Didn’t finish your work as planned? That happens to me too! It’s likely due to a lack of effective time management. Time management is the process of organizing and planning to divide time between specific activities. If you cannot correctly manage your time, you’ll fail in many everyday tasks. Even though we all have the same 24 hours in a day, some people achieve more, mainly due to more effective management of their time. It might seem counterintuitive or cumbersome to plan daily activities out, but it’s worth it.

Some benefits of managing your time well include:

• Increased productivity
• Better quality of work
• More confidence
• Reduced stress
• Satisfaction with your work
• Less mistakes
• Feeling like you have more time
• Wasting less time
• More respect from family and friends

When you plan your day to complete your tasks on time, you effectively increase your productivity and enhance the quality of your work. Dividing the time depending on the importance of your work also helps out. You’ll develop confidence and reduce stress as you achieve success in completing easy yet important tasks. Keeping time in mind while you work, you’ll be able to complete everything you need to do each day. As a result, you will get more time and waste less time. Once you achieve your goal for the day as planned, you’ll feel satisfied and happier. For students especially, we have tons of work throughout the day, from extracurriculars, standardized tests, exercise, schoolwork, college essays, and so much more. This work can be tedious and taxing, both physically and mentally. Your daily routine usually involves school or college, events, and sports activities. At the end of the day, it might take all your effort and willpower to study, even though it’s one of the most important things to spend your time on as a student. An average student does not manage time properly, which causes him to lose track of his time, whereas someone who gets great grades likely manages their time well so that they still have time to learn, study, and complete assignments on time.

How do you manage your time effectively? Start with these tips:

• Prepare a timetable and checklist for the day. Stick to it. You can create it the evening before each day or in the morning.
• Use a calendar. Keep it updated so that you’re aware of events each day.
• Say no to excess work and activities. If you notice that even after managing your time and planning, you still can’t get everything done, maybe it’s time to drop a commitment or two. There’s no shame in that.
• Avoid wasting time by blocking distracting websites and apps. Screen Time on iOS allows you to do this on iPhone, and there are other apps available. For desktop, check out website-blocking Chrome extensions.
• Track your time with Toggl or a similar tool. If you know where your time is going, you can better manage it.
• Use a Pomodoro timer as you work. The Pomodoro system involves working on one task, and one task only, for 25 minutes at a time, then taking a restful 5 minute break, and repeating for a few cycles. It’s a good way to get a large project done.

The first step in proper time management is analyzing how you currently spend your time and deciding how you want to alter the way you spend your time. Most people have no idea where their time is going. Toggl, a website and app, is a great way to track what you spend your time on. You can also just use a spreadsheet. As much as you can, eliminate unnecessary activities from your daily schedule. Leave them for the weekends or quit entirely.

One of the most important tips is making a proper schedule with daily activities marked out, which you can follow throughout the day, along with a checklist. Keep an eye on your list and keep checking off completed tasks. You also want to prioritize the most important work to get the most urgent, pressing tasks done first. Not only is completing your work important, but taking proper rest is also important. This again involves time management. If you manage your time properly, you will be able to devote sufficient time to your sleep, maintaining a stabilized circadian rhythm, which will improve almost every other aspect of your life.

If you take these steps to better time management, and truly apply them each day, you’ll be well on the road to becoming hyperproductive. If they worked for you, contact me (Ansh) and let me know which ones you used and how they worked! You can find my info below.

If you want to get more done during the day and stop procrastinating, check out our article on minimizing procrastination.