You’ve been there: you find yourself stuck in the office desperately trying to finish those last few items that should have been done hours ago. Why do we stretch our tasks to fill the available hours, and then some? The answer is simple: poor time management skills.
Here are some simple tricks to help you fight back, and get a handle on your time:
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Begin with the end in mind. Ever heard the saying, ‘a stitch in time saves nine?’ Spend a little time at the end of the day or in the morning, to plan out the forthcoming day’s tasks. A great tool for to-do lists is MYLE; just tap and speak, and MYLE will automatically organize your list of to-dos for you.
- Limit your time. To avoid tasks ballooning out of control, it’s important to give yourself clear parameters. The old adage is true; tasks expand to fill the available time – but only if you let them!
- Let go of perfection. When you’ve reached your time limit, move on to the next task. If you need to, revisit the item later and set a time limit to make changes. See if it isn’t already good enough, first. You might be surprised.
- Respect the calendar. Calendars are an obvious time-management tool, but you’d be surprised how many people never use one, or do so inconsistently. Make sure to create a calendar entry and a reminder for all your meetings and tasks. MYLE is the perfect tool to simplify this routine. Simply say, “MYLE I have a meeting on October 10th, set me a reminder two days before.”
- Get a deadline coach. Deadlines are everything. MYLE can automatically remind you of the coming deadlines listed on your calendar. For instance, you can say, “MYLE set an alarm 30 minutes before the deadline.” Even if you don’t tend to forget when something’s due, an extra push never hurt anyone.
- Delegate, delegate. You can delegate them to a colleague, or even better, to your wearable personal assistant. MYLE saves you precious time, by removing the necessity to manually enter your ideas and commands into your phone. It does the work for you, activating those commands with the right apps, and freeing you up to focus on the tasks at hand. Minutes a day might not sound like much – but it adds up.