Time management for beginners and a couple of applications that will help

Today, the problem of dealing with laziness and the topic of time management arising from it are extremely relevant. Almost everyone has unlimited access to educational materials for every taste, can work remotely, and generally live in any convenient rhythm. The only thing that remains unresolved is where to find time for all this, so that there is still a dream?



In this article, we will discuss the issue of planning and time management, what it gives, and also see how this can be implemented in real life for those who have not seriously engaged in this. Go

There are many good and internationally recognized time planning and management techniques, for example the same “Getting Things Done” by Allen or “Focus” Covey. I will not go into details and delve into any of them, but instead I will try to collect and summarize this topic in order to start to put it into practice without reading long books.
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So what brings us to the need to keep track of our own time?
It often happens that there is work, the tasks are specific, but it’s impossible to do everything that is needed somehow. The working day passes, the planned things are not done and the tasks are not completed, although it would seem that there is enough time.
Today it is most often associated with procrastination, or with laziness, or with the wrong distribution of time. Anyway, the problem exists and it is quite real, so let's try to dig a little deeper.

The reasons for the waste of time

There may be many reasons, but most of them can be divided into groups. Each of them in itself is a factor preventing the proper allocation of temporary resources.

1. lack of motivation - this usually happens when it is necessary to perform uninteresting, routine work, or if the performance of a specific task has been delayed due to some related factors, or when the task itself is unclear and foggy
   
2. incorrect prioritization - often there is a situation when a person has, as a rule, one or two basic and a number of minor tasks. For example, in addition to the main task - to analyze and fix a bug in the program - you need to answer in the mail, go through some internal survey, book a meeting for the rally for the next week, and also choose a movie to go there in the evening. And when you have to keep all these in your head, it’s very hard to focus on something specific.
3. distractions - various trifles tearing attention away from work and preventing concentration. This may be something of an entertaining nature (for example, a new article on Habré), or something related to the workflow, but distracting from the current task. For example, in addition to the main task, you need to collect some list of documents that have been stored long ago somewhere on the hard disk, and some, possibly, on a flash drive. Or send the mail to the mail with a survey and marked "urgent." All this would seem to be everyday working moments, which, nevertheless, reduce to nothing all concentration.
4. lack of long-term planning - this refers to some serious goals, for example, learning a new language. It seems to be simple, but since there is no clear plan and more accurate description of complex tasks, the actions themselves are not in a hurry to be performed, are postponed and reinterpreted indefinitely.

Without going into the subtleties of any particular planning system, you can identify common features that correspond to several groups of goals:

• short-term goals are things you can do right now. Often - atomic actions, for the solution of which you need to spend not so much time - no more than a working day. For example, it may be watching a boring, but mandatory webinar, or writing documentation.
• long-term goals - something that consists of a set of sequential actions and requiring much more time. It is more difficult than the previous one, because at each stage a person may stall for one reason or another and not go further. The simplest example is the stages of developing an application (if we consider the simplest option) - setting a problem, developing, testing, launching an application, etc. These stages are simpler atomic actions that are relatively simple in themselves, but together form a complex logical and temporal structure.
• strategic goals - this is how really long-term tasks can be described, aimed at fulfilling any global goals. Examples are to learn a foreign language, move to another city, get an MBA degree, bring a startup to self-sufficiency, etc. The difficulty is that the goal, though clear, does not suggest any obvious actions to solve it, and the whole process looks very vague.

Time management is used to resolve problems associated with the performance of each group of tasks. Depending on the complexity of the tasks and the scale of the context for their implementation, the planning methods can vary greatly.
In this article, instead of plunging into the abyss of theoretical foundations, or the story of entertaining stories, about how successful people do 20 things to plan their time, I will talk about ways this is the very planning to go and do. Namely, about the programs and applications that will help put this burden of worries and troubles out of your head and put them into the head of a soulless piece of iron.

