I needn’t talk about how important time is in everyone’s life. By now, you may already know it. But, if it is so important, are there any ways or techniques you can use to save what you have and get more done? That’s exactly what I am going to talk about.
There are a lot of techniques which you can use but different techniques can work differently for different people. So, I would advise you to try out everything and see what works for you.
Before we start talking about all the techniques which you can follow, we need to agree mutually that techniques alone can’t save your time. You need to make some fundamental changes to the way you work to get things done and the way you approach for solutions to problems.
Culture of a productive individual
The word NO is very powerful!
Use it wisely but do use it to make sure that you say no to everything which you think will derail you away from what you really want to do. Don’t try to please anyone — remember, life is a matter of minutes and you don’t have much left.
Delegate, Delegate, Delegate
Remember that most often, you need a support system which can help you reach your goals faster and sometimes, even to progress to a significant extent. Don’t try to do everything by yourself. Rather, see divide the goal into milestones and activities, see who is good at doing it, delegate and make sure it gets done by taking everyone with you.
Be smart! Working more time doesn’t mean getting things done
You can’t work for 18–20 hours straight everyday and assume that you will get a lot done at the end of the day. That’s dumb. All that matters is being smart with the time you have. You need breaks which gives you the focus, creativity and rest so that you can keep pushing and pushing and still not drain yourself in the process.
Health & Fitness
This is damn important! What is the use of achieving your goal if you won’t be alive and well to reap its rewards? Do you want to become a burden for everyone or do you want everyone to like being around you? Go pick up any of the sports and activities, hit the gym, do meditation, eat well, sleep well and keep yourself alive and kicking. You will be able to do a lot in the remaining time you have.
Tomorrow Never Comes — Avoid Procrastination
Its often very easy to say “I will do it Tomorrow” but then sadly, “Tomorrow Never Comes. Plan what you have to do, put it in your calendar and make sure you stick to it. I know, its damn hard to stick to it and follow, you may go over time, but it forces you to push more and more to get there. Infact, this is something which even I am working on. To make sure I don’t procrastinate in launching Timecampus for the public, I committed to myself and to others that “I am going to do it” by sharing a blog post here.
Avoid Multitasking — The brain can only take so much
You think that you can multitask well? Sadly, you are wrong! You can find a lot of research studies stating the opposite. The brain needs to focus on one thing at a time for it to work effectively and not drift around. So, how do we manage multiple tasks to be done at the same time then? Well, take the example of Elon Musk or anyone else managing multiple companies/tasks at the same time — he can’t say no to either SpaceX or Tesla or OpenAI or Boring. The best he does it, is by blocking slots of time for multiple different tasks in the calendar but still concentrate on only one task at a time and you can get a lot done.
Avoid Screensucking
The current generation spends a lot of time on Social Media, Gaming, Movies, Series, etc. and while I am not saying no to all of these, you need to make sure that you are well within your limits. Addiction is bad! If you want to talk to people, rather go talk to them in person where possible. Don’t fall for instant gratification which you get from the Likes and Comments (I was a victim of this too before when I was in Facebook). They are very powerful tools of communication but don’t get lost in that world. Remember that you have a beautiful world around you!
Automate/outsource everything possible
What’s life to you when you keep doing the same thing over and over and over again everyday? Try to automate as much as possible. Now, you have a lot of tools to do a lot of common things you would repeat or if not, there are a lot of service providers who take care of them as part of their business. Focus on just the important things and if you are going to spend a day trying to automate something for which you are spending an hour everyday, do it. It will help you in the long run.
Be Organized as much as possible (except for Fun & Entertainment)
Its very important to organize your life, your business and everything you do so that you know where you are heading, why you are doing it, how to reach there and when. This helps you a lot by giving you a purpose every second of your life, gives you the ability to be time-bound and also avoid wasting the time searching for things which are right at your front. But this should not be the case when you take a time off or a vacation cause, that’s when you break off from a schedule or weeks and years of planning and do something interesting, fun and different you have not planned for giving you a break.
You don’t plan an adventure. It just happens!
You will fail, just get back up!
In the pursuit of your goal and ambitions, there are a lot of times you will fail, and that is what makes the journey damn interesting. Doesn’t matter if you fail again and again and again, just get back up and keep going. This time, you are going to be stronger, wiser and better. So, forget everything else. Edison failed 1000 times before a light bulb. So why not we?
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Now, let us talk about some of the techniques which can help you do what we just talked about.
Technique #1 — Pomodoro
The pomodoro technique is a very powerful yet simple techniques where you are going to spend 25 minutes of focused time working, taking 5 minute breaks and when you have done that for 4 times in a row, take a long break and relax.
This helps you maintain focus, be productive but not overworked and also visualize your big task as smaller pieces which may be much easier to get done.
There are a lot of services which pomodoro timers, some of them are:
For Linux,
For VSCode,
You can find more here: https://zapier.com/blog/best-pomodoro-apps/
Technique #2 — Time Boxing & Time Blocking
These techniques are used by a lot of the greats like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, etc. and is very effective if used properly.
There is a slight difference between Time Boxing and Time Blocking where, in case of Time Boxing, you block slots of time for tasks which you think will consume a lot of your time putting strict limits, whereas in case of Time Blocking, you block time for tasks which you think you may skip.
You will need to divide your big task against a goal into smaller meaningful chunks, allocate time for them in your calendar, work on them and repeat till you are done. Simple, but powerful.
You can use all the popular calendars to timebox. Some of which are.
Google Calendar:
Outlook Calendar:
Apple Calendar:
You can read more about Time Blocking here: https://clockify.me/blog/productivity/time-blocking/
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If you follow some other techniques apart from this, have some tips/suggestions for me or have something to share, let me know in the comments. And if you want to read more content like this, follow/subscribe and I will keep more coming in. If there is some specific content you would like us to cover, let me know in the comments.
T.v. Vignesh
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