Hello, friends! Dmitry Shaposhnikov is in touch.

According to my observation, a modern successful person inevitably encounters the concept of "time management". Everyone, to one degree or another, felt the lack of time, the pressure of deadlines, experienced stress from the forced haste.

After reading the article, you will learn the most important thing about time management, get acquainted with the basic concepts of successful time management. All this is accompanied by my examples and comments. I hope that studying this topic will be useful, interesting and exciting for you!

Let's start, friends!

1. What is time management - definition and history of occurrence

Direct translation of this term Time Management» from English – « time management". It is clear that it is impossible to manage time in the literal sense: the real function of time management is to use the time of your life with maximum efficiency.

The most accurate definition of time management is:

Time management- this is accounting, distribution and operational planning of own time resources.

Another definition.

Time management- this is a scientific approach to the organization of time and increasing the effect of its use.

The motto of a professional time manager:

Work smaller, do well more!

People who know how to manage their own time resources productively live richer and more fulfilling lives, doing their work with minimal time investment.

By managing our time, we have more living space: it becomes more real to be able to do what we really like.

Considering the rush in which modern man lives, the issue of managing time resources is becoming more and more relevant, if not vital. A well-developed time management skill increases personal efficiency at times. I figured this out 12 years ago.

Time management allows you to organize work and personal time during the day (week, month) in order to manage to do all the important and necessary things without being distracted by secondary or extraneous issues and problems.

Effective planning allows you to release colossal resources of time for a rich and fulfilling life. According to professionals, the size of such resources is calculated in years and decades.

History of time management

The scientific approach to the organization of time is not a new problem. The history of time management is rooted in the distant past.

Even 2000 years ago in ancient Rome, the famous thinker Seneca suggested dividing all the time into useful, that is, good, bad and useless.

Seneca also began to keep a permanent record of time in writing. The thinker said that while living a certain period of time, it is necessary to evaluate it in terms of occupancy.

In the subsequent history of time management, these ideas formed the basis of such a concept as “personal effectiveness”.

Alberti, a writer and Italian scholar who lived in the 15th century, said that those who know how to manage time usefully will always be successful.

To do this, he proposed to use two rules:

1. Make a to-do list every morning.
2. Arrange things in decreasing order of importance.

For many centuries, all these principles existed only in a theoretical form, and only since the 80s of the last century, this topic began to move from theory to practice.

Time management is necessary not only for executives and business owners: each of us must be able to manage our own assets in order to enjoy the process of life to the fullest.

Of course, not everyone needs time management. If a person has nothing to do in his life, and his main task is to “kill time”, then time management for such a person is an irrelevant and unnecessary discipline.

In other words, you should first decide whether you really do not have enough time and where you would like to put your free minutes, hours and days when they appear.

Time management consists of several components:

• strict timing;
• optimization of time resources;
• planning of the day (week, month or other period of time);
• organization of motivation.

Time management is important not only for work: people who comprehend the art of time management are more cheerful, healthy and successful in their professional and personal lives.

Effective time management allows you to comprehend all your actions and decisions in terms of their expediency for your own development and improvement.

2. Myths about time management - 3 main misconceptions

There are a number of social stereotypes and misconceptions about time management.

Some believe that time management is needed solely for work, that in Russia this discipline is ineffective due to the peculiarities of the national mentality, that life strictly according to plan turns a person into a robot and deprives him of free will.

All these myths are not consistent: below I will try to debunk them completely.

Myth 1. Nobody can control time.

The statement is correct in form, but false in content. Time Management Is Really Impossible (unless, of course, you are the inventor of the time machine). No one is able to slow down its objective course, speed it up or stop it even for a moment.

But one can do the following : manage yourself, your decisions and actions over time, and engage in prioritization. This is what time management practitioners talk about - about managing your own life.

A reasonable and pragmatic approach to your actions is time management: you will be surprised how many minutes and hours are released as soon as you begin to act more deliberately and consciously.

Remember that all successful people, regardless of their occupation, plan their affairs and act with maximum productivity. At the same time, they work about the same as ordinary people, but they always manage to do more.

Their secret is that in a unit of time they manage to do more things, which ultimately affects their life results.

Myth 2: Time management will make me work harder and harder.

Working hard and getting tired, neglecting rest is a direct path to overwork and depression. It is necessary to constantly strive to reduce the amount of work while increasing efficiency. How to do it? In short, to act strictly according to the plan and be able to separate the secondary from the main.

Effective use of time management methods does not mean doing more or increasing productivity at the expense of the speed of work.

We are talking about increasing personal productivity through the elimination of unnecessary tasks and the elimination of the so-called "time wasters" or "chronophages".

The category of chronophages includes hundreds of meaningless and small things that we do during the day, without even thinking about their expediency: frequent checking of mail, communication and viewing news on social networks, conversations with colleagues devoid of meaning.

A person’s commitment to things that are distracted from the main task is partly explained by procrastination - the desire to postpone important and necessary events “until better times”.

However, if you discard reflection and recognize for yourself the importance and significance of current tasks, you will have neither the strength nor the desire to be distracted by extraneous matters.

Myth 3. Using time management will turn me into a robot that will do everything on schedule, deprive me of freedom and choice.

People are afraid to turn into robots, but in fact they are already robots, as well as slaves to their own psycho-emotional habits and behavior patterns.

