Productivity has a lot to do with time management and energy management. It is just so unfortunate that most articles encourage people to consider managing their energy over managing their time. But from the information gathered, it became evident that there is substantial overlap between these two.
Therefore, for quick productivity, the way you manage your time should not be so different from the way you manage our energy, providing that you know and implement the tips and tricks on how to optimize both to increase your productivity. Therefore, below we have accumulated a list of 5 ways to better manage your time and energy at the same time.
1. Goals Setting
Setting goals will make it easy for you and your team to determine how much time should be spent on each tasks. However, it is important you set realistic and achievable goals. Setting unrealistic goals will only drain your energy and bring about discouragement or demotivation.
Whenever you are setting goals, set deadlines and goals that are very clear and specific, to avoid having a hard time focusing your efforts or feeling overwhelmed to achieve your goals.
Also, It is essential you measure your goals; because being able to assess your progress helps you and your team to remain focused and meet the required deadlines. However, don’t set goals that are unrealistic, unattainable and based on your industry benchmarks, but off your own analytics.
2. Task Scheduling and Prioritizing
Prioritizing and scheduling will help you make a good use of your time and energy by keeping you focused on the most important tasks to advance your goals. Task scheduling and prioritizing involves arranging your tasks in the order of importance and focus on getting the result you desire.
However, before you schedule your tasks, you must have had clear goals and know your priorities. When scheduling you tasks, be mindful of your most productive hours and schedule important tasks during these periods.
3. Multitasking
Many people are tempted to multitask since they are constantly expecting to achieve more. Unfortunately, multitasking never lead to higher productivity. It will only lead to increased time in accomplishing tasks and reaching your goals.
Instead of multitasking, delegate tasks to people who are qualified to get the job done. This will save time and energy, reduce stress and ensure your goals and deadlines are met.
4. Distraction Minimizing
Allowing distractions to take over you will cost you some valuable time. Focus on the task in hand and eradicate all the things that might be distracting, especially during your high-energy periods.
5. Saying No
You should always say No to anything that doesn’t thrill you or support your goals and values. So, when someone calls or texts or appears at your door with a request for your involvement in some activity, take a deep breath and consider whether it fits into your priorities. If the answer is no, just say No, and don’t necessarily explain why. This will help you save your time and energy for your priorities.
6. Thinking Less and Doing More
Many say they are thinking but are worrying instead. Too much thinking most times lead to mental stress or even emotional stress. So, if there is anything you have or need to do, just DO it and stop thinking it through too much. If you like the result you’re getting through it, continue. Else, do something else.
7. Eating a healthy breakfast
Countless studies have confirmed the importance of breakfast for maintaining our health. Eat healthy breakfast to fuel you for a great start of your day. Likewise, never miss breakfast even if you are on a weight loss plan.
8. Daily Exercising
Scientific research shows that regular exercise can make you healthier, smarter, happier, and more energetic. So make sure you exercise daily. However, you don’t need to spend hours at the gym to get the benefits of exercising – time management. You can just talk a walk around the block, go cycling or even jog for about 20 minutes. Exercise is one of the few vital things in life.
9. Laughing More
If you want to keep up your productivity, you need to laugh more. Laughter reduces stress and stress reduces productivity. Thus, laugh as much as you can to stay productive.
10. Taking Breaks
It is a necessity for you to take breaks to refresh or recharge your emotional and mental energy. For most people, taking breaks often feel like a waste of time but it is a smart time management. Relaxing your brain can lead to better ideas and insights.
11. Not attending all meetings
Some companies have a meeting culture such as the corporations, and some organize meetings just to procrastinate real work, feel important or emphasize on what has been said in the last meeting. For goodness sake, stop wasting your time and energy on useless talks and get at work. Moreover, if you have to organize or be in a meeting, make sure you go straight to the point. No unnecessary, time wasting and useless talks.
12. Minding Your Business
Stop being about other people’s business if you want to be productive. The time and energy you spend watching, thinking and judging other people’s moves can be spent figuring out how to meet your deadlines. Moreover, don’t expect others to produce results the same way you do, because some will be more productive if they take breaks at 45 minutes intervals or listen to music, and more. Just be you and mind your business.
13. Cooling It Off
Shitty things happen. You might screw up. Someone can get you angry, disappointed, embarrassed, and more. Just make sure you don’t get down about it. Take some time alone, listen to music, go for a walk or meditate to get you back on track and not let your day go to waste.
14. Using Business Software
Technology has made work easier by designing softwares to help us carry out almost all our redundant and repetitive tasks. For instance, If you have to engage in accounting every day, you can use an accounting software like carrotsuite, sage and quickbooks, to speed up your work. Using a business software to carry out some of your daily activities, will save you more time and energy for other priorities.
15. Remaining Consistent
Great result needs consistency. Even when you are not meeting your deadlines, stay positive and remain consistent and do all you need to do to get the desired result. Never procrastinate.
A simple and effectual way to make sure you and your team are working productively is by keeping track of your time usage. Having an overview of where or what your team members spend more time on and who is taking on too much work, is a great way to make sure that all goals are met more effectively and faster.
In turn, knowing some repetitive and redundant tasks will enable you to digitize and automate, freeing up more valuable time and energy for the work.
With Carrotsuite you can easily have a detailed overview of everyone’s time usage, as well as digitize and automate your repetitive and redundant tasks. Although Carrotsuite is much more than just a time management tool, it has all the necessary features to guide your team’s everyday work, structure your industry and grow your profit.
One of the key benefits of using Carrotsuite is the overview and reports it provides you. Thus, you can make decisions based on facts and not only on your gut feeling.