How to manage your time as a professional
The question is whether you handle the easy tasks for the day and leave the big tasks for later and wonder why you seem not to achieve your assignments and objectives. It is not that you do not have enough time in your hands, but it is all about how you can manage the time you have.
The thing is time cannot be controlled. Time waits for no one. You cannot save time, lose time, or turn back the hands of time. Time keeps going no matter the circumstances and events in life.
Time can only be ridden like a roller coaster. What do I mean? You cannot change time, but you can approach it differently. You make use of time.
The best time to live is now. Do it now.
The number one cause of failure is procrastination. They say procrastination is the thief of time. It will not only steal your time, it will steal your successes as well.
You have to prioritise your daily activities. Prioritiseyour day beginning with your most important activities. Less important activities can be delegated or put off to another time or day. Your most important activities are those which are most valuable and bring returns.
How can you discover your most important activity for the day?
You can use a simple rule which is called the 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle. The 80/20 rule was discovered by an Italian economist called Vilfredo Pareto.
The rule simply says that 80 percent of your work produces less than 20 percent of your results. And paying attention to 20 percent of your work produces 80 percent returns on your effort.
As a professional who has targets to reach and clients to satisfy, you only need to focus on activities that produce the maximum results. At this time you will have to put multi tasking aside and concentrate on the most important task.
Time will keep moving no matter where you are. Don’t wait for it. Don’t run ahead of it. You don’t have to go back in time. But you can do something now. Like right now. Just do something important right now.
What can you do right now?
Start with the first item. Don’t look at the others, just item number one and start working on it and stay with it until it is completed.
Continue in this form until you have handled all your major tasks for the day on your list.
Don’t panic if you could not finish all the items on your list, you would have already worked on the most important items on your list anyway.