In the fast-paced life that we all seem to live now. Time management has become a crucial skill for overall success and well-being. We can all think of that one person who seems to have it all under control. Life just seems to always go their way! Unfortunately, for most of us, it doesn’t work out that easily… That’s where time management comes in!!! Want to make the most of your day? Want to secure that grad job? Want to spend more time with family? The art of time management is the answer to all these queries.

Scheduling Your Day

• The first step towards managing your time effectively is organising your day! I use a great app called Structured that lets me create a day plan so I know exactly what I’m meant to be doing and ensures that I keep a balanced lifestyle. The neat interface allows you to interact with your day by ticking off tasks and keeping you on track for success. By inputting time, you’re not only creating a roadmap for your day but also creating a sense of accountability for your time.

• This is not GOSPEL. The biggest piece of advice I can give you is that life will not always go the way you planned it. Use scheduling to enhance your day, not suffocate it. Scheduling allows you to adapt and create a brief structure rather than a set of rules you HAVE to keep to. It’s not the end of the world if you lose track of what you have set to do or if tasks take longer than you thought. This will happen a lot as we tend to underestimate how long tasks will take, so set yourself more time for each task to account for this.

Prioritising Tasks

• Ever heard the phrase ‘If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning’? Mark Twain’s quote shows us that if you do your most difficult task at the very start of your day, then you’ve already tackled your biggest hurdle and with that gained momentum get on with your day.

• Providing you’ve had a good night’s sleep; the morning tends to be when our cognitive functions are at their peak levels meaning that this is a great time to tackle complex tasks such as your hardest task for the day.

• On top of prioritising complex tasks first, the use of the chunking method where blocks of focused work are laid out can be very helpful to ensure you are not overwhelmed by larger tasks. Chunking a section of a project to complete in a shorter amount of time can be beneficial rather than seeing the project as a whole task that needs to be done at once.

The Wellness Website Technique

• When it comes down to time management, the most important task is finding what techniques work for you. At the wellness website, we adopt an approach which takes into account a range of variables but this is by no means the only way to manage time and productivity effectively.

• ACTION PLAN: The method we use is targeted at an individual who has most of the day free and is aiming to complete a lot of work. The same technique can still be used if you are busy for half the day whereby you would just implement cycles one and two and then carry on with other commitments in your day. I hope you find this useful in kickstarting your productive day!