One of the most common New Year’s Resolutions is managing time better. Daily planners are bought and reminders set but as with many targets in life, it’s hard to achieve without consistency. Here’s how to actually succeed in planning your time in the new year.
Begin by choosing a tool/ tools to guide you in scheduling your activities. From physical and virtual calendars and planners, apps and notebooks, there’s no shortage of tools to suit every taste.
Having goals for the year is great but can leave you feeling overwhelmed. Break them down into monthly, weekly then daily goals. In addition to making them manageable, it creates a sense of accountability. If you have a close friend you’re okay sharing goals with, do so. Having someone to keep checking in on your progress is encouraging during those dull days.
Managing your time well requires discipline. Try to have a schedule for each day in order to train your mind. Lay out the schedule the night before so you can begin the day already set. Try to limit the number of ‘must achieve’ items to 3 or 4. Cramming too many activities into the day will leave you feeling either burnt out or disappointed that you couldn’t achieve all.
Break each activity into action points that outline exactly what you need to do. For instance if planning a party, you’ll need to:
- Write a shopping list
- Draw up a guest list
- Decide on a theme for the party
This makes each task less vague and gives a sense of accomplishment since you can gauge when you’re done with each.
Start your day with big, important tasks instead of checking emails and social media notifications. These tend to waste time by getting you distracted. Get important activities out of the way first and even if you don’t accomplish anything else, you will still have had a productive day!
A vital ingredient of effective planning is to set time limits for each task. This prevents you from going on and on focused on one task, only to realise at the end of the day that you have a heap of jobs left. You can always come back to a task you haven’t finished later on.
