The post is developed in partnership with BetterHelp.
Having effective time management skills can help you to develop a quality work-life balance that prioritizes your mental and physical well-being. Not only can this reduce wasted time at work but it can also help you to find more personal time to relax and reduce stress. If you feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day, you may need to start looking over your cluttered schedule and reevaluate your time.
1. Optimize Your Phone Screen
While many companies have worked to improve the optimization of storage and app management, a cluttered phone could contribute to a cluttered schedule. Reducing screen time is not only a key suspect of improving your mental health but it can also help you spend more time on important tasks and errands throughout the day. Having your apps organized is a simple psychological trick that can improve your idea of time management. For example, if you have all of your social media apps in one folder, your work-related apps in another, etc., you have areas you can consciously avoid so you reduce distractions.
2. Schedule Ahead – And Then Reschedule
Scheduling ahead gives you the benefit of readjusting your time accordingly. Give tasks deadlines and prioritize your work around any upcoming events and expectations. However, it’s important not to waste too much time organizing; this is why it’s ok to remember that every schedule should be considered a “first draft”. When you learn to accept schedule changes and adjustments, it can help you approach time management with less stress and anxiety.
3. Prioritize Tasks
In order to effectively schedule your tasks, they need to be prioritized accordingly. This means putting each deadline, errand, and event into a category based on realistic expectations. While everyone’s prioritization can look different, try starting out with the following categories from the Eisenhower Matrix:
- Important / Urgent: Tasks that are both essential to your work and need to be completed soon. These need to be a top priority in your schedule.
- Important / Not Urgent: Tasks that are essential to your work but don’t need to be completed soon. Spend the majority of your time on these tasks to reduce the “Important / Urgent” tasks.
- Not Important / Urgent: Tasks that aren’t essential to your work but need to be completed soon. If they’re unimportant, try to delegate them to someone else or reduce the amount of these tasks.
- Not Important / Not Urgent: Tasks that aren’t essential and don’t need to be completed soon. There shouldn’t be a significant amount of these tasks – if you find yourself with a number of items here, you may need to reevaluate.
4. Make Time for Breaks
When it comes to effective time management, adjusting your schedule to leave an adequate amount of time for rest is crucial to both your mental health and work ethic. Your brain needs periods of low-level activity in order to function at its best in high-stress situations. If you have an upcoming event or project, you’re going to need to ensure that you’re leaving enough time for you to relax so that your focus stays sharp. You can schedule activities like a short walk outside or a brief period for meditation, but it should be a time that you reduce your thoughts about upcoming needs. This will help you recenter yourself and reduce feelings of stress and anxiety.
5. Learn to Say No
At the end of the day, one of the best ways to ensure you’re making effective time management choices is by learning to say no. This is important to reduce overexerting yourself and promising too much to others instead of taking time for relaxation and rest. While going out with friends and seeing family after a long day at work is a great way to establish a healthy work-life balance, you also need to learn how to be there for yourself and spend time recharging. It’s possible some of the clutter in your schedule is promising too much to your friends and family by going out or visiting too often. It’s important to have a few evenings to yourself in order to pursue things you love like hobbies, media, and sleep!