Women are master jugglers, wearing several hats at any given point of time, and do they put up a show or what!
There is home that needs to be kept spic and span, and working without a glitch, side hustles that need time and efforts to grow, and last but not the least, keeping healthy, and investing in some ‘me’ time to build the mind and body.
The challenge is not just doing all of this every single day. The real challenge is out of the fact that none of these daily meters are fixed, and are very likely to spin out of control, without a warning.
Here’s how you can prioritize time when you are managing multiple roles.
Understand Where Your Time Is Going
This is how you can manage your time better:
1. Conduct a time audit for one week
Spend some time auditing your time to find leaks and potential drains. Notice if there are patterns like specific days or pockets of days, a mood, or some particular company. This is important for improving productivity and achieving goals by revealing how time is currently being spent. Better time management reduces stress, and puts you in a better palace, personally and professionally.
2. Identify time-wasters and low-value tasks
A little self-scrutiny will tell you which of your tasks are draining your time. These may be low-value tasks eating into your time without contributing to achieving goals or adding value. These could look like unnecessary meetings – online or offline, doom-scrolling on social media, spending too much time managing emails, procrastination and avoidance, or poorly defined, ambiguous tasks.
Set Clear Priorities (Not Just To-Do Lists)
Once you know where your time is going, here’s how to set priorities:
1. Define your top 3 priorities daily and weekly
Successful people follow assiduously, planning everything ahead of time and putting it on a calendar. It doesn’t end there – they would have even thought of the number of hours they would give each of the tasks. Again, each of the tasks would have been listed in their order of priority. This exercise is tedious, gets boring at times but saves a lot of time and mixed-up schedules later. Plan everything right down to your topmost priorities on a day, and do the same for the length of the week.
2. Categorize tasks: urgent vs important
Understand the difference between urgent and important. There will be things that require an instant, an immediate response, and action. There will be others that can be given more time. Learn to know how to distinguish them, and save on squandering your time.
3. Learn to say no to protect your focus
Learning to say no to the most lucrative of plans or proposals if they mess with your scheduled task list, is not for the faint- hearted. You may feel bad or you may be made to feel bad for not being part of an unhinged plan or proposal but let that slide. Stay on your mapped path, and keep your focus. The little twinge of regret will soon be replaced by the joyous thunder of applause when you meet your desired goals.
Time Management Strategies That Work
When you have priorities set, here are some time management tactics we recommend:
1. Time-blocking your day
Divide your day into pockets. Assign one kind of work to each pocket. If it’s time for you to sit in the quiet, and answer your emails, do that. If the time is for you to make a team call, get on it. Plan your days and try not to overstep into different pockets. Time blocking works just as well as blocking the nuisances out of your life, no pun intended.
2. Batching similar tasks
By minimizing ‘ context switching’, you maximize your time that would have just slipped away if you’d have to constantly juggle between different types of tasks. Think of putting all similar tasks in one place like emails or scheduling meetings, and allocate time accordingly.
3. Using the Pomodoro technique
This time management technique makes use of a timer to break down work into focused 25-minute intervals, separated by short breaks. A longer break is taken, after four intervals. This method results in sharper focus, breaks the habit of procrastination, and prevents burnout.
4. Scheduling deep focus time vs admin time
Set aside deep focus time when you cut out all distractions, silence all notifications, kill the urge to scroll on social media, and disallow everyone from entering your work space. Enter a zen like space while working, and finish what you’ve started in the time allotted to that task. Taking care of other admin jobs when you are a business owner can be quite a pull but assign it different times because those jobs tend to be a stretch (needed, but so).
Delegate, Automate, or Drop
While we know you can do it all, we do recommend not taking it all upon yourself. Here’s how to do this:
1. What can be outsourced (chores, admin, freelance help)
A business will have a lot of big and small things to be managed. It’s always a good idea to outsource a few with the day to day functioning of your venture, administrative tasks that need to be looked at everyday, and the like. Think of getting some freelance help to free your own time for building than spending a lot of it on daily checks.
2. Tools that help automate (calendars, templates, reminders)
The world has moved from paper to digital tools. Take what suits you. Use calendars, templates, and reminders to stay on top of your work priorities. It also lets you block time for work priorities, and personal time that is visible to the team you work with. The use of these tools helps maintain transparency, as well as boundaries where needed.
3. Learn to let go of non-essential tasks
Something that you picked up on a whim because it pays you well but drains your time, an over- extended favour for someone you know, or just a return of favour- let go of all such tasks. They may appear tiny but they slow you down, and eat into your schedules. Bow out, and stop over- extending.
Tools That Help You Stay Organized
Here are some category of tools we recommend using:
1. Digital tools: Notion, Trello, Google Calendar
There are innumerable digital tools to pick from to keep your time management on point.trello through its boards, lists, and cards helps to organize tasks, and workflows. It is used to manage projects, collaborations,personal tasks, and has customization features too.
Then, there is Notion that is used for all the same things as Trello, and for note-taking, and knowledge management. Google Calendar allows users to schedule meetings, events, and appointments. It is just as useful in task management, event sharing, and users have the convenience of access to it from various devices.
2. Paper planners: prioritization-based formats
From scheduling to goal setting, from creative expressions to jotting notes for self, there are many who still prefer to write things down on paper. This is especially true for those who prefer a tactile experience, and reduced screen time.
3. Habit tracking for accountability
Be honest with yourself to understand which of your habits are eroding your schedules. Erratic sleep patterns, binge- watching, scrolling endlessly, banter with friends, gaming, and so on and so forth. Write down what you do as a habit, and then spend some time seeing where your time is getting drained.
Conclusion
Like everything else in life, making time align with your priorities is not an easy task. It will demand of you, strict discipline, and conforming to routines, no matter how boring, it’s not just about managing time, it’s about making time to fit your priorities.
Start by owning your time, unapologetically – one task, and one decision at a time.