Time management does not limit our freedom, but rather creates it.

Time management is necessary not only for office workers, executives and managers: managing the main resource of life - your own time - is necessary for everyone who takes themselves responsibly and seriously.

A practical criterion for the need to implement the principles of time management in life is the presence 4 or more cases in the plan for the current day (not only professional, but also personal affairs are taken into account). This is necessary for businessmen, and freelance artists, and housewives.

Example

If you need to finish a project at work, talk to your boss about it, drop by a phone repair shop after work, and finally pick up your little one from daycare, smart time management is your absolute must.

Planning and allocating resources helps you achieve important goals faster and free up time for rest, recuperation, communication with friends and loved ones. Time control allows you to achieve results faster and at a lower cost.

As for life according to the schedule, the reasonable organization of work and rest has not yet harmed anyone. And for spontaneity and creativity (if any) in any work there is always a place.

3. How to manage time - 7 main principles of time management

And now let's move on to practice and find out how to manage time correctly, where to start monitoring and planning your actions, what difficulties usually arise along the way and how to overcome them. Below I have described the basic principles and rules.

Principle 1. Plan your actions

Planning things for the next day (or next week) is of practical importance in any job. It doesn’t matter if you are sitting in the office, standing at the assembly line, moonlighting as a courier in your spare time - a clear action plan will always bring real benefits in the form of increased performance (personal and professional).

Even if your actions are strictly regulated by the job description, you should always have a plan drawn up in advance - this will help you cope with the work more efficiently and quickly.

Remember that all successful people plan their lives.

Remember a few important axioms of time management:

1. Record goals in writing. If your goal is not indicated on paper (or in an electronic diary), then it does not exist.
2. Plan your day. A pre-compiled list of tasks and actions increases the productivity of any type of activity by 25%.
3. Break up big tasks. Time-consuming tasks should always be divided into several small subtasks - do not grab onto a large-scale project without thinking through the sequence of actions in advance.

It is necessary that planning becomes second nature: make it a rule to make a plan of action for tomorrow before going to bed. In the morning at work, you will already know exactly where to start, how to continue and how to finish.

Always leave a certain amount of time for "force majeure" - unforeseen circumstances.

Remember that the few minutes that you spend on drawing up a plan will more than pay off in the future: you will appreciate the results of competent planning in the first week of implementation.

Principle 2. Formulate the desired result into specific goals and objectives

Strategic and effective planning is impossible without competent goal setting. In simpler terms, you should be able to clearly articulate the main goal and be able to break it down into more specific and local tasks.

In management theory, this skill is called "decomposition of goals". The main way to put this concept into practice is the transition from the general to the particular.

There is a professional tool (or principle) for formulating and setting local tasks in time management and goal setting.

It is called SMART principle .

According to this principle, the goal should be:

• specific(Specific);
• measurable(measured);
• achievable for a certain period (Attainable);
• relevant or true - it is necessary to understand in advance whether this task will really help in achieving the goal (Relevant);
• limited in time(Time bound).

The main criterion for the usefulness and effectiveness of a local task is its concreteness. Starting the movement towards a large goal with the implementation of sequential tasks, you significantly reduce the time to complete the work.

Consistency and focus on specific points is the key to future success.

Even the greatest creators did not create their works entirely at once - first they drew up a plan, and then carried it out point by point. One of the secrets of successful time management is the ability to focus on current tasks without losing the overall direction.

Principle 3. Fix your action plan

The need to fix the action plan has already been mentioned above. Here we will consider the best way to do this. There are several working and effective tools that allow you to make your plans and tasks more visible and specific.

One of these methods is called . Let me explain how it looks in practice.

Example

Let's say your goal is to build a house. To begin with, the task should be divided into several stages: clear the site, dig and lay the foundation, carry out above-ground work, finish the premises, carry out communications and do landscaping.

The Grant chart lists all the tasks of the current large-scale project, along with their deadlines, duration in time and priority of implementation.

Tasks of the same type can be grouped into one item, and more voluminous cases should be divided into several sequential tasks.

Visual planning not only saves you time, but also allows other employees involved in the project to quickly understand the situation and get involved in the work from the right stage.

Principle 4: Prioritize

Timely and clearly define the main goal - it is necessary and correct. But the main task is to move towards the achievement of this goal, consistently fulfilling the current tasks of varying degrees of difficulty.

To prioritize daily planning, a simple method is suitable, which is called "ABVGD Method".

Method ABCD (ABCD)

“A” is the most important task of the day, “B” is less important, “C” is a task of medium importance, etc.

The first thing on the list should be done first. Usually this task is the most time-consuming and difficult. Sometimes a person is afraid or too lazy to start the day with the main task, but the secret is that the effectiveness of your current activities depends on its implementation.

A specialist in practical time management advises solving this issue harshly and unambiguously. His method is called: "eat a frog for breakfast." "Frog" is the most difficult and unpleasant thing of the day. You constantly transfer it to "afternoon", to the evening, and even to tomorrow.

But the bottom line is that this creates a constant emotional tension that prevents you from doing everything else productively. Tracy says that you should start the day with the most difficult, then all other things will be done almost by themselves.

The logical continuation of the Brian Tracy method here is the Pareto law or principle.

