Time-management

How to Align your Time Management Strategy with your Goals

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Goal setting is essential to achieving success, whether in your personal or professional life. However, it is about setting goals and aligning your time management strategy with your goals. A time management strategy ensures that you are focused, productive, and able to accomplish your objectives within the stipulated timeframe.

This article will explore the best practices for goal setting and how to align your time management strategy with your goals.

Define Your Goals Clearly

Setting goals is different for everyone, but one common thing among most is defining your objectives clearly. Be specific and ensure your goals are measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. These are most commonly known as SMART goals.

Defining your goals lets you break down what step to take next and gives you a roadmap. It also helps you to prioritize your tasks and avoid distractions.

Break Down Your Goals

The first step is to break your goals into small, daily tasks – this is crucial to aligning your time management strategy with what you aim to achieve. It helps create a clear action plan and makes your goals more manageable. Setting your intention towards accomplishing your goal is also helpful. 

Start by breaking down your long-term goals into short-term ones, then break them down into daily or weekly tasks. Taking time to break down your goals into manageable chunks makes it easier to track your progress and adjust your strategy if necessary. Be sure to keep note of your progress. 

Set Priorities

Setting priorities is essential for effective time management. You must prioritize your to-do list for your time management strategy to be effective. Depending on the level of urgency, identify tasks based on the level of importance and complete those items first.

It is also important to delegate tasks that are unimportant to achieving your goals, as this frees up your time to focus on more critical tasks.

Use a Time Management Tool

A time management tool such as a calendar, planner, or task management software can help you stay organized and on track. These tools allow you to schedule tasks, set reminders, and track progress.

Find a time management tool that works for your needs and incorporate it into your daily routine to help you stay focused and productive. Here are five popular time management strategy tasks to keep you on track.

 

Time Management Strategy Tools for Efficiency & Task Management

 

1. Trello – Trello is a visual organization and project management tool that allows entrepreneurs to create boards, lists, and cards to keep track of tasks and projects. It has a user-friendly interface and integrates with various other productivity tools.

 

2. RescueTime – RescueTime is a time-tracking tool that allows entrepreneurs to monitor their time on their devices. It provides detailed reports on how much time is spent on different websites and applications, helping entrepreneurs to identify time-wasting activities.

 

3. Pomodoro Timer – Pomodoro Technique is a time management strategy method that involves breaking work into 25-minute intervals, separated by short breaks. Several Pomodoro Timer apps help entrepreneurs implement this technique in their daily work.


4. Google Calendar – Google Calendar is a popular tool for scheduling appointments and keeping track of meetings and deadlines. It integrates with other Google tools, such as Gmail and Google Drive, making it easy to manage all aspects of your schedule in one place.


5. Evernote – Evernote is a note-taking tool that allows entrepreneurs to capture and organize their ideas, notes, and to-do lists. It has various features, such as voice memos, web clipping, and handwriting recognition, making it a versatile tool for managing information.

Track Your Progress

Tracking your progress is essential in goal setting. It helps you to identify areas where you need to improve and adjust your strategy if necessary.

Use a progress tracker to record your progress regularly. Tracking progress can be in a spreadsheet, a journal, or task management software. It helps you to stay motivated and focused on achieving your goals.

Stay Focused

Staying focused is critical in achieving your goals. Although multitasking may come to mind when you have several things to get done, remember that focusing on one assignment at a time is more effective. Don’t get caught spreading your attention across multiple items at once. To be efficient, you’ll need to prioritize whatever job is in front of you. Focusing enables you to give full attention to the task, ensuring it is done correctly.

It is also important to eliminate distractions like social media, email notifications, and phone calls. These can derail your progress and reduce your productivity.

Celebrate Your Achievements

Celebrating your achievements is essential to staying motivated and focused on achieving your goals. Self-recognition is important, so highlight your accomplishments with a well-deserved pat on the back. Celebrating your achievements helps you maintain a positive attitude and boosts your confidence in achieving all you’ve set out to accomplish. 

Summary Time Management Strategy

In summary, aligning your time management strategy with your goals is essential to success. Define your goals clearly, break them into smaller, achievable tasks, set priorities, use a time management tool, track your progress, stay focused, and celebrate your achievements.

Following these best practices can create a roadmap to success and accomplish your goals within the stipulated timeframe.

Keetria is an entrepreneur, wellness advocate, and brand strategy coach for creatives & entrepreneurs with 16 years of public relations expertise working with some of the world’s leading brands, startups, media personalities, and entertainers. If you would like to work together, don’t hesitate to reach out!

