Get Organized and Live Life On Purpose.
This month I’m sharing the best tips and strategies that have helped me to get organized and stay that way. This week I’m sharing my top time management tips. (For more Time Tips, click here.)
Time Management Tip #2: Use Prime Time for Prime Jobs
One time management secret of highly productive people is grouping tasks based on the amount of mental energy they require. Tasks which require a lot of brain power can be accomplished most efficiently during the time when your mind is working optimally.
In order to use this tip effectively you need to do three things:
Know Yourself
To most effectively use this strategy, you need to be aware of your own body clock. Are you most alert first thing in the morning, or is it better for you to work in the evening? Plan your most taxing work for those times when you think best.
For me personally, morning is best. I can accomplish more in 30 minutes first thing in the morning than 2-3 hours in the afternoon. I take advantage of this fact by doing a morning “brain dump” (read more here) first thing. I then write articles for my blog or accomplish another “thinking” task. (Yesterday I used the first part of the morning to reorganize my blogging binder.) I then do my morning routine (read more here) and save menial tasks such as filing, phone calls and folding laundry for later in the day.
Get Physical
While you want to primarily work on mentally challenging tasks during your optimum thinking time, it helps to mix in some physical activity. If I have been writing for a while, I may take a short break to switch the laundry or work on something for dinner. Moving helps to recharge my brain and when I return to my work, my brain is fresh and able to focus better.
Be a Quitter
Top time managers know that when something gets boring or their brains start to get fuzzy, they need to move on to something else. Being productive is good, but sometimes having a little fun can make you more productive later. There is no reason to drag yourself through a task when your brain is tired if you can accomplish it in less time later on.
What’s your best time to work? I’d love to see how many people are night owls versus morning people. Leave a comment. 🙂
Read Time Tip #3 here.
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I love your website…. I would say Im an evening person. During the day I can get things done, but it seems like so much more of a chore and my energy level isnt as high as in the evening.
My husband is the same way. 🙂
love your site
Thanks Jennifer. 🙂
still trying to figure out how to get it all in, from working with babies, homeschooling, cleaning, cooking, and trying to rest since i am prego it is hard to juggle. have deffinately gotten better over the years but still trying to improve. always looking for tips. thanks for your time and help in this matter
That is a difficult (but wonderful!) stage in life. I think that you just have to choose a few priorities each week and let some things go. For example, you have fixed tasks that must be accomplished like feeding and changing the baby and fixing meals. You can plan a week of super easy meals (crockpot, sandwiches, pasta, etc.) and use the extra 30 minutes you can scrape up to work on a little project.
When I had lots of small ones I did 2 things to keep my sanity: (1) room time for everyone while the baby slept in the afternoon. They had toys I would rotate so they were busy and I had 30 minutes to an hour to do something for me. (2) I lowered my standards ALOT. I would keep the dishes clean, but let things like dusting and vacuuming go for a while. My husband was great about helping to clean and I enlisted the kids to help fold and put away laundry. Nothing was folded to my standards but at least it wasn’t in the basket anymore and the kids were learning to help.
Hope this helps. Just realize that you cannot possibly do it all, so you have to be very picky. Remember to enjoy the babies and stuff will get done in time. 🙂
For the most part I’m a morning person. But during the week when I’m at the office, I’m dragging in the mornings, and on the weekends, when I’m at home, I get so much done early in the day.