We all have gone through many time management trainings where we may have seen many time management strategies. In our day-to-day life many times we come across a situation where we have many things to do but less time to do that. This is because we have not effectively managed our time. I was doing a search on internet on some topic. On one site where different articles related to I.T. sector gets published by experts I saw one very good article on Time Management so I thought I should share this with all.
1: Follow through
If you have a choice between working on two projects, choose the one that is nearly finished even if the other one is more fun. When you complete a project, it creates momentum and reduces that long to-do list that haunts your psyche. Every time I complete a project, I feel an immense sense of relief; and it makes me happier and more productive.
2: Don’t answer every call
The wonderful engineers at the phone company invented caller ID and voicemail for a reason: so you do not have to answer every single incoming call. Many people feel the need to answer every call, regardless of what they are doing at that moment. Why break your focus to answer a call that may not be very important? And if you’re working with other people, why make them waste their time sitting around watching you have another conversation? Unless you are expecting an important call (or the person keeps calling back, indicating an emergency), let it go to voicemail if you’re busy and check the voicemail during a break in your work.
3: Focus on one task at a time
It is a common misconception that the conscious mind can process multiple tasks simultaneously. It’s just not possible if the tasks require conscious selection and action. The best multi-taskers may quickly switch from one task to another, but they can still focus on only one task at a time. Experiments have shown that productivity drops when multi-tasking.
It may be in vogue to listen to an MP3 player, text your peers, and work all at the same time, but your work will suffer if attention is placed on that other activity, even if only for a moment. I believe it is possible to listen to music in the background and actually be more productive. However, listening to and comprehending any talk, including the news, commercials, and talk radio, is counterproductive.
4: Don’t waste time on obsolete email
No one’s perfect, and you neglected an email so long that it’s three weeks old by the time you work your way down to it. Don’t reflexively jump on the task. Send an email that says, “Sorry it took me so long! I was on vacation/in medical school/at rehab/doing a special project for the CEO. Do you still need this? I’m still happy to dive in.” In my experience, 75 percent of the time, the issue resolved of its own accord. Mission accomplished.
5: Track your time
Work is an environment that’s most often governed by time. The only problem is, most people can’t seem to manage that time. Applications are available that serve as timekeepers — such as KTimeTracker (part of KDE Pim), GTimeLog, and Time Panic. You can use them to keep track of how much time you spend doing tasks. I strongly suggest you take advantage of one of these tools for a while just to see where your time is going. But to do this, you have to be vigilant about keeping track. Even keep track of the various distractions that take your attention away from work. After a week of using one of these tools, you will get a good idea of how you use your time. Once you have this data, you will be able to figure out what can be optimized, dropped, or added to.
Published on : Techrepublic.com
Author : Jody Gilbert.
Contributed By:Mohammed Sufiyan
Software Engineer, Octaware Technologies.
