All you need to know about time management

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What do you think a person feels who has read more than a hundred books on personal development? Boredom. I'm serious, there comes a time when you do not need to read sentences, because any thought seems obvious and banal. You want to send the whole industry to hell and continue to work again, albeit not productively, but the whole thing is not the authors' talentlessness or the incompetence of the publishers. It's all about our perception.


Time management is not a humanitarian science, and it does not need to be studied thoroughly. If you want to work effectively, then time management must be treated extremely practical. Take and do. This is the only way to benefit from books that already have thousands on Amazon.com on this topic.
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Briefly about yourself. At various times I worked in the office and in freelancing, obeyed and supervised, and during all this time I singled out for myself 7 main rules that help me to do my work efficiently every day.

Concentration

It is difficult to do any work if you are constantly distracted, so wherever you work, you must have personal time during which no one can disturb you. Many managers of large companies for the first 90 minutes of the day, lock their office and focus on the most important task. Very often during this time they manage to do more work than the rest of the day.

The same can be said about IT professionals. No matter you are a junior or senior, you need to understand the problem and only then solve it. Tim Ferris, author of the best-selling book “How to Work 4 Hours a Week,” constantly wears headphones, even if they don’t play music and as soon as someone tries to distract him, he says he is talking and asks for a brief summary of the problem.

Timer

The timer is a simple but very effective tool. It allows us to divide our work into blocks, which is very important. Breaks allow us to recuperate and return to work more efficiently. Ignoring breaks, the likelihood that by the end of the working day you will keep up your energy decreases several times.

Depending on the type of work, your timer may be between 15 and 90 minutes. If you take a break and want to check social networks, set the timer for 15-20 minutes. If you need to make an important report, then time should be increased at least twice. If you are a programmer, then your timer should be at least 30 minutes long, since any specialist needs time to get into the work.

Lists

There was a time when I, while studying at the institute, worked as a project manager and led a blog on personal development. Only the proper organization of the lists helped me successfully cope with this volume of work. After the morning workout, I looked through the to-do list drawn up in the evening and concentrated, for at least an hour, on the most important thing. After that, I switched to another type of work so that the brain rested. Thus, I alternated creative work (writing articles) and technical (management).

Do not make your list endless. I advise you to limit yourself to 3-5 important tasks for the day and not to touch on other matters until they are completed.

Offline

One of the best ways to focus on work is to disconnect from social networks. Even now, while writing this article, SelfControl is activated on my laptop, which blocks sites that can get my attention. Thanks to him, I even theoretically rule out the possibility of distraction and I have nothing left to do except how to work.

I usually start it at 11 am and set for 5 hours. During this time, all work requiring concentration is often completed.

Sleep

Look at how much time successful people devote to sleep:

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX: 6 hours (1am - 7am)
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple: 7 hours (9:30 pm - 4:30 am)
Bill Gates, Co-Founder of Microsoft: 7 hours (12am - 7am)
Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group: 5–6 hours (12–5 / 6am)
Jack Dorsey, Co-founder of Twitter: 7 hours (10:30 pm - 5:30 am)
Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of AOL: 6 hours (11pm - 5am)
Barack Obama, President of the United States: 6 hours (1am - 7am)
Jeff Bezos, Founder & CEO of Amazon.com: 7 hours (10pm - 5am)
Ellen DeGeneres, TV Host: 8 hours (11pm - 7am)
Donald Trump, Presidential Candidate: 3 hours (1–4am)

from the site Medium

Only Donald Trump, who has marked the presidency, practically ignores him. All the people on this list are extremely busy, but they recognize the importance of sleep and give it at least 6 hours a day.

Nutrition

Proper nutrition, not coffee, gives us the energy to do important work. At a time when Amazon was just taking its first steps, there was a rule in their garage prohibiting coffee. This was explained by the fact that programmers should draw energy from carbohydrates (fruits, cereals, bread), and not caffeine.

This has its own logic, because an excess of caffeine negatively affects the efficiency of work, and carbohydrates are always able to feed our brains. But undoubtedly, it is not necessary to exclude coffee completely, because in a small amount it positively affects our efficiency.

Comfort

Previously, I underestimated the comfort and thought that a professional should be able to work in any place he aspired to, but after reading the wonderful book “Writing professionally” I looked at this situation differently. The author called this striving perfectionism. I decided to listen to the author and began to change jobs from time to time. During the day, I could work at home, then go to a cafe, then go back to the desk. Surprisingly, providing comfort helped me regain my interest in writing articles and productivity in my work on freelancing.

By bringing into your life at least a few rules from this list, you will be able to perform more work in less time.

Thank you and success!