The Secrets To Effective Time Management
Learn to beat work overload, be more effective, and achieve more.
There’s only so much you can do in a day.
And, even if you do work from home, you take into account eating 3x a day, exercising, cleaning, getting ready, and whatever else you typically do, and the hours slowly diminish even more.
When I worked a 9–5, I used to believe that the primary reason why my side hustle wasn’t taking off was that I didn’t have much time for it, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.
The truth is, your side hustle isn’t taking off because you’re not utilizing the time you do have effectively.
You’d be surprised by the amount of work you can complete in an hour if you simply eliminated your distractions and allowed yourself to get into a flow state or eliminated a few tasks out of your schedule that aren’t actually vital.
Ever since I picked up Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Workweek, my outlook on time management changed completely.
I not only work less, but the quality of my work has completely transformed, and on top of that, I’ve gained more hours in the day for other things such as picking up a new hobby, learning a new language, and simply having more time for social events.
So what are the secrets?
“One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity.” — Bruce Lee
Less is always more.
In an article on INC magazine written by author David Finkel, he introduces 3 concepts of “less is more” to scale your business.
Concept #3 was all about execution and accountability. When you have fewer important tasks to focus on, execution and accountability will inevitably become significantly easier and more clear.
You won’t have a tall stack of projects waiting for you, you won’t have a to-do list that’s 2 miles long, and by doing less meaningless work, you can focus on things of greater importance.
Take some time to evaluate what you do in a typical workday.
What do you normally start with? On a scale of 1–5, how important is that task?
For example, my goal is to be a writer. For a long time, I would utilize my peak productivity time on things that didn’t align with that goal.
Instead of waking up early to write, I would wake up early and workout.
Instead of writing after my workout, I would focus on getting tedious and tasks out of the way, thinking that I should leave my writing for the end of the day, but that resulted in my being extremely tired, and I wasn’t even able to get 1000 words out.
In an article on Lifehacker, writer Patrick Austin says, “Productivity declines and fewer tasks are completed as the day’s end approaches.”
Identify 3 major tasks to complete each day and stick to completing those alone. Utilize your peak productivity hours on them and avoid filling up your to-do list with tasks that won’t help you reach your goals any faster.
Effective vs. Efficient.
The difference between effective and efficient is that when you’re effective, you’re doing things that will inevitably get you closer to your goals.
Whereas efficiency is all about performing a specific task most economically. Both are crucial in any entrepreneurship journey; however, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Effectiveness:
- Why is this being done?
- Will this add value to my customers? If not, is it even worth doing?
- Does it align with my objectives and goals?
- Effectiveness is all about the bigger picture. You have a desire to create a better future; you’re innovating, creating strategies, adapting to changing environments, etc.
- Effectiveness is not easy to measure.
- Effectiveness requires subjective visioning.
Efficiency:
- What needs to be done?
- Doing things the right way in the best possible manner with the least resources, time, and effort.
- Focuses on the process.
- What must improve right now?
- Easily measurable by analyzing specific metrics.
- Efficiency requires objective analysis.
In Ferriss’s book, he had two additional vital points to keep in mind regarding effectiveness and efficiency.
- Doing something unimportant well does not make it important.
- Requiring a lot of time does not make a task important.
Consider this: What you do is more important than how you do it. Efficiency will always be important, but it will ultimately be useless unless applied towards the right things,
For example, a few months ago, I tried to juggle my food blog, YouTube channel, my 9–5 job, and my writing. My ultimate goal was to become a full-time writer. Still, despite knowing that, I thought that by being efficient with my time and allocating my energy into each of those categories, I would inevitably succeed.
As time went by, I was getting less done, and the quality of my work was suffering. And yet, I felt like all I did was work.
When you start putting more emphasis on what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, efficiency tags along.
Focus on doing the tasks that will inevitably help you grow your business rather than doing meaningless tasks that just drain your energy and don’t help your goals.
Time blocking.
In his book, The Effective Executive, Peter Drucker provides insights on managing time:
Make your time count. The secret of people who do so many difficult things, is that they do only one thing at a time; they refuse to let themselves be squandered away in small driblets [that] are no time at all. This requires the discipline to consolidate time into blocks, of three primary types.
First, create unbroken blocks for individual think time, preferably during the most lucid time of day; these pockets of quietude might be only ninety minutes, but even the busiest executive must do them with regularity.
Second, create chunks of deliberately unstructured time for people and the inevitable stuff that comes up.
Third, engage in meetings that matter, making particular use of carefully constructed standing meetings that can be the heartbeat of dialogue, debate, and decision; and use some of your think time to prepare and follow up.
Time blocks are intervals of time that can be utilized to schedule tasks for your workday. The majority of people use blocks of 60–90 minutes throughout the day.
For example, I use 90 minutes to work out, shower and get ready for the day. Then, I allocate 60 minutes for reading. 2–3 hours for writing. 20–30 minutes for emails.
This system is effective because it helps you estimate the amount of time each task takes, helps you group similar tasks together, and overall allows you to set priorities for your day proactively.
Pareto’s principle.
Vilfredo Pareto was a controversial economist who created “Pareto’s Law,” or as we popularly know it as the “80/20 Principle.”
Essentially, you can summarize this law as 80% of outputs result from 20% of inputs.
80% of Pareto’s garden peas were produced by 20% of the peapods he had planted.
80% of results come from 20% of the effort and time.
80% of all stock market gains are realized by 20% of the investors.
Ask yourself, which 20% of sources result in 80% of your desired outcome and happiness?
Your goal should be to find your inefficiencies to eliminate them and find your strengths so you can multiply them.
For example, going back to my side hustles — I knew writing was my primary goal, so I decided to allocate most of my time on that, and everything else went on the back burner.
Stop trying to do everything at once; I know it’s hard, but by trying to juggle a multitude of things, you’re only preventing yourself from not only succeeding but also from producing quality work.
“The man who chases two rabbits, catches neither.”
― Confucius
Time management is a hefty skill to learn, but it’s critical if you want to be successful. It won’t only give you your freedom back, but it’ll allow you to feel more in control of your day-to-day life.
By utilizing some of these secrets, you’ll achieve what you want significantly faster because you’re focusing primarily on what you want.
You’ll get more done in less amount of time because you’re allocating your energy for all the right things and it’ll also help you waste less time.
Now go be effective.