When you are in a very young age like 15-23 then your only assets are your Time, Energy and your Brain.
Invest your time on learning, Invest your energy to build good habits and Develop a positive Mindset.
In our last Articles we discuss 7 destructive Habits of teenagers.
I already publish some articles on Mindset, and also stay tuned with improvement-habits that provide you with informative articles that help you to grow in Life and Career.
So Now in this Article we talk about Time Management, Basically I told you the 8 Hacks that help you stop wasting your time. All these techniques are suggested by experts and definitely help you to manage your time effectively. Managing your time effectively means increasing your productivity.
8 Simple Way to break the habit of wasting time and be more Productive.
1. Try 2 Minute Rule
This rule has two parts.
The first part is that if any task takes two minutes or less than two minutes to complete then do it immediately. Because every time you procrastinate on these 2 minute tasks that you do later, you do it before bed and then after you don't find time for these small tasks and then you procrastinate and postpone these small tasks. Also when you postpone these tasks they still acquire your attentional space and because of this you wouldn't be able to focus on a single task with your full attention.
And also when you are postponing these small tasks then they all combine and make a collection of many uncompleted tasks, and when your brain revises your work, it finds that you have a number of uncompleted tasks that create anxiety and frustration.
The second part of this Rule is that when starting a new habit it requires more energy, and we're avoiding it. But if you tell your brain to do that thing for just two minutes then it will be easy for you to start. Once you get started, "You can perceive the task less aversive than you do when you're avoiding it".
So just force yourself to take the first step then the task seems to be easy.
2. Working on a Single Task
Sometimes we want to save our time and for this we try to do multiple jobs at the same time. It means you do Multitasking, but in reality Multitasking is the biggest time waster. Because humans can only focus on one thing at a time, and when you try to save your time by Multitasking you are actually wasting your time.
And maybe you are able to do both the tasks at the same time, but you never get the productive results.
Time Management doesn't mean that you manage your 24 hours in a particular way, Time Management means that you manage your time in such a way that you will increase your productivity and also increase the quality of your work.
This is the very thin difference that Unsuccessful people think that Multitasking saves a lot of time, but successful people understand that Multitasking is the biggest time waster and also destroys their productivity.
3. Prioritize your Work
If you learn to prioritize your daily tasks then you can manage your life effectively.
According to the 80/20 Principle, 80% of our results come from our 20% of work and the remaining 20% of the results come from the remaining 80% of work.
So it means you have to find those 20% of work and then these tasks are your first priorities.
And then again from the remaining 80% of work try to find out which are the most important tasks.
Today we're very busy not because of our working list, but because of our thinking that everything matters equally. But this is the biggest lie, that's why you have to prioritize your task.
4. Create and Stick to Deadlines
You have to make deadlines for your work. For example - If you go to gym then your deadlines are like that today you will do 100 push ups and 100 squats.
And promise yourself that you don't break your deadlines. But remember don't make deadlines very high because sometimes you are very motivated and then you decide.
But Motivation never takes you where consistency takes you. So be consistent with your work. And when you consistently achieve your goals then it also increases your self confidence. And slowly increases your limits.
Great things will not happen in one day, but with discipline definitely great things happen.
5. Forgive the Moment
Sometimes the burden of the past acts as a barrier and doesn't allow us to focus on our upcoming tasks.
Let me try to explain it to you through a small story. You have 1 Million Dollar and some stole your 1 Dollar then how you react to this situation.
So are you going to be sad thinking about that $1? No definitely Not.
So when you 86,400 seconds in a day and because of some reason you waste your few seconds let's take 1000 seconds. Now you still have 85,400 seconds, so why are you still wasting your remaining time on thinking about those Seconds.
Forget the moment and focus on your upcoming tasks.
6. Biggest Time waster
You will take all the recommended steps to manage your time but this is the most important step to Stop Wasting Time. Today the young generation spend 60% of their time on screens(watching TV and using smartphones). So if you want to manage your remaining 40% time then this strategy doesn't work.
You have to figure out how you will decrease your time wasting activities. The best remedy is that from today quit one unproductive habit that wastes your maximum time and instead of this develop a new good habit, and follow this routine for the next 7 days and then again quit one more time waster habit.
Some people try to follow a strict routine and decide to quit all his wrong habits at once, but this is the wrong approach to break any habit. You develop these habits over a period of time, so if you want to quit these habits then definitely they take time.
7. Put away all Distractions
First I will tell you a Fact, A average human takes 50% more time to finish his tasks, research estimates that an average human gets distracted after every 11 minutes and then it takes more than 20 minutes to get him back on his work with the same intensity of focus that he first had.
And all this happens because of our distraction-filled environment. Today we carry our smartphone everywhere we go and the notifications that are coming every minute distract us from what we are doing and we pull out our phone from our pocket without any purpose.
Also when we work on our computer we also open different websites in another window tab that also distracts us.
And it is not only about the external distractions, internal distractions are also equally responsible.
If you want to know more about Distraction then read our this Article "Deal with Distractions".
8. Put more on your Plate
You know the maximum time when we postpone our task is because we feel exhausted, and the reason for this is that we overloaded our to-do list, we write a number of tasks in our to-do list and plan to finish all these tasks in just one day. And at the end of the day we find that we only finished around 50% of our to-do list and also all the time we are in a hurry because a number of tasks are waiting for us. And at the end we quit and postpone everything tomorrow. Again this is the wrong approach.
Being productive doesn't mean that you have done a lot of things, productive means that we accomplish what we intend to do.
Let's understand with an example- When you eat more than your body requires, you call it healthy or overeating. So similarly don't try to change or achieve a lot of things just in one day.
Everyday decide your 3 MITs(Most important task) and these are your priorities, and give your best and accomplish your target.
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Thank You.