7 Realistic Time Management Hacks for Reaching Any Goal
I used these time management hacks to reach my Q1 goals and currently beating my H1 goals a month before June.
Realistically high goals are achievable. Take that from me or anyone that has met some of their terrifying goals. The question of why everyone can’t achieve their set goals has an answer that lies at the bosom of time management. One thing — and the only thing — that humanity has shared inconsiderably equal to everyone is time. Whether you are in the Antarctic during the Summer Equinox or you are in Kenya, you will receive a luxurious 24 hours in each day — no more, no less. How you choose to utilize this time depends entirely on you and not, in any way, on your surrounding.
Some experts — like Kevin Kruse — opine that time cannot be managed; instead, energy should be maximized. Although I understand and key into their perspective, I believe that time and energy, like every other limited resource, must be managed. Nobody has a limitless reserve of energy, after all. And to maximize energy, it must be managed. Maintaining optimum energy at strategic times is imperative. Tracking your every minute is boundlessly crucial (if that phrase is allowed to exist).
As each year begins, everyone makes new resolutions. Some write theirs down and many others whim about theirs — which is normal. To reach most of my goals for the year, I needed to be more productive. Productivity, to me, is the answer to it all. It’s like the fuel to your vehicle on your path to success. So far, almost midway through the year, I have made significant progress by using a few productivity measures that I’m about to share. I try to keep my processes as simple as possible, and this article wouldn’t be an exception.
Set Specific And Realistic Goals. Write Them Down.
It’s easy to say what you want; they are just words, of course. The question is: how much of it do you want? Assuming life has a waiter to serve you, how do you want it served? In what quantity and measure do you need it delivered to your doorpost?
Be descriptive when setting goals and avoid generic goals. If you want to own a car this year, you should be bold enough to decide which car you want to own, the color, the configurations, and everything you want in your next car. If you just want a car, you could get a crab as long as it moves your from block to block.
Realizing how setting specific goals can affect our taste and drive to satisfy them, it became a lot easier for me to carry a mental picture of my future life everywhere I go. Nonetheless, specificity can sometimes make you daydream. There is a faint line between fantasy and realism. Of course, Napoleon Hill made it clear that you can achieve your imagination if you conceive it long enough, but to see your progress in real life, you have to make those goals as realistic as possible.
You’ve probably set realistic goals in your head, and you can see how achievable they are. Now, write it down. ON A PAPER. WITH A PEN. And yes, I’m scolding you. Productivity is a ‘dead-ass’ serious business. Writing things down engraves them in your subconscious — call it finger memory or anything. When you sway from your goals, your subconscious pinches you back whenever you’re sober enough to listen.
Plan, Organize, And Strike Down From The Top.
Having set a realistic and specific goal is the first step. Plotting a straight path between your current position and the set goal is the next thing to do. It’s like a straight-line graph from the point of origin to the top cutting through each coordinate. If you didn’t skip geometry classes, you probably know that some coordinates just don’t fall in line perfectly, but you still draw the line correctly, though. It’s the same in real life. While you plan, mark out coordinates of where you have to be, as well as when and how you’d get there. Whether or not they are perfectly straight, just make sure they are running around the straight line to the top.
Organize these coordinates (steps) accordingly. Put them in the order with which they would be handled. It’s easier for you to manage your tasks one after the other than randomly picking from the list and striking off. That can be overwhelming and unproductive. Do what you need to do and when you need to do it. To help you do this, you need to keep more than a to-do list. Schedule your steps on a calendar. The most productive people schedule their tasks on a calendar. Dave Kerpen, the co-founder of Likeable, reported having all his tasks scheduled in his calendar and ignores whatever is not in there.
Striking out your completed tasks can give you a sense of accomplishment, but randomly striking them off can be counterproductive. When your tasks are organized and scheduled, you should strike off the first task, then the second, and then the third, etc. This way, it looks like you’re living an orderly life. Everyone craves orderliness, and there you have it.
The Fewer, The Better. Delegate The Excess.
When planning your days, weeks, months, and even quarters, you need to pick out those tasks that you — and only you — can handle. It is understandable if you want to do that creative work to perfection because only you know how it should be. But come off it! Is it really worth the time if someone could, at least, produce something close to your supposed product?
Various productivity experts assert that if anyone within your reach can perform a task 80% as good as you would, you should delegate and focus on something else that only you can handle. By the time you draw a long list of all the tasks that you have to finish before you reach your goal, your eyes would be bulgy. From that long list, sort out the ones that someone you can contact — or hire intermittently — would be able to handle well enough. While you do that, tag their names to each task so that you would know who to turn to at each point. By the time you are done with this, you might find out that you’re not that special after all. Lol. Only a few tasks would be left. In some cases, you would be left with supervision as your only responsibility.
Use Your Mornings Smartly.