Pareto Law

20% of our efforts bring us 80% of the results, and the remaining 80% of our efforts bring only 20% of the results.

Thus, our task is to identify these 20% of our most effective actions and focus on them.

Another tool for effective prioritization is called "The Eisenhower Matrix". Political and military leader, US President Dwyat Eisenhower was a practical and very successful man.

He came up with the idea of ​​dividing all current affairs into 4 categories:

• urgent and important;
• important but not urgent;
• urgent but not very important;
• unimportant and non-urgent.

First category : urgent and important - these are the primary tasks that must be performed today and now: postponing them will certainly create unnecessary difficulties in the future. It is not worth entrusting them to subordinates - you need to do it yourself and immediately.

In another way, this sector of the matrix is ​​\u200b\u200bcalled "Sector of fire", to stay in which for a long time is fraught with adverse consequences, primarily for one's own health.

My time management secret is to be in the sector « Important - Not urgent » .

This is the most efficient sector of the matrix. Here you are calm, here you plan, think, act competently and balancedly, here you are doing something really important.

Don't let important things flow into the urgent sector!

Cases from 4th category (non-urgent and unimportant) can be safely deleted from the daily list.

You can make a table like this every day, based on the Eisenhower Matrix.

Go ahead and incorporate this simple spreadsheet into your day planning system.

Principle 5. Focus on the essentials

I have already said how important it is to achieve your goals, in this paragraph I will talk about how to do this as efficiently as possible.

The ability to focus on the main thing without being distracted by extraneous things is the most important practical skill, having mastered it, you will solve the highest priority tasks of productive time management.

Time is a non-renewable resource, and the most valuable of all. We can spend 10,000 rubles and earn them again, but we are not able to return the lived second.

We are also not able to extend the day to 25 hours, but we can free up our own space for those activities that are really important to us.

To prevent minor things from affecting your personal performance, you need to master specific time management techniques.

One of the most powerful time-saving techniques is delegation. It would be more accurate to say that delegation is a component of classical management.

Delegation is a way to entrust part of our affairs to other people.

The most elementary examples: you can not wash your car yourself, but give it to a car wash, or else: you can fix a leaky faucet in the bathroom yourself or call a professional plumber.

Remember

Any task that makes more sense (financially and time wise) to leave to others should be left to others.

The higher the value of your personal time, the more secondary and not very important tasks can be delegated.

Less important things can be done in non-resource time.

We are talking about that part of the day when you are no longer at the peak of your mental and physical strength, for example, at the end of the day, when there is fatigue.

Also, for example, while in transport or in line, you can combine waiting with learning - listening to audio books on professional skills or developing one of the skills of personal effectiveness.

Another important skill for real time savings: the ability to say "no".

Do not think that everyone should refuse indiscriminately.

The ability to say “no” refers primarily to those people and deeds that deprive you of your energy and time resources without giving anything in return.

Say "no" to a chatty neighbor or employee, reading the tabloid press, surfing the Internet on social networks and entertainment resources, watching TV.

Remember that even a small unplanned break, when someone or something distracts you from business, can cause plans to fail.

Principle 6. Analyze your experience and create your own time management rules

Periodically, it is worth looking back and drawing pragmatic conclusions from your time management experience. Study your mistakes and be sure to take action to correct them.

Be sure to analyze situations in which you lost personal resources most intensively.

You should always remain conscious and look from the outside what exactly is happening with your life - in what direction and at what speed it is moving.

If you feel like you've lost control and gotten too deep into a task without thinking about the time it takes, it's time to stop, take a break, and try to optimize your own actions.

In the end, create your own time management rules, your own chips. Your whole life, your activity is unique.

Principle 7. Plan your vacation

In pursuit of success and personal performance, never neglect rest, I will say more than that - plan your rest, as well as your business tasks! For time management, proper rest is the most important element of success.

An example from the life of Radislav Gandapas

The well-known Russian business coach and speaker Radislav Gandapas, as he told at one of his trainings, plans days in his work schedule to visit a golf club. This is an important hobby in his life.

He highlights these days in red as events of the highest importance that cannot be rescheduled.

Otherwise, Radislav says, he doesn't manage to play golf at all, because there are always more important things to do.

Staying at the peak of your psychophysiological capabilities is possible only with the help of regular recuperation.

You can’t save on sleep, your own days off and communication with loved ones - these are just as important factors in effective time management as planning and setting goals.

4. Review of popular books and trainings on time management and personal effectiveness

There is a wealth of useful literature on time management. Separate publications are devoted to time management for women (young mothers, housewives), students, schoolchildren, leaders.

Seminars, conferences, master classes and trainings on time management are held.

In my opinion, the most informative and accessible books on this topic are the works of Gleb Arkhangelsky, Evgeny Popov and Brian Tracy.

Evgeny Popov- author of the course "Master of Time", creator of video tutorials on this topic, practitioners of successful business on the Internet. It has a personal network resource where everyone can purchase the author's intellectual products.

If you want to quickly master the basics of practical time management, be sure to study Evgeny Popov's course "".

Gleb Arkhangelsky is a leading Russian specialist in time management issues. Head of his own corporate projects to introduce time management into the practice of the largest domestic companies - RAO UES, Wimm-Bill-Dann and others. Best-selling creator of Time Management and Time Drive.

