What's the best way to manage your time, and be productive?

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  John on 07/04/2015 - 13:09

  +5

  One book that helped me in the past year was POWER OF HABIT by Charles Duhigg. There's something called the Keystone Habit, which is a habit that cause a chain reaction effect towards your other habit. Sometimes this Keystone Habit may not directly be relevant to what you want to achieve, but the effect of it will contribute greatly.

  For example, I have been trying to live more healthy for many years by eating healthy, exercising, etc. My focus was all about eating and exercising, but the goal is a bit far fetched and so I failed miserably. After reading the book, my focus is to develop a habit of waking up early, which is more manageable to me than it is to go exercising. Funnily enough, once I did this I have been going to gym more, eat better food and do many things that develop myself personally. Waking up early in the morning somehow caused me to live my days better.

  The book discuss a lot about why we do what we do, and what can we do to change it. So I highly suggest it.

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  pointless martyr on 07/04/2015 - 13:45

  +8

  Stop looking at ozbargain - you will have more spare time and more money ( but less bargains)

  • 

    cim85 on 07/04/2015 - 20:52

    …….and less Udemy courses to distract you!!

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  inherentchoice on 07/04/2015 - 13:47

  +1

  Prioritise.

  I did a time management course which taught that "the best use of your time right now is your first priority". Apply this as a definition and tick things off your to do list.

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  ozbargainer888 on 07/04/2015 - 15:35

  +1

  Well one thing that has helped me is to use the tasks list if you've got google mail.
  It's the same as keeping a physical list so you get the satisfaction of seeing tasks crossed off. You can also keep several types of lists so for work I create a high priority list that I tackle first and then sometimes I keep a monthly, weekly or even project specific list. You can share with others as well which is handy.

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  shannonn54 on 07/04/2015 - 21:10

  @OP I have a number of very good time management software that are very small and work well without being company focussed PM me for details

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  interz21 on 07/04/2015 - 22:28

  Thanks everyone! i'll check the book and I'll follow the advices you posted :)

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  cupcake on 08/04/2015 - 10:46

  +1

  You have to be very organised in order to get things done.

  Start off by doing one thing at a time and prioritise each task.

  Keeping busy is key and you can't be slack about it to achieve your goals.

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  lemc6125 on 09/04/2015 - 00:58

  +2

  It's very easy to focus on the bigger goal but you need to break it down into little goals. Create a little flowchart of all the things you'll need to do to get to your big goal and do this with each project. Then start to do them and tick them off. It's much easier to get a little goal done than to focus on a bigger goal. Before you know it, you would have done so many small tasks that you've made much more progress.

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  [Deactivated] on 10/04/2015 - 15:58

  +1

  1) Is it important and is it urgent.
  2) Is it important but not urgent.
  3) Is it not important but urgent.
  4) Is is not important and not urgent.

  I also use Wunderlist as my online task manager, and it syncs nicely with my phone.

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  umamandy on 10/04/2015 - 16:44

  +2

  I tend to set SMART goals. Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timed.

  Say I have a 5000 word essay due in 3 weeks.
  Specific: Have the main body of the essay all written by the middle of next week.
  Measurable: The intro and conclusion should be around 20% of the essay, so I need to reach 4000 words.
  Achievable: Can write 4000 words.
  Realistic: Provided the information is within my understanding, yes
  Timed: I set until the middle of next week.

  Smart goals are a love em or hate em thing in management, but they're good to use as a basic framework. I tend to skip the A and R in my goal setting, but I like that I can break down each smart goal into a series of smaller ones.