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Keep a Work-Life Balance When You’re Starting a Small Business

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Knowing How to Keep a Work-Life Balance When You're Starting a Small Business

If you’re an entrepreneur or a small business owner, you know how difficult it can be to keep your work at your office and your personal life at home. This can manifest in different ways, from answering work calls during dinner, to having to take care of neglected personal issues when you’ve set aside time for work.

The ideal situation is keeping both of these areas of your life completely separate. In reality, the more separate they are the more at ease and de-stressed you will be. When you keep your work at work and your personal life at home, you create a safe space away from stress while maintaining a professional area for productivity.

This can sometimes be impossible, though, when your life is revolving around getting a small business off the ground. Think about how much effort it takes to get your business off the ground – when there’s so much to do, is it possible to keep these areas of life separate?

The Answer Is…?

Yes. The solution is to be willing to sacrifice more home time to working, but the boundaries still need to be set.

Say that you get seven hours of sleep a day. This means you have 17 hours a day for yourself. Take away three hours for showering, eating, restroom breaks and other miscellaneous time for other needed functions. This means you have 14 hours to split up between your personal life and work.

In a normal situation, you may commit yourself to an eight hour work day, but during your business’ early stages you may need to make room for 10 hours devoted to work.

This isn’t a bad thing. A small business needs nurturing. The problem arises when after those 10 hours are spent, you’re still in business mode when you need to worry about your stress and rest.

The Solution

Setting up boundaries is the first step, then you’ll need to implement a way to maintain these boundaries.

One of the most obvious ways you’ll try to blur those lines is through your smartphone. This piece of technology symbolizes the line itself – you use your phone for both personal reasons and it’s also a great tool for business. The solution here is to separate the work-life functions of your phone as much as possible.

Learn how to turn off notifications for business emails when you get home and put your business apps in a folder that you keep on a separate phone screen. This commits you to the idea of “out of sight, out of mind.”

You’ll also need to learn how to commit to staying diligent and recognize that you NEED time away from work. When you rest at home, you aren’t slacking off or being lazy – you’re giving yourself time to recharge and relax in order to better your work performance.

This means being very diligent about where your boundaries are. Try this method out: when you get home, leave your phone on an end table or in a drawer for an hour to help wean you away from the idea that you need to work while you’re at home. The more you separate yourself from the idea you have to keep working at home, the less you’ll feel compelled to do so.

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How Successful People Do More in 24 Hours Than the Rest of Us Do in a Week

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Have you ever noticed how successful people do so much? Maybe that seems a little redundant or silly. Of course they do a lot – they’re successful, aren’t they? But have you ever sat back and thought about the correlation there? Successful people don’t get a lot accomplished because they are successful. They became successful because they were productive in the first place.

CEOs and entrepreneurs didn’t get to the position they’re in now without being productivity gurus. The good news? Everyone can get on their level. Adjust your thinking – don’t think that people are born productive and successful. Anyone can learn some simple skills and lifehacks that can make them more productive than the common man.

The following are a smattering of mental adjustments and tips you can start thinking about every time you look at your to-do list. The more you utilize and internalize them, the further you step onto your path towards success.

  • First, start being more positive. Negativity can be what stifles you more than anything. Start thinking that you WILL succeed and you’ll be amazed by how much more you’ll get one in a day.
  • Start getting organized. This is super basic – but it’s also something that many people don’t do. Spend a day clearing out your desk and setting up an organization system. You’ll thank yourself for it.
  • Scheduling is a big part of being successful. When you set up certain periods of time each day for each of your tasks, you’re more likely to accomplish all of them.
  • How do successful people do it? They have people to help them out. You may not make enough to have five personal assistants, but you do have family and friends to keep you on task. Set up a system that gives you a productivity buddy or two. When you have someone there to help make sure you’re following through, you’re more likely to be productive.
  • Successful people also utilize technology to help them succeed. Whether it’s through a calendar service or apps that help them plan and optimize their day, start saying yes to technology throughout your day – just don’t get succeed into time sink sites and apps.
  • Another trait that successful people have is they’re goal-oriented. While it’s good to be productive just based on principal, you have a better chance at overall success if you have a reason for being productive to begin with. Whether it’s a business venture or a more personal goal, have a reason for your productivity in order to drive yourself to commit to your good habits.
  • Stop being afraid of failure. Successful people have all experienced a bump or two in the road – but does that get them down? No! This may seem a little cheesy, but it’s true. Your probably don’t realize it, but you’re likely afraid of fear and get harder on yourself when you don’t live up to your own standards. Accept failure, learn from it and make the experience something to reflect upon instead.
  • Lastly, successful people stay ahead of the curve. Don’t be afraid to be innovative or try new things. One of the best ways to be successful and productive at the same time is to always look for a new way to optimize your day.

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