8 tips to manage you time because we are all busy people (we are ironic ahahah) and we have never enough time to do what we like. We have never enough time to read a book, have a walk or finish our tasks on time. This is not because we have less time than before or because we have more tasks. Often the reason why we do not have enough time to study, to find a shared flat or simply to relax is a bad time management due to distractions and useless activities.
What are going to explain you today? We are going to give you some tips to manage your time in order to enjoy a pleasant evening with your flat mates. A shared flat is actually a great chance to learn something new such as traditions, languages and so on. This is the reason why we always suggest our reader to look for a shared flat instead of living alone. In order to enjoy this kind of accommodation though, you need some spare time. helpBarcelona is here to help you accomplish this difficult mission!
We have collected for you some tips that we have personally tested. They work and guess what? We complete faster our tasks, we to read a lot and we exercise regularly. You can say goodbye to the “no time” excuse and say welcome to a huge amount of extra time to enjoy your shared flat, your favourite novel, to meet your friends and to work efficiently. Ready for our 8 tips to manage your time?
1# Eliminate distractions
We have so many distractions! Social media, internet, YouTube… we should contain all of them, especially when we have deadlines or many things to achieve. Not only distractions lower your productivity, but they make you waste time twice, too: the first time checking the profile of an influencer and the second time to get back to the task after getting distracted. Draw your own conclusions.
The worst distraction ever? Social Media, no doubt. They steal your time giving you nothing more than pictures or pretty captions. Do we really need to check Instagram every twenty minutes? We are sure that nothing important will happen, nor that someone will need you ahahah. In order to reduce and manage the time we spend with our smartphone, we use two techniques. The first one consist in leaving the phone in another room: you will realize that nothing will happen if you do not check it every ten seconds. The second one is an app called “Moment”: it will make you notice all the time you waste during your day.
2# Wake up earlier
This should be the last resort. Nonetheless, in many cases may be a required measure. At what time do you usually wake up? We wake up at eight thirty and for many people it is late. In order to begin productively our day, we could wake up even only 30 minutes before. We could have definitely less distractions: no one will text you, social media still sleeps, etc. Let’s imagine the worse scenario, to wake up 1 hour earlier, we could save one hour of our day (it means 7 hours per week).
3# Begin with the biggest task
Since we follow this tip, we have advanced an entire week of blog posts! If there is a task, that you know will take time and a good part of your energy, do it first. In this way, you will not have to worry about it all day long and you will do it when you are still fresh (you will certainly save some minutes). Furthermore, it will prevent you from procrastinating it to another day (see point 6#).
4# Single task
Do not underestimate the importance of working on one thing at a time. Multitasking will make you waste time, just think of the task switching costs in term of time. Many researches provide us with an extremely efficient hack, the Pomodoro Technique. Set a timer for 25 minutes and in that time work on a single task. Discover more about it, check this link!
5# Set time constraints
And after the Pomodoro Technique, here some more tips to manage your precious time:
- Allocate a certain amount of time to a specific task. Set a countdown timer and work hard to the task trying to finish it.
- Divide your day in blocks: the block “work” from 09 am to 18 pm, the block “work out” from 18.30 pm to 19 pm, the block “book” from 23 pm to midnight, etc.
6# Do not procrastinate
Do not put off till tomorrow what you can do today! It is so easy to procrastinate that we often do it without even thinking that that task may be completed in less than five minutes. There is actually a rule called the 2-Minutes Rule that says: “If it can be done in two minutes, do it”. Well, just begin to follow this wise rule and let us know if it works for you, too…
7# Track your time
If none of the previous techniques works as it should, track your activities and detect the mistakes you do when you manage your time. Try to track your time for a week, analyse its management and remove any waste of time. This should be a valuable tool to improve your productivity.
8# Take advantage of gap time
Use every gap time to do something you like or something you need to do: send e-mails, read your novel, call your grandma, complete a small task, begin a major one… Just use your time and use it properly! That means, do not spend your breaks on Instagram or Facebook!
If you want to be more efficient and have more time to study or to stay in your shared flat reading a good novel, we kindly suggest you to follow those techniques. We know you like to check our profiles on Facebook or Instagram, but you do not need to check them every two seconds (we appreciate your devotion though XOXO). If you manage to put into practice some of the tips we have provided you with, you may even do not need to wake up earlier in the morning (and this fill our hearts with joy ahahah).
Time flies… And social media are waiting for us! Stay tuned (moderately) and do not miss our next posts!
helpBarcelona team