10 Powerful Time Management Tips to Become More Productive

Do you feel like you have not accomplished anything worthwhile during the day? You may be busy the whole day but have nothing to show at the end of the day. Busyness does not equate to productiveness.

Given below are 10 time management tips to help you become more productive.

1. Remove all distractions

One thing that helps to manage time in the best way is to remove all distractions while working. When all distractions are removed, you will have a single-minded focus on the job at hand.

It will automatically make you more productive.

If your work is on the computer, work on just one tab and close all other tabs. It will help you to concentrate and finish your task in less time.

Thus you will save precious time and energy. This is a key point to save time and get more things done in less time.

2. Use productivity tools

There are many productivity tools available in the market that will help in saving time by performing tasks systematically.

The tool could be a phone application, software, or a monthly/yearly planner.

Use any or all of these tools to increase your productivity by optimum time management.

Following are some tools to help you manage your time:

Zoomshift

This is a time scheduling tool to track your own time or employee time all in one place.

RescueTime

It analyses how you spend your time and gives you easy-to-understand and simple reports.

Stayfocusd

This is a Chrome/Firefox extension to block websites temporarily. It enables you to stop wasting time on unnecessary and frivolous activities. Thus you end up saving a lot of time that would have been otherwise wasted.

Focusbooster

This is a personal organizer app to help you organize your daily tasks, create to-do lists, and write down your goals for the day.

Trello

Trello is a powerful tool to manage teamwork. It is a whiteboard that all members of the team can use. This is a very popular tool used by many organizations because it is very effective and easy to use.

Toggl

This tool helps you by connecting about 100 apps and telling you where your time is going. It creates nice visual reports to let you know how you are using your time.

Mylifeorganized

This is a popular tool to help get your life better organized. You can create to-do lists and daily tasks monitoring lists with this app. It simplifies your daily work routine and makes your life more organized.

3. Create time limits for your tasks

One reason for the wastage of time is not creating time limits for your daily tasks. It is imperative to set time limits for each task that you undertake.

In the absence of time limits, you will end up taking your own sweet time to finish the task.

Setting time limits brings a sense of urgency to the task at hand. You are kept on your toes because you know that there are time limits to complete the task.

This helps you to cut out activities that do not contribute directly to the accomplishment of the task.

One way to do this is to allocate a particular time block for major tasks like checking and replying to emails. Checking social media timelines could also be blocked for a time period during the day. Rather than randomly checking Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn throughout the day, set a specific time to do that.

4. Keep the phone away from your workstation

The mobile phone, with 100’s of apps on it, is a major time-waster. It will do you good to form a habit of physically keeping the phone away while working on a task.

If the phone is placed nearby, you will be tempted to keep checking it even when there is nothing specific to check.

The way that technology, particularly through the phone, has been controlling and dominating our lives is an open secret.

It has been well documented and showcased in the popular Netflix documentary “ The Social Dilemma”

Technology is a good slave but a very bad master. If we master technology, it is wonderful but if we let it master us, it is awful.

5. Have an accountability partner

Having an accountability partner is an amazing and proven way to get tasks done on time and thus manage time wisely.

People do what is inspected, not what is expected. How true is that statement! When you know that you are answerable and accountable to someone, you make sure that the job gets done and well on time.

Get a friend or spouse to be your accountability partner and cooperate with them.

6. Everyone has 24 hours every day

Always remember that everybody has exactly 24 hours every day to use. Some people seem to pack more in their 24 hours than others do. That is simply because they have learned how to manage their time properly.

They don’t waste any time. Even if they have to wait at the doctor's office or the bus station, they will find something to do during that time.

They are never found idling away. They are always gainfully occupied. Learn how to use those time blocks that just flow away and you will accomplish more daily.

7. Plan a strategy to accomplish your goals

In other words, plan a daily routine to establish a system. Establishing a daily routine helps your mind and body to get accustomed to similar work patterns daily.

This results in work getting done faster. For example, 10 AM is the time to check emails and answer them. 11 AM is the time to interact with the team for the day's tasks.

The mind is programmed to perform a particular task at that time and so it gets done easily and faster.

Another tip is to tackle tough jobs early in the morning when the energy levels are high. Less important tasks can be undertaken later during the day.

8. Delegate or outsource some of the tasks

You and I cannot handle all the tasks by ourselves. We need to take the help of others to finish some of our work.

Learn to delegate some work to others as it will save your time. Teamwork will make your dream work. It is necessary to use other people's talents and skills to get the job done efficiently and faster.

Delegation of work will ease your burden and help you to accomplish much more in less time.

9. Take small periods of rest throughout the day

More will be accomplished if you take regular and small periods of rest during the day.

It helps to move away from the workstations periodically and go for a short walk. You may be aware of the Pomodoro technique where you work for 25 minutes and then rest for 5 minutes.

This helps you to relax for a while and it increases your productivity by getting rid of saturation and boredom. Take a coffee break or put on some soft music to enhance your mood.

10. Do research about where you are spending your time

Finally, it will be good to know where exactly you spend your time daily. If you want to manage your time in an optimum manner, you must first know where it is being spent.

Once you know this, you can cut out time-wasters and spend more time on productive activities.

Remember the Pareto principle - 80 percent of the work gets done by 20 percent of our efforts. The challenge is to know what those 20 percent activities are and double down on those activities.

I believe that these 10 powerful time management tips will help you become more productive. It will help you to know where you are spending your time, cut off the time-wasters, and scale-up activities that contribute to your goals.