6 Tips to Improved Productivity and Effective Time Management

When it comes to getting more out of your day, having a plan and using your time wisely are the best ways to accomplish more of your to-do list.

As Apple’s Steve Jobs once explained, “It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”

Here are some tips that will help you harness your time and become more productive.

6 tips to manage your time

1. Be aware of your goals

Ensure that every task you spend time on throughout the day, week or month is directly related to getting you where you want to be. “For people who squander and waste the precious little time they do have, they know all too well how difficult achieving even mildly difficult goals can be,” entrepreneur R.L. Adams has said. That holds true whether you are looking to grow your sales, cultivate customer loyalty or build a solid reputation for your company. Anything that takes your focus away from these long-term goals are time wasters and should be struck off your list.

2. Plan

Have a daily action plan that lists only the most important things you want to accomplish. You should also try and start with the task that will require the most time and work your way down to the less demanding tasks. “It can help to set aside the last 15 minutes of your day to write down a plan for the next day,” Toronto’s Michael Beattie Alternatively, Michael Beattie notes that arriving early the next day to devote a few minutes to set out the day’s agenda can help you be more productive.

3. Prioritize

In the course of a day, there are many things that can pop up and distract us. However, if you are able to put each of those demands into a category such as urgent and not urgent you will be better able to use your time efficiently. Respond quickly only to those emergencies that need to be taken care of immediately.

4. Say no

Although we all have a desire to be helpful, we will limit ourselves if we take on too much. Learn to discern whether or not what is being asked fits into your goals and long-term plans or if it will detract from what you want to get done.

5. Reflect

To find out what is consuming the most of your time, look at your calendar or use a time-tracking app for a week to find out where you spend most of your day. This data-gathering reflection exercise will help you see how to be more productive. Once you have done a time-assessment, you can decide how to reduce the amount of time that spent on redundant and unimportant tasks.

6. Delegate

Some leaders can find it difficult to entrust projects or tasks to other employees. However, if you want to become more productive and use your time effectively, you will need to delegate to others. While there may be some hesitation or doubt about investing time to train someone else to take on extra duties, in the long-run it is a time saver. This also applies to hiring freelancers or outsourcing some work.

Effective time management can be one of the most important ways to help an organization run more smoothly. With a plan and some easy-to-apply tips, any company will be able to help employees get more from their day.