Short term goals

The main problems in solving relevant problems are the inability to allocate time to each of them, poor concentration, forgetfulness. This can be avoided if you clearly define when and how long to perform each of them.

1. Pomodoro is a time and concentration management technique, mainly focused on dividing time into equal segments for work and short breaks for rest between them. It helps greatly to increase concentration, quietly working, not being distracted by these your Internet, knowing that in 25 minutes it will be possible to look at the cats “legally” for five minutes. It also helps to distribute time among several tasks. There are many applications of various functionality, I personally use ClockworkTomato ( Android )
2. Task lists - help to forget nothing and abstract tasks themselves from the methods of their implementation. Suitable for cases that are not tied to the time - for example, buy a chocolate bar, call a friend, etc. There are a thousand applications of various kinds, I personally use GTasks ( Android ), which are synchronized with Google Task. Also, many use Remember the Milk , which is for both platforms, but I did not like it.
3. Calendars - for cases that are tightly bound to time and have a duration. For example, meetings, meetings and the like. It sounds trite, but many people neglect this simple tool. I use aCalendar ( Android ), which is also synchronized with Google, but it has a very convenient interface, compared to the standard calendar. There is also Sunrise , which is supported by both mobile OSs.

Long term goals

Here the problem is the construction of the structure of the goal and everything related to it in one way or another. It may be plans for the implementation of tasks at each stage, as well as the streamlining and implementation of access to all related documents and files.

1. Cloud storage and office - very often a situation occurs when you need access to a document, and it remains on the computer in the office. Or you want to keep everything at hand in a thoughtful folder system, where all the necessary data is easy to find. Despite seemingly obvious, it saves a lot of time and allows you to avoid problems when the necessary file is “lost” somewhere, or “I can look at work tomorrow”. Be mobile! Keep everything important in the cloud, preferably with the ability to edit. For this, I use Google Drive and Docs and a bit of Dropbox . In Docs it is very convenient to do different office files, like tablets and documentation, and then share them with the right people without having to send heavy attachments. Even for a simple management is good. Well, I was really rescued a couple of times by the fact that an important document was available when I was not clear where with only one telephone.
2. Note storage services - there are always articles on the Internet that are interesting to read now or it is useful to review later. But either they don’t have time now, or I don’t want to forget about them when the information is needed next time - one way or another, a situation that can be seen in every housewife turns out - a browser with 50+ open tabs. Here, services like Evernote and Pocket come to the rescue, allowing you to save and organize everything you need to come back to it at any time from any device, while the browser remains clean. Actually, the first is also suitable for organizing documents related to a task.

Strategic goals

Such tasks are characterized by the fact that they are represented as a very abstract idealized final goal. However, neither the steps to achieve it, nor the timing of their implementation are not defined, or are completely unknown. To get the result, you need, first, to determine a specific sequence of actions, secondly, to set a deadline for their implementation, thirdly, to determine the resources necessary to implement each of the steps, in quadruple steps, not to lose motivation for the implementation of everything planned . There is little choice here, but something has been found.

1. Multilevel Bucket-List - each goal is actually written, its stages and means are signed, and then hung out in a prominent place in the apartment or entered into the phone. If you pay attention to this list every day, then this may be enough, although not very convenient.
2. Tools for achieving goals - the main benefit of such things (besides organizing everything from the previous paragraph) - is the motivation that arises when you place your goal somewhere other than your head - you begin to feel your responsibility for achieving it. Here you can recommend SmartProgress - in addition to documenting goals, there are still many interesting features, such as target templates and a social element. An interesting project and a fairly convenient site, as well as a client for iOS .

Conclusion

Thus, I tried to somewhat generalize the various techniques of managing time resources, and also gave here a list of what to start with without going into aspects of any particular practice. I deliberately did not give more examples, but offered general solutions - to solve more specific problems, everyone would choose the most convenient tools for himself.

If you use some tool that allows you to manage the plans as the master of time, write about it in the comments and I will add it to the list.