Brian Tracy- the world's leading expert on personal effectiveness, management consultant, writer, public speaker.

Other books on this topic: "Tomato Time Management" (Stafan Nöteberg), "Hard Time Management" (Dan Kennedy), "Maximum Concentration" (Lucy Paladino).

5. Conclusion

Let's sum it up, friends! I myself personally try to use the following elements of time management:

• day planning;
• prioritization (ABVGD);
• work with the list of tasks.

In practice, I was convinced that time planning simplifies life and helps to do more.

The main thing is that it becomes a habit with you. A habit takes 20-30 days to form. You will need to hang on for quite a while to get used to doing the right things, and then the system of habits and time management will work for you.

"Keep time: it is the fabric of which life is made."

S. Richardson

We are taught discipline from childhood, and one way or another, we are forced to adhere to certain restrictions all our lives. Eating and sleeping according to the daily routine, scheduled classes, work and rest in the allotted time. We easily obey someone else's rules of the game, in fact, helping someone else achieve his goal. But when it comes to self-discipline, many are not ready to give up even small weaknesses, like the habit of sleeping an extra 10 minutes in the morning.

Skill limit yourself to achieve certain goals- a valuable skill that not many people possess. But only they, in the end, succeed. Well-known politicians, businessmen, actors have gone their way to fame only thanks to daily work in the name of their goal. Ability, talent, even genius is only one percent of success, the other ninety-nine is hard work.

Self-discipline is the first step to personal freedom

Time management is the main component of the personal effectiveness system for any ambitious person. It doesn't matter what the goal is: lose weight, get a red diploma, start your own business... none of these things is possible without self-organization skills. Time management is a practical guide to action, thanks to which you can determine your own life priorities, create your own vision of success. The development of effective motivations allows you not only to save time, but to develop as a person. Self-discipline - living by strict rules that a person sets for himself, in his own interests. Such rigid frameworks, oddly enough, do not limit the personality. Against, it is the only way to true freedom.

Time - management is the best tool for self-improvement. First of all, planning teaches control over external events, environment, time and space. The self-control skills gained as a result of working on oneself allow you to manage your own feelings, momentary desires, bad habits. And self-control is a sign of a strong, strong-willed nature. The development of concentration skills allows you to achieve better results at work, while spending less effort. Thus, time is freed up for the improvement of the intellectual and spiritual. Isn't that the meaning of human life?

Self-discipline skills are not acquired overnight. Moreover, you can develop them in yourself only by constant training of willpower. The same goes for the time management system. Anyone who wants to achieve success in life is simply obliged to treat time carefully.

The 7 Most Popular Time Management Techniques

“If I had 9 hours to chop down a pine, I would spend 6 hours sharpening my axe.”

Abraham Lincoln

There are many techniques for efficient use of time. We bring to your attention the most popular techniques, without which no time management system can do.

Eisenhower Matrix

The technique got its name in honor of US President D. Eisenhower, who divided all the tasks that he faced into 4 categories, guided by their urgency and importance.

Based on this, the cases were arranged in the cells of the simplest matrix as follows:

• Category A - urgent and important, which must be resolved immediately;
• Category B - their decision can be postponed for a certain period, but it is not worth delaying with them;
• Category B - tasks, the execution of which can be delegated to third parties;
• Category D - things that are better to send to the trash right away, because they are not worth the time and effort.

According to experts, the mistake of most people is the wrong prioritization. They are more willing to take on the tasks of the last two categories, since it is much easier to do these things. Rapid results contribute to the development of an incorrect assessment of personal effectiveness. It turns out that the man expends effort on secondary activities leaving behind what really matters.

Timing technique

Recording the time of employees in order to improve labor discipline has been used for more than a dozen years. Automation and accounting programs record the timely arrival and departure, the duration of the employee's working day. But modern technology has gone even further. Today you can not only find out if a person is present at the workplace, but also check what he is doing.

Hundreds of such control systems have been developed to date. Programs are able to automatically register: absence due to illness, business trips, vacations, time off, work on a flexible schedule. The system takes into account the duration of the lunch break, untimely leaving or being late, absenteeism.

For all their perfection, time tracking modules provide only superficial timing, while spyware like "Maxapt QuickEye" helps keep track of computer work. With their help, the manager will immediately understand that Maria Ivanovna from the accounting department is busy not working on the report, but communicating on the Odnoklassniki website. Of course, even with the help of such programs, it will not be possible to make a minute-by-minute timing, taking into account smoke breaks, tea parties, heartfelt chatter of other “garbage time”, but most often there is no need for this.

Pareto method

Vilfredo Pareto's Law states: “20% of your efforts provide 80% of the result, while the remaining 80% bring only 20% of the result.” You can interpret it in another way: "20% of employees bring the company 80% of the profits." Simply put, only 1/5 of the team works effectively. The efficiency of the vast majority of workers is very low. Their work is just an imitation of violent activity. If you direct this energy in the right direction, overall productivity will increase significantly.

The Pareto method is to isolate from the whole mass of 20% of the main cases and focus on them. The decision about what is considered important and what is secondary will be individual in each case. The Eisenhower matrix or the ABC analysis method, which is most often used in combination with the Pareto method, allows you to categorize cases. ABC analysis is the simplest way to rank cases according to their current importance.

