{"id":31280,"date":"2018-04-17T07:30:31","date_gmt":"2018-04-17T11:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-181994-533056.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=31280"},"modified":"2019-12-06T17:40:10","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T22:40:10","slug":"time-management-strategies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styletomes.com\/blogging-tips\/time-management-strategies\/","title":{"rendered":"The 5 Time Management Strategies That Made a Huge Difference for Me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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As a jill-of-all-trades, I thought I had the efficiency thing down. Turns out, my time management strategies weren’t as refined as I thought. A quick scan through a couple of books and a few courses later, I’m proudly reporting that I’m staring at a completely empty inbox and a notebook filled with listed items crossed out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe you’re already doing some of these things, but I’m willing to put down a bet that you haven’t given all of these a try. It might seem time and resource intensive up front, but trust me, this will make your life easier and a lot more manageable in the long term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Top 5 Time Management Strategies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
  1. \n

    Get Rid of Useless Email Categorization & Get to Inbox Zero<\/h3>\n

    I always thought I was really on top of my e-mails. And, truth be told, I was pretty good at it. I always aimed to read through all new e-mails and categorize them immediately. Unfortunately, that meant that I would sometimes read them, put them in a to-do pile, then re-read them and procrastinate some more. I would sometimes re-categorize. Oh yeah, I spent a lot of time categorizing. I had a “Waiting for Reply” pile, a “To-do” pile, an “Urgent” pile, “Sometime next week” pile. You get the point.<\/p>\n

    And then I found out that I can have zero labels and zero e-mails in my inbox every single day. Yup! As in, not just hanging out there in the inbox to re-read later, but literally an empty inbox. It was amazing. This required some up-front time investment. I basically archived everything older than 3 months, and started to go through all the e-mails one by one and seeing whether they’re things I needed to follow up on, schedule, or discard. Once I was done with the e-mail, I archived.<\/p>\n

    That’s basically it. As soon as I get done with it, I archive. If the e-mail is something that can get done in under 5 minutes, I reply on the spot.<\/strong> If it requires more time, I schedule the block of time it requires in my calendar and attach the e-mail to the event. <\/strong>You can do this directly through the Gmail system. I basically schedule it in so it becomes accounted for, and so does my time. If I respond to an e-mail, I don’t keep it in my inbox. I archive it. There you have it. Zero e-mails.<\/p>\n<\/li>

  2. \n

    Schedule a Quarterly Brain Dump<\/h3>\n

    This one requires about 1-2 hours every quarter. Meaning, every three months, I have a calendar task that tells me to use my prompts list to write down EVERYTHING I need to do or that’s on my mind. This is categorized into personal tasks and professional tasks. I basically write down everything on my mind, and for the next three months I incorporate any of those tasks that I wrote down. This allows me to clear the mind-space to actually focus on things instead of thinking of everything I have to do.<\/p>\n<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

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    There it is! On my calendar every three months!<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

    I’m including a good prompts list from Getting Things Done master, David Allen, but if you good brain dump list you can find a lot more resources.
    Download the PDF: Mind_Sweep_Trigger_List<\/a> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  3. \n

    Six Gathering Places MAX<\/h3>\n

    Let’s say you have one e-mail box (hah!) and let’s say that’s where you get all your mail. That’s one gathering place. Let’s say you have a work e-mail. That’s gathering place number two. Let’s say you have a table you throw stuff on randomly. That’s gathering place numero tres. And the 10 different drawers stuffed with random stuff? That’s 10 more gathering places. Your voice mail is another one.<\/p>\n