How to improve your poor time management skills?

I know sometimes It can be overwhelming when you have so many things to do at once: tasks to complete, orders to deliver and your life just seems like it’s a complete mess.

It’s stressful, hectic, and unbearable. I mean, it’s totally understandable. But let’s just be honest here. You still are kind of responsible for all this messiness. Because staying up all night on a five hours task that you could’ve done earlier instead of watching the whole new episodes of your favorite Turkish drama is a little careless of you. And the whole situation became so messed up because of your procrastination, so maybe you just need to get serious about making the best out of your time.

We all have been through that phase and to help you get your life together I’ve prepared for you a whole bunch of useful tips that will not only ameliorate your time management skills but also save you from procrastination.

1-Limite the distraction

First things first. Let’s get clear. The reason behind your procrastination and laziness is nothing but the phone in your hands. The pretty little distractor of the century. I mean, it’s funny how just a pop-up notification from this device can grab all of your attention in a second, then distract you for hours from your important work if not the whole day.

Let’s agree that the first step into getting rid of your excessive phone usage is to acknowledge its bad side effects on your attention span and your overall mental health.

So, I am going to share with you what I exactly did to beat my phone addiction and free my time for the tasks that matter:

I knew that YouTube videos, Facebook, and Instagram feeds were my biggest weaknesses and time-consuming, so I changed my perspective on them, and I began using them as a reward for my hard work at the end of the day.

This amazing free app that you can easily download from the android play-store is a life changer.

You can set a specific time for using certain apps, and it will automatically prevent you from using them outside that time range.

This free Google Chrome extension is also very useful, as it will kill your YouTube videos and other related videos.

2-Time blocking

I kid you not how much this tip is important, it’s basically a lifesaver, here’s how I incorporate it into my daily life:

So every day before I go to sleep I prepare my to-do list in my little notebook starting from the most important task of the day to the less important tasks, specifying a time block next to each task.

You can use digital notebooks, apps, or google calendar for example, but I personally prefer physical notebooks. Here’s an example of my to-do list:

Try not to push a lot of tasks or work to do in a day because let’s be real we only get time to do 3 or 5 tasks maximum in a day.

3-Begin in the morning

Do you know what’s the worst enemy of productivity? It’s the lack of sleep. How can you possibly be efficient or focused on important work with bad physical and mental health?

Get enough sleep! I mean quality healthy good night’s sleep. Because in order to finish work on time and clear the rest of the day for friends and family and also for entertainment, you should sleep early and wake up to start hustling on the most important piece of work you’ve got.

What helped me sleep earlier is setting an alarm at 9 pm to remind me of my sleeping time.

Series and movies can never give you the health benefits that sleep does, trust me it’s not worth it!

4-Set a day to get your life together

One reset day in the week is a must!

During this day you can batch a lot of activities together and save yourself a lot of time for the real work!

So here’s what you can do on a reset day:

Entire house deep cleaning.
Washing all your laundry.
Highlight important dates of the week. For example, if you are a student you can write down the dates of exams in the week, or if you are a freelancer like me highlight the important dates when you must deliver the orders for your clients.
Pamper yourself with a warm bath.
Write down a list of the meals of the week and go grocery shopping.
Plan your outfits for the week.

5-stick to your schedule

There is no use in planning and writing lists if you don’t realize what you planned for. Build a habit of commitment, and always remember why you started doing what you do in the first place. Try to imagine how proud you’ll be once you achieve everything you wrote down on your list, imagine how cool success will look once you achieve your goals as a result of your commitment and hard work.

Use a timer every day for each task! What I found so beneficial is setting a timer for each Task I have.

For example, I’d set a timer for two hours to write an article, and it magically doubles my focus. Having a timer beside you pushes you somehow into getting things done.

This is what worked for me, and I’m sure it’ll work for you too once you try it.

With that being said, you have no excuse now for not being disciplined or productive. Get up and get work done!