ABC - analysis

This method is considered the most productive and visual way to sort cases. It allows you to weed out all unnecessary, focus on achieving the main goals. According to this method, all cases are divided into categories:

• Group A has the highest priority, these are important and urgent matters. Such issues must be resolved as soon as possible. The contribution of these cases to the achievement of the final goal is 65%, although it will take only 15% of the time to complete them. That is, more than half of all work will be completed in the shortest possible time.
• Group B includes cases that are not urgent, but necessary for execution. The solution of such tasks can be entrusted to third parties. It is important to control the time of their execution, since group B cases tend to move into category A if the deadlines are violated.
• Group C - tasks that are commonly called "office routine". It is on them that the lion's share of the working time of the staff and the manager is spent. Although a person with low qualifications can easily cope with reporting, purchasing stationery and other routine work.

Independent organization of working time

Self-management is perhaps the most effective of all time management tactics. It is applicable both to a single subject and to the collective as a whole. To ensure that the employee worked productively, the system of material incentives and punishments allows. In layman's terms, fines or bonuses well stimulate the individual to perform the task assigned to him. It should be noted that the employee himself should also be interested in the competent organization of the work process.

The most important goal of self-management is the maximum realization of the potential of each person in work, creativity, and personal life. Using this method provides the following benefits:

• Time and effort to complete work tasks is reduced;
• Increased productivity;
• Reasons for stress, emergency work, haste are eliminated;
• Moral satisfaction with work activity increases;
• Qualifications increase, there is an incentive for personal growth.

Self-management begins with a work style analysis that includes a complete inventory of time. It allows you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the organization of the labor process, adjust them in the right direction. A description of all activities includes:

1. Main work tasks;
2. "Interference" or forced breaks, the so-called "garbage time".

The reasons for wasting time can be personal factors, such as disorganization, neglect of work duties, lack of self-discipline, the desire to do everything quickly, in a hurry. However, excessive zeal, the desire to take on all the cases at once, also rarely gives a positive result.

Well-known American business coach Dan Kennedy believes that phone calls, unscheduled visitors, protracted meetings are the most malicious time wasters for a leader. If possible, they should be eliminated or minimized.

The Pomodoro Method

This tactical technique with a funny name was invented in the 80s of the last century by the Italian Francesco Cirillo. Being one of the lagging students, the young man decided to start working on himself in order to improve his academic performance. After conducting a detailed "debriefing", he realized that he could not concentrate on his studies, being distracted by many small things. Then Francesco brought a timer in the form of a tomato from the kitchen, set it in front of him and timed the class.

Practically, it was revealed that he was able to study science with concentration for 25 minutes. During this period, the student was never distracted from the book. Subsequently, it was decided break all the time allotted for classes into blocks. The half-hour interval included the time of maximum concentration - 25 minutes, as well as the rest time, which is allotted just for those very small things. The "pomodoro" method has become widespread today, due to its simplicity, accessibility and effectiveness.

The most valuable thing that everyone has and that we spend without looking back is. Return, buy, ask him will not work. There is only one way out - use it wisely. Read the article about time management briefly. Learn to use effectively.

How to achieve goals with time management?

Everyone knows the expression “time is money”. It was spoken by the famous scientist and politician Benjamin Franklin. If a thing is replaceable, then time is gone forever. How many important and urgent things are always on the way, how to do it all? This will help, that is.

To master the skill of time management, self-organization, self-control and training are necessary.

Stages for implementation

• goal setting,
• prioritization,
• implementation,
• the control

Training should lead to the fact that all of the above processes become not only necessary tools, but also a way of life.

Target

How can you follow these rules? It is necessary to identify what takes a lot of time, evaluate daily activities according to the degree of necessity and usefulness. Important and urgent matters are given priority. Important things are those things, if not done, there is a risk of serious undesirable consequences. For clarity, you can write things down in a notebook. Analyze what you have written down, find things that waste your time, isolate them and try to get rid of such things. This tool is called timekeeping. The notebook sheet should be divided into two parts, in one, write down the time in the other, the business that this time was occupied with. There are computer programs for timing - this is also very convenient.

Additional chips

There is such an American phraseological unit as "eat a frog." It means doing something very unpleasant. This concept is widely used in and means not putting off unpleasant things for later, doing them first, then proceeding to inspiring things.

It often takes remarkable strength to pull yourself together and force you to do what is necessary. When you come home from work, you really want to watch TV, and here you need to call on willpower to help, pick up your plan and switch to the right wave. Think and imagine how things will be after a certain time. increases with interest in the case. This is the best incentive that makes you move along the intended path of planned affairs. Seeing and imagining what routine uninteresting things lead to will help you move step by step towards the goal. The goal is what you need to think about.

It is important to do everything on time, at the last moment. In this case, a lot of time is occupied by nervousness and unnecessary movements due to fear of not being in time. Someone works collected with a sense of knowledge and, while someone fusses and makes a lot of unnecessary movements, gets very tired, and has less time. If you have time to spare, do what needs to be done in advance, which will help you complete the next task faster. You should also leave room in your plans for unforeseen, unexpected tasks.

Without fanaticism

But don't jump from one extreme to the other. Family and friends are also a necessary part of life. Spending your life for a career and recognition, deleting everything else from it - in this situation, a person can suffer severe disappointment and dissatisfaction. Everything is good in moderation)) The choice is ours.

