6 Methods of Time Management for Productive People

A good investment of time is manifested in organizing energy and time, and focusing to obtain a greater result in a shorter period of time. There are some basic techniques that you can use to become more productive and manage your time better. Effective time management depends on your ability to ignore distractions, know how to spend every minute of your time, and prioritize the most important things in your life. When you can manage your time efficiently, it becomes easier to increase your productivity and reach bigger goals.

Time management techniques help you invest your time in the optimal way, set your priorities so that you can direct your attention towards them, and increase your productivity. They also ensure that you plan and organize the most important things in your life daily as well as achieve more things in less time, while poor time management leads to a vicious circle of concerns and distractions.

In this article, we'll show you six time management techniques that productive people use that will help you boost your productivity and manage your time more effectively. 

1. Time management:

Planning is one of the most effective methods of time management. It helps you organize your time efficiently. The first hour of the day is often the most important, as it determines how productive you will be that day.

Developing your ability to organize time and increase your productivity requires that you plan the events of your day the night before. By doing so, you identify the activities that are most important to you in order to address them first, and you ensure that you start your day with full focus, knowing the best way to invest in your time. This saves you hours of time. 

2. Time tracking:

You have to know how to spend your time if you want to manage it efficiently, and the simplest way to start is by tracking every minute of your time and seeing how you invested it. It is important to avoid the sources that waste your time and spend more of your time on activities that are more productive. Therefore, you cannot change the way you manage your time until it is clear to you how you invest in it.

Time tracking helps you focus on your results rather than worrying about how much time it took to get them done, and it shows you the big picture of how your hours go by. Reviewing and auditing events helps you understand good time management skills and the aspects that you can develop in yourself. Time tracking technique also enables you to evaluate your investment of time productively.So, as a starting point for learning this technique, track your time for seven consecutive days.

3. Determine your top priorities:

You can invest your time in the best way by writing your to-do list to determine your most important priorities. Good time management is often related to organizing your energy to get work done since we all have the same twenty-four hours a day.

Setting your priorities by using an effective to-do list is the key to successful time management, and the best way to prioritize is to use the to-do list to highlight the most important tasks. So, after you have written your to-do list, you can identify and work on your top priorities.

It should be noted that creating a full and long to-do list will not increase your productivity or enable you to organize your time successfully, but you must distinguish your priorities and focus on the three most important things that you want to accomplish every day, and then start working on your greatest achievement from the beginning. 

4. Managing your energy:

You cannot manage your time effectively if you are always tired and exhausted and you don't have the energy to do so. So, the way to manage your time in a better way is to work smarter, not harder. It is important to organize your daily duties by harnessing your energy and making the most of it.

There are two main keys to energy management. First, figure out what drains your energy. Second, identify the times during the day when you have a high level of energy and the activities that provide you with it. Also,  because you have a certain amount of energy available to you daily, it is necessary to take advantage of your daily energy and harness it to accomplish your most important and productive work. So, you can manage your energy through activities and times when your performance is at its peak during the day. Productive people often have high levels of energy in the morning. Therefore, they invest this time in doing their most important work. 

5. Time allocating:

Time allocating is seen as one of the time management techniques. It is manifested by focusing work on a specific project or task for a specific period of time. This technique helps to set priorities, organize time, and schedule tasks to achieve maximum efficiency.

Therefore, productive people use time allocating technique to focus their efforts on achieving certain results, while others use it to complete important work without being disrupted or interrupted. Working in specific time periods gives additional responsibility for completing the work to be done, and also gives a better understanding of how long it takes for the work to be completed.

Cal Newport, the author of Deep Work, is a big proponent of the time allocating technique. He spent time analyzing how it helps people become more productive.

6. Dealing with distractions:

You can't manage your time efficiently and get your most important work done if you can't handle and manage distractions. So, instead of ignoring them, learn about the nature of the distractions you face and prepare a plan to overcome them when they occur because the key to managing your time effectively depends on dealing with the things that distract you to reduce them and eliminate them once and for all.

With so many distractions competing for your attention, it is extremely important to focus your attention on your most important tasks.

Time management techniques for overcoming distractions include:

• Eliminate distractions.
• Work in a quiet place.
• Get rid of material mess in your life; That is, anything in your home that you no longer use or that are useless and represent visual noise.
• Empty your mind of unimportant matters.
• Simplify the duties you put on your to-do list.
• Take longer breaks.
• Stop working on multiple tasks at once.
• Good and deep sleep.

In conclusion:

The previous techniques that are used by productive people help you develop your time management skills and organize them effectively. By investing your time in the optimal way and identifying the times when you are most productive, you can achieve greater results in shorter periods of time. So, use the techniques of  time tracking, daily planningو and creating a successful to-do list to improve your time management, as well as your productivity.