Do you want to alleviate stress?
Try these 5-time management strategies to balance your time more efficiently.
Are you constantly making lists for your future self but somehow the time never comes? I still find myself doing this at times and I always end up regretting it. I tend to take on more than I can handle and it ends up becoming a larger issue than it ever needed to be.
I am constantly pushing stuff aside to prioritize less stressful things, but it is obviously really hard to get important things done when this happens. Which is understandable. Through this article, I will provide you with strategies that have helped me secure straight A’s and take on highly beneficial positions.
Now you don’t need to stop putting things on your future self altogether, but learning how to better separate important and urgent tasks from important and not so urgent is really helpful.
It would be impossible to get everything done without having separation, and in most cases, we put off the separation because we would have to confront our “to-do” list in order to complete the separation process. In general, it really doesn’t need to be a hugely extravagant process. It is simply delegating your time to certain areas that need more time than others. When you change your approach towards time management and organization, your perspective changes and it becomes simpler to obtain.
Truly the hardest part is starting, from there you will have momentum for the rest.
You don’t just start a new habit or quit an old one overnight. It grows over time, and you have to let that process take the time it needs. After you have a disciplinary plan in place, the rest is just consistency and patience.
So let’s take the most difficult step together and get started!
Our 5 strategies are as follows;
- Consistent Budgeting
- Planning With The Eisenhower Matrix
- Time Is Money Perspective
- Efficient Automation
- Proper Motivators
Budgeting
Budgeting is a huge time management strategy, and here is why.
When you organize your financials, you instantly have a better understanding of where your time goes. A well-organized budget will tell you what gains you money and what you lose it on.
This is important because this gives you control over your outcome. When you see the result of your time in the numbers of your budget, you start to see your time in the value of money. We will get more into this concept in a second.
For now, think about the time you would save not stressing over knowing your financial position. When you spend time organizing your money every month it becomes a habit and enables a comfortable relationship with your money. This can be really good because a lot of people in uncomfortable financial situations will avoid looking at their accounts and their spending habits because they know that the numbers aren’t good.
Now I am not saying this is a horrible thing, but it certainly doesn’t help you in the long run and I am sure you are aware of that. I am personally guilty of doing this, but I have done it more for the reason of not wanting to know how much I can spend. In the long run, this has helped me save money because I spend frugally not thinking I have much and knowing I need to save all that I can. This is not suggested, but it worked for me when I was living at home and was working 20-30 hours a week.
Financially speaking, it is highly suggested to spend below your means. This becomes really easy once you are able to change your mindset into thinking you are “broke,” but aren’t actually broke.
This has particularly worked for me especially while in college because everyone around me is always talking about how broke they are, so it is easy to “play” the part. I am by no means rich or broke, but I know where my money comes from and where it goes.
If you have never budgeted before, then check out our post on budgeting and choose any one or more of our 4 free templates!
Eisenhower Matrix
The Eisenhower Matrix is a well-developed Time management matrix used to sort important and urgent tasks from unimportant and non-urgent tasks. It is a very useful tool that has been around for some time. The Asana website is a really good resource to use for planning with a template. This way you don’t have to worry too much about whether you are doing it correctly or not, because they have all of the guidance you would need.
I have personally used this resource for my own planning and it is super helpful! It is very neat and it organizes your “to-do’s” for you so that you don’t have to take it all on by yourself.
I also personally made a template for you guys through Google Sheets/Excel, so feel free to use either!
The idea behind this Matrix is that you spend your time firstly on what matters most, then you make your way down the list depending on importance and urgency. This helps ensure discipline and efficiency which is the overall goal of any checklist.
The tasks are organized by:
- Urgent and important: Do right away.
- Important and not urgent: Schedule to be done.
- Urgent and not important: Delegate tasks to be completed in the very near future. They must be completed now but do not affect your long-term goals.
- Not urgent and not important: tasks that should be “deleted” and set aside because they are more than likely distractions.
This strategy has helped immensely with how I view my tasks and the time I put aside for those tasks. If you are intimidated by the title and what it contains, then I suggest starting out with simple and small tasks so that you can work your way into more demanding things. Since starting is the hardest step, knowing that you are starting from somewhere will help a ton!
Time Is Money
Have you ever been bored and somehow feel like you are missing out?
In most cases, you might be. When we are bored and not taking advantage of things we can be doing to get ahead, it can often feel like we are taking steps backward instead of standing still.
It isn’t bad to be bored, and often times it’s relaxing to not feel like life is pulling you under.
Instead of feeling like you could be doing something more productive and efficient, think about how you can disburse your time out in advance. This way it is more of an automation process than it is a creating process every time you go to do something. As an Accounting major, I am always thinking about money and numbers, but that doesn’t mean you can’t obtain the “money is time” mindset if you aren’t an Accounting or Finance major.
