How to Master your Time

We know that when it comes to entrepreneurship, every minute you steal from the clock is few and far between. And you must remember to rest. Check out our tips on managing your time well. They will change your life (for the better)!

How to identify time thieves and what to do to avoid them

There are several types of “time thieves“ that diminish our performance and rob us of valuable minutes we could spend developing our idea. If you know them, it will be easier to identify and avoid them. Here are the most common ones:

1. Interruptions. More than usual on any day: a knock on the door to deliver a package, a family member wants to talk to you about something, or you have to take care of your pet. To reduce or eliminate them, schedule the time at which you want to receive the orders you have placed. It is also helpful to establish a “family timetable”: let those who live with you know that, although you are at home, you are working a full day.

2. Phone. Similar to interruptions, but more dangerous. Checking social media, checking the news or chatting on WhatsApp can take up much time. The solution (although we understand we can’t always do it) is to switch off or silence your smartphone (or turn on the airplane mode) and leave it out of reach to avoid temptation. Something less radical is to remove notifications or set yourself a “concentration schedule”, turning off notifications on your devices.

3. Emergencies. Learn to identify whether a situation is truly urgent or if it can wait until you finish the task at hand. To do this, set limits for yourself and your colleagues. For example, you could set a priority code with three levels:

   • Email: low urgency.
   • WhatsApp: medium urgency
   • Phone call: very urgent. Press the panic button

4. Last hour. Procrastination is more common than you think. We are humans, and it is normal to postpone tasks, especially if they are not to our liking. Try to avoid laziness; set the heaviest or most arduous obligations at the beginning of the day and move from boring to entertaining.

How to incorporate the Eisenhower Technique into your routine

Make a chart like the one designed by Eisenhower and use it to define your levels of urgency:

URGENT AND IMPORTANT

• Do it now: call suppliers.

URGENT AND NON-IMPORTANT

• Refer it to someone: plan the company’s social media

NON-URGENT AND IMPORTANT

• Plan when you will do it: go to the gym, read an analysis about your sector, etc.

NON-URGENT AND NON-IMPORTANT

• Delete it: watch an episode of your favourite show.

How can I organise big tasks to manage time well?

If you have a task that will take a long time to complete, the best approach is to follow a stint approach: break that big task into smaller tasks to make deadlines more manageable.

What methods exist for successfully managing tasks and time?

We will tell you about some of the most famous ones, but there is a wide variety of them. Do your research and choose the one that best suits your day-to-day work.

• Scrum: it consists of regularly applying a set of good practices to collaborative work. Regular partial deliveries of the final task are made, prioritised according to the benefit they bring to the project.
• Gantt Chart: this tool aims to represent, in a graph, the expected time commitment for different tasks over a given total period.
• Pomodoro Technique: created by Francesco Cirillo, is based on dividing the time dedicated to activity into 25-minute periods, called pomodoros. Each pomodoro is followed by a five-minute rest period, with a longer break every four pomodoros. 
• Kanban: This project management method allows teams to visualise their workflows and workload.
• Getting Things Done: This productivity and time management system helps to complete and manage tasks. The system efficiently meet commitments through a five-step system of lists and calendars (capture, clarify, organise, review and do).

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters in Unsplash.