How often we have wished that the day had more than 24 hours and thought that if we had more time, maybe the results would’ve been better? Most of us know our innate capabilities and also how much time we need to accomplish our assigned tasks. But even then deadlines become the haunting ghosts and quite often we are not able to perform our best because of the looming deadlines and our mismanagement of time. The truth is that unless we learn to manage time we are always going to be pressed for time. Asia Pacific lists down Time Management skills which make you more efficient, high performing and goal oriented. Make a note of these 7 skills-

1. Start your day early– Beginning a day early puts you ahead of others by a good 4 hours. It also gives you the time to meditate, exercise and contemplate your actions for the day.
2. Plan your schedule and tasks– Take a bird’s eye view of your year ahead. Set aside your annual, monthly and daily goals and plan a master schedule accordingly. While planning a day schedule, keep some time for unplanned urgent and important matters which need immediate attention. For students it could be important assignments to be submitted in a day or upcoming unplanned tests or even an outing or party. For working professionals it could be an urgent meeting, client visits or phone calls or maybe re-dressal of complaints.
3. Bifurcate your tasks into important and unimportant ones– Amongst the important ones further categorize into urgent and not urgent tasks. The urgent tasks may include To- do list for the day, crises and problems, assignments due today and so on. The not so urgent tasks may include scheduling appointments, hiring process, important ongoing projects, hiring new staff members etc. The Unimportant Urgent list can include work that could be delegated to someone else, the unimportant meetings or phone calls or emails which could be attended to by someone else as well.
4. Do one thing at a time– Multi tasking is a myth and it’s always best to finish off one thing at a time to do real justice to a job. If you are multi tasking you are not working at your optimum level. Our brain is well tuned to focus most on one job at a time.
5. The 80/20 rule of Management– Pareto Principle says that only 20% of our actions drive 80% of our jobs. Successful people know to prioritize their job into 20% and delegate the rest.
6. Learn to delegate your work– There is nothing better than delegating your work if you have a great team. Use 80/20 rule to delegate and see how much time you are left on hand with.
7. Eliminate distractions– When you sit down to study or work, minimize use of cell phones and social media. Do not attend to anything not even emails or phone calls if they are a distraction. An hour worked seriously is equivalent to 10 put in with distractions.

Time management helps in creating more productive hours and helps in attaining goals that we set out for ourselves. So next time when you feel you are falling short of time, stop and read again. These pointers are sure to make you a pro at managing and utilizing time.