self will thank you for it.
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