What you actually have to do when “managing your time” is to manage yourself and how you approach everything you do.So here are 12 tips to better manage yourself as time passes.Schedule your day ahead of timeWaking up in the morning without having a written plan on what you need to do during that day will likely result in forgetting critical goals or handling more tasks than you can manage.An easy way to avoid this is by planning your day and every week ahead of time.Allot 30 minutes to organise the following week’s schedule at the end of each week, and take as little as 5 minutes in the evening to look at the next day’s schedule.
This will help you become better organised.And while you’ll spend some time planning, you’ll save so much time while not having to eventually fix mistakes.Set goals and rewardsSetting your goals is key to planning your day because it helps help you stay on schedule.
These can range from sweet treats or good meals, to short periods of watching videos or simply not doing anything.Prioritise your tasksSometimes, you can’t do everything (maybe you lack time).
An effective way to do this is to manage your priorities by dividing them into four categories:Important and urgent – Tasks that need to be done right away.Important but not urgent – Tasks that appear important where you can decide when to do them, but not before the “important and urgent” category.Urgent but not important – Tasks that need to be done right away but when completed don’t have any lasting value.Not important and not urgent – These are usually leisure activities or things you don’t need to do (but probably want to do).Categorising your tasks will give you a better view on which to deal with first.Start with small tweaks in your scheduleYou don’t need to overhaul everything in your life immediately to better manage your time.
Instead, take baby steps, like waking up 15 minutes earlier every morning and reducing your social media time by 15 minutes per day.Doing these two small tweaks will result in an extra 30 minutes, which you can devote to:Practicing a new skill.Reading a book.Exercising for better health and focus.It might not sound like much, but using this new-found 30 minutes per day will result in 2 hours and 10 minutes per week where you’re working on getting better.Establish clear deadlinesHow much time do you have to finish your responsibilities?
Also try choosing what you’re going to eat in advance.One way to quickly narrow down your options is by having food-themed days.