Work Smarter, Not Harder – Manage Your Time Effectively

With our ever-so-busy lives today, a big issue that seems to affect us all is the amount of work we have to do, and not enough time to do it. Despite the fact that we live in such a technologically advanced world, one would think that the thirty to sixty minutes that we spend on the bus could be used towards you know…studying or reviewing notes, instead of playing Angry Birds on your phone.  However, if you are a normal, busy, individual, sometimes we need the downtime to keep our minds sane in this fast paced society. Enter the very valuable skill and work ethic of time management. By using your time effectively and efficiently, you will be able to complete those tasks on time, and save yourself the stress and insanity of trying to beat that deadline. By managing your time effectively, you will be able to feel like you are on top of things, and be more productive, which will result in job satisfaction and most of all…more time to enjoy life!

No matter how well you multi-task or manage your schedule, your working hours will always stay the same. However it is possible to delegate your tasks accordingly so that you will not fall behind:

OHIO and the 4Ts – Sounds like your indie hipster band right? Nope, more like a useful pneumonic to memorize and adopt to help tackle those tasks. Did you know that it takes an average of 10 seconds to read the average e-mail? People also tend to re-read e-mails multiple times before dealing with it, sometimes saving it for later.
Or howabout cleaning your room? How often do you start picking up things off the floor, only to be distracted by another thing and just moving your clothes off the floor and onto your chair?

With the amount of distractions that we get everyday, these precious seconds and minutes add up, so use OHIO and the 4Ts to help manage your time:

Only Handle It Once – Instead of coming back to the same task over and over again, either start it and handle it, or leave it alone until you have time to actually do it completely

Tackle It – Read the e-mail, reply to the sender, delete the e-mail, or start putting your clothes into the laundry machine

Task It – Place the e-mail into your to-do folder and designate a time for it, or set some time aside in your day to do laundry

Toss It – Read some of your e-mails, none of it, and just delete it all, or for your laundry, just don’t do it! (ewww)

Transfer It – Delegate it to someone else! In our e-mail example, forward it someone who can take care of it, or in our laundry example…get your sibling or parent to do your laundry! =P

There you have it. Stop wasting time by repeating the same tasks. By implementing this strategy, you can reclaim that lost time, and use it for something more worthwhile. Try applying to your career, job, or volunteer acitivites that you are already doing. So to quote a certain sports’ brand’s slogan: Just Do It!

Here is an infographic to further consume that extra 2 minutes of time: