“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?”

- Henry David Thoreau

I just love time management techniques.

The reason for that is not that I would like to be the most efficient person in the world and become a workaholic who works efficiently for 12 hours a day, but rather the fact that with a right kind of time management you can achieve the same things in two hours that most people spend eight hours a day for.

Imagine that your workday would last only two or three hours, and you could then relax for the rest of the day without any stress regarding things that are still undone. It is all possible if you skip all the irrelevant things and focus only on the most crucial things as effectively as you can.

Unfortunately in a regular job you are not always rewarded for being efficient – usually your boss just gives you more work when you have finished everything. Maybe a good technique at a workplace is to finish the crucial things quickly, but tell the boss that you are still working on whatever you are supposed to get done, so that you will not be punished with additional tasks.

However, here are the biggest mistakes that people make with time management – avoid these and you will have more time for yourself:

1. Forgetting to prioritize your to do list

Often people realize that it is necessary to have a to do list, but if you don’t arrange the tasks into a particular order, you will very easily end up doing irrelevant tasks the whole day, such as replying to e-mails, or making useless phone calls.

Instead of having a long to do list, always remember to pick from two to six absolutely crucial tasks every day into a top priority list, in which you have the most important tasks in the correct order. Then, don’t go to number two before you have completed the most important task – task number one on your top priority list.

Your complete to do list should be just a way to remember everything you can do, but not a list of equally important tasks that helps you to avoid doing the most important things you should do.

2. Multi-tasking

Especially if you are a guy, don’t try to do five things at the same time. Some girls can multi-task fifteen things at the same time and sometimes even get those things done, but for the less beautiful gender it is impossible.

Our brains are not in the most effective state when you are not focused on one thing only. Momentum is very important for being effective, and you only gain momentum when you focus on one thing for long enough.

You can use multi-tasking for the low-importance activities, such as listening to music or an educational mp3 while you are driving a car or doing something physical, but in other cases you should definitely complete one task without any distractions before moving to the next.

3. Distractions

This is usually my biggest obstacle.

There are millions of potential distractions in the world, but we have the ability to shut down most of them if we really want to.

OK, I admit, when I was working for others, I really didn’t have the internal motivation to finish the tasks efficiently, so I was usually happy when I had some kind of excuse to not actually work.

If your computer keeps on popping up notifications of unused items on your desktop or new e-mails, find out how to disable those notifications. It is perfectly okay to not reply every e-mail in two minutes. If you are trying to finish a really important task, you should switch of your phone and instant messaging services completely.

Make also sure that your working environment is free from interruptions. If you have a door in your office room, keep it closed when you are doing something important, even though you should be accessible the other times.

If the working environment is noisy, buy earplugs and use them. For some people, soothing music helps to concentrate, but for me personally, the best thing for productivity is the absolute silence that can be achieved with earplugs.

4. E-mails

E-mails are kind of included in the last point, but I want to stress the fact that you should really think about how e-mails affect your time management.
Do you start your day by checking your e-mails?

If yes, you are taking a big risk of losing the whole day doing irrelevant tasks. Like I said, it is perfectly fine to reply to e-mails a little bit later, so always start your day by finishing the most important task of the day before doing anything else. After you have finished the most crucial tasks, you can reward yourself with something fun.

Some people also check their e-mails continuously during the day, which is very time consuming, and interrupts all the time what you are working on. One to three times per day is enough.

5. Facebook

Like e-mails, Facebook is part of point number three, but it is becoming so big a distraction that it deserves more attention.

I know quite well how fun it is to stalk other people in Facebook, so I know it is not easy to stay away from it, but instead of starting your day with Facebook, make it your reward to see what’s happened on Facebook after you have done what you must do.

One good tip is to remove most of the notifications that are sent to your e-mail daily. They get your attention quite easily, and make it difficult to not check them out in more detail. Some people even have told that they have spent whole days only on Facebook, which is quite extreme.

Stay out of Facebook when you have to work, and at least disable the Facebook chat unless you really are willing to spend a few hours trying to tame the chats with friends that pop up continuously.

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