How to answer the following interview questions: How do you manage your time? How do you plan your work day? What techniques and methods do you use in planning? Give examples of how you use the skill of time management to successfully complete the task.

You will find out all the answers to these questions by reading this article.

What is time management?

Time management is a set of knowledge, skills and abilities, thanks to which a person knows how to prioritize, accurately plans his time, thereby increasing his personal productivity in organizing his working time.

"Until you can manage your time, you can't manage anything else" Peter Drucker

1. perfectionism
2. procrastination
3. Lack of knowledge
4. Lack of necessary tools and resources

1. Perfectionism makes it very difficult to complete tasks on time. Many consider this quality to be a strength, but it is the constant striving for excellence and dissatisfaction with the results obtained that is one of the reasons for the inefficient use of time. By finding opportunities to accept the "real" result instead of the "ideal" result, you save significant resources for other things. There is such an expression: “perfectionism is evil”, of course, all this is rather relative and in each individual situation this personality characteristic can be assessed differently, however, undoubtedly within the framework of time management: perfectionism is EVIL!

2. procrastination- constant postponing of affairs for later, unwillingness to perform certain duties. In the vocabulary of procrastinating employees, the word "TOMORROW" dominates. About such people, Steve Jobs said very well: “Poor, unsuccessful, unhappy and unhealthy is the one who often uses the word “tomorrow”.

I can’t save you from perfectionism and procrastination, my goal is to give knowledge, provide the best techniques and methods, introduce resources and tools for mastering the skill of time management. And whether you use the information received or not - it all depends solely on your desire. However, after reading this article, you will never be the same again.

To begin with, I suggest defining your time management skills. Pass

Cognitive dissonance lies in the fact that, on the one hand, we cannot manage time as such. After all, it is time that we cannot control and it seems that it is time that controls us, and not we. We are accustomed to perceive time as something eternal and limitless. It seems that there is always a lot of it. On the other hand, time is one of the most valuable resources we all have. It is important to understand that time has its limits, every day is a vessel of a certain capacity that you fill with deeds. You can fill it with useless things, or you can fill it with things that work for your goals and lead you to the final goal.

We can control ourselves, how we plan our day, and how we spend our work time. Reasonable, productive and economical use of this resource is an important part of employee evaluation.

Time efficiency can be achieved in two ways:

1. Achieve meaningful results by saving time. This means that you know how to achieve the task in the minimum time.
2. Effective work time planning will reduce the number and volume of tasks you perform.

In this article, I've digested six of the best time management techniques. With their help, you will be able to learn how to plan and control your priority tasks on a daily basis.

How to learn to manage your time?

6 Best Time Management Techniques:

1. Pareto principle
2. Eisenhower Matrix
3. Mind maps or Mind maps
4. Franklin Pyramid
5. ABCHD method
6. Eat the frog first

1. Pareto principle

The Pareto principle states that a small proportion of the causes, efforts and funds invested is responsible for a large proportion of the results. This principle was formulated by the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto in 1897 and has since been confirmed by quantitative studies in various areas of life:

20% of efforts give 80% of results

The Pareto principle in the field of time management can be formulated as follows: about 20% of effort and time is enough to get 80% of the result.
How exactly to determine what effort is enough to spend to get a good result? Imagine that you are looking for answers to your questions in a book. According to the principle under consideration, you will find 80% of the information you need in 20% of the text. If you know exactly what interests you, you will be able to quickly flip through the book and carefully read only individual pages. Thus, you will save 80% of your time.

2. Eisenhower Matrix

This is probably the most well-known time management concept to date, which allows you to prioritize. This technique, which is credited to the creation of the American General Dwight Eisenhower, allows you to sort cases at the same time according to their urgency and their importance. Everyone understands that only a limited number of tasks can be completed in one period of time. Sometimes without prejudice to the work of only one. And every time we have to decide, WHICH EXACTLY? American President Dwight Eisenhower used to plan his affairs by sorting them into several important categories.
In accordance with the so-called Eisenhower matrix, each case must be assigned to one of the four types indicated on the diagram.

Eisenhower Matrix

The importance of a task is determined by how the result of its implementation affects your business. And the urgency is simultaneously two factors: firstly, how quickly this task must be completed, and secondly, whether the execution of this task is tied to a specific date and specific time. It is importance and urgency, considered together, that influence prioritization.

Let us consider in more detail what cases can be attributed to each of the four types.

Type I: "important and urgent".
These are things that will result in significant damage to your business if not done on time (for example, renewing licenses, filing tax returns, etc.). A certain proportion of such cases will inevitably be present in the life of every person. However, with advance preparation (Type II cases – “important but not urgent”) many crises can be prevented (eg by studying the law, building good relationships with powerful people).

It can also be projects with a "burning" deadline, ambulance. For example, visiting a doctor because of a health problem, submitting an article to a journal by a tight deadline, or submitting a research report. Here we have no choice. The affairs of this group must be carried out, period. Otherwise there will be serious problems.