Like my mom would say to me, “your morning is whenever you wake up and ready to start your day.” It doesn’t matter whether you’re a nocturnal person, regular day-liver, or switch between routines for some reason (and no reason at all — like me). Your morning can be when the rest of the world is shutting down. Endeavor to use the first hours of your wake time smartly. The brainpower is at optimum right after you wake up. If not distracted, it can come up with anything beyond fascinating. This is the best time to handle personal tasks that require high brainpower. Some of these may include critical thinking, creative writing, solution brainstorming, or whatever is in line with your set goal.
Very productive people avoid distractions at this early times of their day. Reviewing Ernest Hemmingway’s routine, he writes “every morning as soon as after first light as possible.” Many other persons do tasks that are most important to them in the morning. If keeping fit is a part of the goal (which should be), working out in the morning would be an excellent option. You could choose to do it in a public gym but avoid chit chats while on it because a distracted brain is cut short of ideas. Protect those early hours even while you’re sweating it out. Dan Miller, a New York Times bestselling author, once mentioned that many of his “most creative ideas have come from this protected time of the day, often when I’m in a full sweat.”
No matter when it is, keep your morning sacred. Avoid distractions. Sweat if you need to. Keep your mind open and receptive to ideas. Most importantly, have a notepad closeby because ideas are like a flash of lights; they are lost faster than they are formed.
Avoid Your Inbox and DMs.
We often wake up to meet emails in our inbox, SMS from folks the night before, DMs from mentees, friends, and whoever. These may look like mere messages from people trying to express themselves or pass some information. The profound truth is that those messages go beyond passing information. They set our mood and initiate a chain of spontaneous emotional reaction that we often carry throughout the day. You don’t want to wake up in the morning and have someone else choose how you should feel. I understand that you might be dating a romantic that leaves you butterfly forming messages in the morning. That’s an adorable thing, but are your imaginary butterflies worth three undistracted hours of productiveness?
Just avoid your DMs and inbox — and even the news — when you wake up in the morning and focus on something immensely productive and creative. Those messages can wait. Moreover, nothing is as critical as they might seem.
Say More ‘Nos’ Than ‘Good Mornings.’
“Good morning, Jim.” “Good morning, Edna.” Good morning! Good morning!! Good morning!!!
There are probably more than 20 persons to say “good morning” to every day. And there are probably less than three people you could say “No” to each day without feeling awful about it. Well, you’ve got to up that number if you want to stay productive.
Every day, people approach us to request for a slice of our time in one way or another. They want to have a minute conversation, or they need you to offer a hand with something. Most of the time, you are not the only person to turn to, but they chose you. That is appreciated, but you have to say no to them if their requests are getting on your way to getting things done. Most of the time, they are.
When someone approaches you with a request that should get the ‘yes’ response, it’s easy to know. You won’t have to flinch about answering them. If your goals are engraved in your mind, and your path is properly plotted, you will leap to the right requests. Tim Ferriss, talking about decision making, had made it clear that “if it’s not a hell YEAH, it’s a no.” Don’t spend so much time thinking about it. Just say NO. Explanations aren’t required; you don’t owe them any.
Encourage People To Make Decisions
Most average people are scared of responsibilities and often dodge them. Decision making is everyone’s responsibility, but some persons would toss that decision to you whenever they can. Most of them do this because they trust your judgment on that subject more than theirs, which is a beautiful realization to have. Whether they think you know better or not, a decision about their life is entirely theirs to make. The best you can offer is a simple piece of neutral insight. Then allow them to do the rest. Our brains passively go through our decision-making processes and pick up responsibilities for the decisions we’ve made — either for ourselves, our team, or other persons. This is the reason why you feel a pinch of guilt after asking your cousin to make a move that didn’t turn out well for her.
If you run a business and manage a team, it could be understandable to have all decisions get through you. Although decision making can be a split-second process, it leaves some responsibility and draws your commitment to what was decided. If a project has been delegated to a team member, allow them to make decisions. With every decision they make, they are driven to make it work out. While they drive towards that, you focus on keeping things inclined towards growth, which was your decision.
Ready. Discipline. Action.
This is the eighth, but I don’t consider it a productivity hack. It’s a life hack that ropes everything within it. Even breathing is an action that you need to perform with all disciplines to stay alive. At every stage of your productive life, you have to remain disciplined in action. Setting your goals and writing them down won’t bring them to fruition. Planning, organizing, and scheduling them won’t get them struck off from the top down. Listing out the tasks to focus on and delegate won’t complete them.
No matter what you write, imagine, or learn, they are abstract until you get them done. Taking action to put things in place has brought me closer to my goals and would do the same to anyone.
I’m not as disciplined as I want to be. I still have to struggle with the distractions from my phone during productive hours. Needless to say, I’m doing the best I can to put it under my foot. Recently, I struck a deal with my neighbor, who is committed to a “9-to-5”. She takes my phone to work with her and returns with it in the evening. That’s been working really fine for me so far, and I don’t care about paying her for that. Apparently, my phone has a “9-to-5” commitment 14 km away while I get things done from home.
Catch up on my frequent bursts of weirdness. Fly with me on The Bird and weigh me to The Gram today.