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My 9 Secrets To Make The Most Of My Day

Do you often find your workday moving out of control?

By Nick DaviesPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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My 9 Secrets To Make The Most Of My Day
Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

Do you often find your workday moving out of control? You start each day with a plan to get so much done, but soon find yourself becoming unfocussed, focusing on low-priority tasks or simply procrastinating. So how can you recover control of your time? Let’s face it! We all want more time in our life to get more done, have more and be more. We all have the same Twenty-four hours in a day as everyone else. So then why is it that some people are just so much more well-organized at squeezing more out of every moment of every day?

Well they have a few secrets up their sleeve that you should know too.

1.Review your tasks well in advance: Part of effective time management is planning. For a day at a time, you are better set when you know what you have on your plate. You do not have to spend a lot of time on this after you leave the office either. Review your timetable and tasks for the next day, the night before and get your morning off to a well-organized start.

2.Visualise your day Visualization can feel like hypnosis. Successful people all over the world use imagining to turn dreams into reality realms. It’s mind over matter. Form the day you want in your mind down to tiny details. Envisage yourself winning at life and being surrounded by positive forces. Then imagine yourself dealing with hard moments with grace. First thing in the morning — Prepare yourself for the day even before you get out of bed.

3.Make a practical to-do list Don’t overwhelm yourself by creating an exhaustive to-do list. To-do lists often fail because we make them complex or the tasks are unequal. It might happen that some tasks will take a long time while others won’t take any time at all. This creates an unbalance in the way we allocate our time. What happens then is that our to-do list then becomes a deferment tool. Yes, that’s right. Because then we do the easy stuff, and then become really unfocussed on the hard stuff.

4.Set small goals With every new project or assignment, the scope may seem to enlarge. But once you start breaking it down and understanding what can be accomplished, you’ll notice how each part shapes the other.

One of the easiest and most hands-on things you can do is to break down your project or deliverables into minor goals. Make a mini questionnaire for yourself. What are the pieces of information or inputs needed? Who do you need to talk to first? Break up these pieces before even setting timelines, and then evaluate how long they’ll take you to accomplish. Understanding the scope of what’s being asked, putting the steps in place and then estimating the time needed will help you get a hold of what’s being asked. Sometimes what might seem like a big project won’t take much time at all, or vice versa.

5.Track your time to identify patterns Tracking your time, even if no one is asking you for it can help you recognize your work habits and the time of day when you finish work most effectively. Tracking your time efficiently, knowing what your work habits are, from when you check your email to how often you check your favorite websites or social media platforms can affect your workday in a big way.

By re-working some of those things, you may be able to get more done. Tracking your time for a week or two will help you see your progress — where you spend your time and will help you better evaluate your goals. You’ll also identify problem areas, where you have a tendency to be less productive or identify certain scheduling accidents that you can work around–such as weekly meetings or appointments or even when that one co-worker/colleague comes by to chat for a few minutes.

6.Pick one task and then do it This is very tough because sometimes our tasks or assignments aren’t a 30-minute or one-hour job. It may take more no. of hours or multiple days. What then? Break it up into one task and then do that one task to its entirety. But how long should that be? Working consistently for 45 minutes on one thing makes sense and isn’t that difficult.

7.Don’t multi-task Because switching is what makes us more tired. It takes brain energy to switch and change that often. We aren’t being more creative; we’re browsing over the surface of things. The modern workplace environment won’t support you in your pursuit to be more focused.

8.Do more during your peak energy hours Regardless of what people believe, time isn’t our most valuable resource. But Energy is.

We all have 24 hours with us. But how many of those hours are you physically proficient of sustaining efficiency?

You should schedule ALL of your most difficult tasks during the peak energy hours of your day.

By focusing on the most important things when your energy is at its peak, you’ll be able to do more quickly and make better use of your time. 9.Seek help on stuff you don’t understand If you’re appreciative, you don’t like to ask for help on things you feel like you should be able to do. Smart people ask for help. And they’re actually viewed by their colleagues as being smarter. This could save you tons of time in the long run. Yes, it may be difficult at first to spare out a few extra minutes here and there to watch a video or call a support line, but in the end, it’ll help you be more efficient with those responsibilities.

For improving productivity, once you have set extremely big and exciting goals that you want to accomplish, keep them in sight at all times. Start to picturize yourself as the most productive person in your field. How do you feel? What tasks are you spending most of your time on? What is your take on personal performance? Compete with yourself to see how much you can get done. Have fun!

Always try to defeat the person you were the day before. Keep a track of your outputs and work every single day, every single moment to be a highly productive individual, and watch the small daily achievements begin to transform your life.

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About the Creator

Nick Davies

A modern millennial guy with a cute little family. Located in Southern California. I like writing about fun topics that are interesting to learn about.

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