Type II: "important but not urgent."
These are things that are focused on the future: training, studying promising areas of business development, improving equipment, restoring health and performance. Actions leading to your strategic goal. For example, learn a foreign language in order to go to work in another, more promising organization. It is also the prevention of problems - to keep yourself in good physical shape. Unfortunately, we often neglect such cases, putting their decision on the back burner. As a result, the language has not been learned, incomes are not growing, but declining, health is to hell. These cases have an interesting feature - if they are neglected for a long time, then they go into the category of Important - Urgent. After all, if at least once a year you do not appear at the dentist, then sooner or later an urgent visit to him will become inevitable.

Type III: "not important, but urgent."
Many of these things don't really bring much benefit in life. We make them just because they hit us (a long phone call or reading an ad in the mail), or out of habit (visiting trade shows that don't have anything new). Just the same everyday routine that takes us a lot of time and effort.

Type IV: "not important and not urgent."
These are all kinds of ways to “kill time”: alcohol abuse, “light reading”, watching movies, etc. We often resort to this when we have no strength left for productive work (not to be confused with real rest and communication with loved ones and friends - very important matters). This is a “moth” that eats our time.

As you strive for the success of your business, you first of all try to complete the tasks that you define as "important" - first "urgent" (Type I), and then "non-urgent" (Type II). The remaining time can be devoted to the "urgent but not important" (type III).
It should be emphasized that the bulk of the employee’s working time should be spent on “important, but not urgent” tasks (type II). Then many crisis situations will be prevented, and the emergence of new business development opportunities will no longer be unexpected for you.

When you first start using the proposed system for prioritizing, you will most likely want to classify many of these tasks as “important”. However, as you gain experience, you will begin to more accurately assess the importance of a particular case. It will take some time to learn how to use the prioritization system. Where can you get it? Most likely, you will classify the work of mastering the techniques of managing your time as "important, but not urgent."
As Stephen Covey (author of the international bestseller The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) puts it figuratively, you need to take the time to “sharpen the saw” so that firewood can be harvested faster.

Parable

A certain man saw a woodcutter in the forest, with great difficulty chopping a tree with a completely blunt ax. The man asked him:
- Dear, why don't you sharpen your ax?
“I don’t have time to sharpen my ax—I have to chop!” moaned the woodcutter...

Therefore, you need to “voluntarily” allocate a certain time for planning your classes, refusing to perform any less important things. If you can do this, then next time you can free up even more time with new skills and use it to learn something else. Thus, through the determination to improve the efficiency of your work, you will gradually free up time for the development of your personal productivity.

Prioritization Criteria
Usually, when evaluating the importance of a particular case, we consider important, first of all, those things that need to be done urgently (or "yesterday"). The accumulation of unfulfilled cases and promises creates problems for your company, and also creates unpleasant feelings for you personally. It is with such "urgent" matters that we strive to deal with in the first place. But the urgency factor should not be the only factor when writing a to-do list and determining the order in which they should be completed.
Experience shows that doing (or not doing) a lot of urgent things doesn't affect your business much, while there are a lot of non-urgent things that can lay the foundation for future success. Therefore, in addition to urgency, it is necessary to take into account how much this or that matter affects the success of the business, that is, to determine and take into account its importance.

3. Mind maps or Mind maps

This is the development of Tony Buzan - a well-known writer, lecturer and consultant on the issues of intelligence, the psychology of learning and the problems of thinking. There are also such translations of the phrase "Mind maps" as "Mental maps", "Thinking maps", "Mind maps".

mind maps is a method that allows:

Effectively structure and process information;
think using your creative and intellectual potential.

This is a very beautiful tool for solving tasks such as giving presentations, making decisions, planning your time, memorizing large amounts of information, brainstorming, introspection, developing complex projects, self-learning, development, etc.

Areas of use:
1. Presentations:
in less time you give more information, while you are better understood and remembered;
business meetings and negotiations.

2. Planning:
time management: plan for the day, week, month, year…;
development of complex projects, new business…

3. Brainstorming:
generation of new ideas, creativity;
collective solution of complex problems.

4. Decision making:
a clear vision of all the pros and cons;
a more balanced and thoughtful decision.

4 Franklin Pyramid

This is a ready-made planning system that helps you manage your time properly and achieve your goals. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) - Amer. polit. figure. B. Franklin was distinguished by a fantastic capacity for work and a unique sense of purpose. At the age of twenty, he made a plan to achieve goals for a lifetime ahead. Throughout his life, he followed this plan, clearly planning every day. His plan for achieving goals was called the "Franklin pyramid" and looks something like this:

1. The foundation of the pyramid are the main values ​​of life. We can say that this is the answer to the question: “What mission did you come to this world with?” What do you want from life? What mark on Earth would you like to leave behind? There is an opinion that there will not be even 1% of people living on the planet who would seriously think about this. In other words, this is the vector of the direction of movement towards your dream.

2. Based on life values, everyone sets a global goal for himself. What does he want to become in this life, what does he plan to achieve?

3. The master plan for achieving goals is the fixation of specific intermediate goals on the way to achieving the global goal.

4. A plan for one, three, five years is called long-term. Here it is important to determine the exact deadlines.

5. Plan for a month, and then for a week - this is a short-term plan. The more thoughtful it is, the more often you analyze and correct it, the more effective the work will be.

