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There are many different things that contribute greatly to professional success, and that can end up significantly improving your ability to be successful in a range of professional situations.
Usually one of the most important professional skills for anyone to nurture, regardless of the particular career they have, or the specific domain they are operating within, is good time management skills.
This is as true for management as it is for low-level employees within the company, and many complex business issues are related specifically to questions regarding working hours and time management, and how hours should be effectively handled and compensated. Paying for overtime, for example, is subject to these kinds of debates.
If you want to become better with professional time management, and with time management in general, there are a range of different tips that you should consider – some of which are relatively clear and obvious, and others of which are significantly more likely to be overlooked.
Here are a number of different tips for becoming better with professional time management.
Reduce stress and exhaustion to increase balance and structure
For many people, good professional time management seems more or less in the same category as things like “grinding,” working long hours, and making sure that you are always as productive as possible.
While good time management certainly tends to lead to better productivity, however, stress and exhaustion are exactly the kinds of things that can massively undermine your capacity to exercise good time management.
When we are tired and exhausted – as we are so prone to be when missing out on sleep, and are under a lot of work-related stress, and are constantly striving to get as much done as possible – it has been well demonstrated by researchers that our willpower diminishes, we take significantly longer to make decisions and to carry out any number of different tasks, and our perception of things around us – including time itself – may become distorted.
Although it may seem counterintuitive, deliberately taking steps to destress, to get more sleep, and to establish a bit more harmony and balance in your everyday life, may be one of the best things you can do when it comes to boosting your professional time management skills.
Utilize external accountability systems wherever possible
To a significant degree, good time management depends on accountability – and on environments and networks that help us to stay on task, and to remain committed to meeting particular deadlines, among other things.
Today, with more and more people working from home, partly for reasons related to the global pandemic, and partly due to the prevailing trends within the professional landscape and the world of digital tech, a lot of these accountability mechanisms can seem to be lacking.
In order to give yourself the greatest possible capacity for good professional time management, it may be a very good idea to take steps to establish external accountability mechanisms, particularly in cases where those are currently lacking.
Those accountability mechanisms may include things like remaining in clear contact with remote coworkers, working out of shared coworking spaces, or even something like signing an “accountability contract.”
Schedule in allowances for potential distractions and setbacks in your day
No matter how well you may schedule and plan your days out in advance, it’s important to be aware of the fact that certain distractions and setbacks are always likely to arise, and so it’s impossible – in most cases – to come up with a perfect outline for the day in advance.
For a significant number of people, these sorts of setbacks can be highly detrimental, and can make it much more difficult to stay on top of deadlines, to stick to a schedule, and to exercise good professional time management.
One important and potentially helpful tip to try here, is to build in “buffers” to your daily schedule.
When preparing your timetable, leave gaps of open time to help you absorb unforeseen tasks and to move things around as appropriate.
Aim to enhance efficiency by working on key tasks for lengthy undisturbed blocks of time
It’s always going to be easier to practice good time management if you’re able to work on key tasks for lengthy undisturbed periods of time, in a way that helps you to deal with them efficiently.
Efficiency and productivity tend to play a key role in effective time management, as they mean that you can get more done with the time you have available, can reliably plan your day out in advance and meet deadlines, and can better stay on top of things as a result.