It is more about the analysis of your inner self and your values that gets you on track of viewing time as “money”. Note that money isn’t the only value being worked toward. The general idea is that you are working for opportunity. Yes, money is opportunity and it may be what you are aiming for, but overall the concept is all about where you can get to by investing your time in particular things right now.
Viewing your time as money means that you are viewing it as if you are constantly investing it into your daily activities trying to receive the highest returns possible. Such as exchanging an hour in the morning for getting ready. If you analyze this and say you don’t truly need that much time to get ready, then you can invest that time elsewhere for more benefit. This could be an extra 30 minutes of reading, studying, going to the gym, or working on your personal relationships.
The choices you make when disbursing your time will be seen as a return in your future. Such as spending your time getting a degree right now will be seen as a return 4 years from now when you land your first job. Or however, your process may look.
People often think of money and wealth when thinking about investing, but it is truly the exchange for something and gaining a high return. This can look very different for many people, but for this post, we will focus on the exchange of time for money and money for time.
Exchanging time for money now will enable you to exchange money for time later. This is the ultimate goal and desire. Being able to exchange your money for time is how we are able to focus on our true values and desires for life.
There is a famous quote that puts this idea into better words:
Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to used during the day. What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course? Each of us has such a bank, it’s name is time. Every morning, it credits you 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off at a lost, whatever of this you failed to invest to a good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no over draft. Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours. There is no drawing against “tomorrow”. You must live in the present on today’s deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and health. The clock is running. Make the most of today.
― Marc Levy, If Only It Were True. Quotes provided by good reads.
With that, imagine how you would spend your $86,400 because every dollar/second matters.
Automation
Automation is the key to consistency and discipline because it gives you little to no choice.
My advice for automating and planning your time out is to start with simple tasks and work your way up. We always start with such large tasks with large impacts, instead, maybe start with low-impact and low-commitment tasks. This will help with the motivation to carry forward and to create a habit of feel-good actions when crossing things off your list.
If this is not how you operate, that is okay, then start with the larger tasks and make your way down.
Automation can look very different depending on what you are automating.
Some things you can do to automate your life are:
- Make a schedule
- Budget your finances
- Automate your expense payments for the month
- Record your big “to-do’s” for the week in advance
- When things pop up, write them down and make time (don’t shrug and say that you’ll find the time later)
- Download planning apps. Some good ones that I suggest:
- Asana
- Monday.com- Work Management
- Structured- Daily Planner
- Reminders- Apple Only
- Productive- Habit Tracker
- Focus Keeper- It is a timing app that helps you stay on track because it times you
- TimeBloc- Daily planner(it gives you the ability to block off your time throughout the day and show your progress with it.)
- Meal prep for your week (it saves so much time and you can fit in so much nutrients!!)
- Planning your outfits in advance (for simple things like school, the gym, work, a party, etc.)
These are only some, but if you can think of any others that would help you automate your daily routine I suggest doing it! Having things set out in advance for me helps so much with following through and consistency.
I also suggest that if you have a goal for the next day, you write down your goal with as much detail as possible. Write down the when and where that you will do it so that you feel more obligated to follow through. When you feel like you have committed to something on paper you are more likely to follow through.
Motivators
Find what makes you happy.
Make a vision board with all of your goals and for each goal put something that makes you happy about that goal. It can either be a picture, a saying, or whatever else you can think of.
Keeping your end result in mind is what will keep you on track. Before this school year started I created a vision wall and I spread it across an entire wall in my room. I now see my dream right in front of me when I wake up, when I go to sleep, and when I get home from going to class or work. I highly recommend it!
It can be as simple as one picture or it can be as extravagant as spreading pictures across your entire room. Just take whatever makes you happy and stick a visionary or audible reminder anywhere you can. It will be a constant reminder of what you are doing it all for. I can’t stress enough how impactful it is to keep that vision. You won’t always have the motivation or discipline to move forward so it is important that you take as much choice out of it as you can.
If you automate your routine and your plan to achieve your goals, then you create a vision board or audible reminder, it will be near impossible not to achieve your dreams. In most situations, we are our own greatest enemy and critique so take the option of quitting away and ensure that you get what you want.
Ensure that your desires are implemented into a plan.
Ensure that you achieve what you are meant to.
We all have a purpose, whether it’s to be a rocket scientist, mom/dad, explorer, teacher, football player, gymnast, truck driver, marine, or whatever else, it takes guts and an action plan. Don’t wait until it’s too late, and certainly don’t be the reason that your own goals rest unachieved. Be the reason that they are achieved, and don’t wait to start that process.
In the end, this doesn’t need to be perfect. All you can do is your best, whatever that looks like. You will grow into what you have learned, but that takes time. So be patient with yourself, and work hard.
Thank you for reading, and be sure to check out my posts related to time management strategies!
Sources
Resources
- Our Eisenhower Matrix Template
- Asana Matrix Simulator
- Apps
- Asana
- Monday.com
- Structured
- Reminders
- Productive
- Focus Keeper
- TimeBloc