6. The last item in terms of achieving goals is a plan for each day.

5. Method "ABVGD"

The ABCD method is an effective way to prioritize tasks that you can use on a daily basis. This method is simple and so effective that it can, if used regularly and competently, elevate you to the rank of the most productive and productive people in your field of activity.
The strength of the method is in its simplicity. Here's how it works. You start by making a list of everything you have to do for the coming day. Think on paper.
After that, you put the letter A, B, C, D, or E in front of each item on your list.

Task type "A" is defined as the most important thing at this stage, something that you must do or risk serious consequences. An "A" task might be visiting an important client or writing a report for your boss. These tasks represent the real, mature frogs of your life.
If you have more than one "A" task in front of you, you rate their priority by marking A-1, A-2, A-3, etc. Task A-1 is the biggest and ugliest "frog" of all that you have to deal with.

Task type "B" defined as the one you should have done. Nevertheless, the consequences, in case of its implementation or non-compliance, are quite mild. Such tasks are nothing more than the "tadpoles" of your life. This means that if you do not do the right job, someone will be dissatisfied or put at a disadvantage, but in any case, in terms of importance, these tasks do not closely correspond to the tasks of type "A". A phone call about a not-so-urgent matter or a backlog of e-mail could be the essence of a Type B task.
The rule you must follow is: never start a type "B" task while you still have an "A" task unfinished. Never let the "tadpoles" distract you while the big "frog" is waiting to be eaten!

Task type "B" is defined as something that would be great to do, but from which no consequences should be expected, whether you do it or not. A B task might be a phone call to a friend, a cup of coffee, lunch with a colleague, or some personal activity done during work hours. These kinds of "events" have absolutely no impact on your work.

Task type "G" is valued as a job that you can delegate to someone else. The rule in this case is that you should entrust others with everything that they can, thereby freeing up time for yourself on tasks of type "A", which you and only you are able to perform.

Task type "D" is a job that can be completely removed from your to-do list. It may be a task that used to be important, but is no longer relevant for you or for others. Often this is work that you do day in and day out, either out of habit or finding pleasure in doing it.

After you have applied method "ABVGD" to your to-do list for the day, you have completely organized your work and set the stage for more important things to get done faster.

The most important condition for the ABCHD method to really work for you is the following requirement: start task A-1 without delay and then work on it until it is fully completed. Use your willpower to start and keep working on your most important task at the moment. Take hold of your biggest "frog" and "eat" it without stopping until the very last bite.
The ability to analyze your list of tasks for the day and highlight the A-1 task will serve as a starting point for achieving truly great success in your activities, increase your self-esteem, fill you with self-respect and a sense of pride in your achievements.
When you get into the habit of fully concentrating on your most important task, i.e. task A-1 - in other words, on eating your main "frog" - you will learn to do twice or even three times more than the people around you.

6. Eat the frog first

Going from hard to easy

You've probably heard the question, "How would you eat an elephant?" The answer, of course, is: "In pieces." And how would you eat your biggest and ugliest "frog"? In the same way: you would break it down into specific step-by-step actions and start from the very first one.

Start your working day with the most difficult task and complete it as quickly as you can. It will help you to realize that you still have a lot to do, and the time of the working day is limited. Doing the hardest thing first will give you a huge sense of accomplishment. Use this rule daily and you will see how much energy you get and how efficiently your work day goes. Constantly putting off a problematic task until the end of the day will cause you to think about that task all day anyway, and it will prevent you from focusing on other tasks! Eat the frog first, and then proceed to eat the elephant piece by piece!

Time planning tools

Plan your day ahead of time.
Through planning, we transfer
the future into the present and thus we have
opportunity to do something
about him now

Alan Lakin

The main generations of "planners"
The technologies and means of organizing working time known today can be divided into several generations - the differences here are in the principles of fixing information and the technique of use.

Until the 20th century, work time planning was carried out using primitive methods: memos, to-do lists, etc. At the beginning of the last century, along with the development of business, new tools were widely used to facilitate the work of manager time planning.
The idea to adapt a household calendar for office work arose in the 19th century and materialized in the form of a flip calendar in 1870. For each day, one page of the calendar was assigned, on which the day, month, and year were indicated. The availability of free space for notes made it possible to take the necessary notes: negotiations, meetings, expenses, meetings. For almost a century, the desk calendar has been the main time management tool for managers.

The result of the improvement of the flip calendar was the diary and weekly. The diary is a loose-leaf flip calendar in the form of a convenient notepad of various formats. The diary could be taken with you to meetings and business trips.
The weekly journal turned out to be even more convenient for the manager, in which it was possible to plan the working week and day, control the execution of recorded tasks, analyze the time spent (since there was an hourly breakdown of the working day), and faster information retrieval (after all, now it was grouped by 52 weeks, and not for 365 days). In the 1980s, weeklies practically replaced the flip calendars and became so widespread that they became an element of the business style of enterprises.

The design idea to combine a calendar, a notepad and a phone book in one convenient tool successfully materialized back in 1921 in the form of an “organizer” (from the English organizer). The subsequent improvement of the tool was carried out by changing the format, design, paper quality and exterior finish. Here, in one tool, information storage devices and technical means (calendar, notepad, address and telephone book, business card holder, pen, microcalculator) were combined. At the same time, there was no clear classification and systematization of records.

The famous "time manager" was created in Denmark in 1975. It implemented the idea of ​​targeted planning of personal results based on a typical classifier of functions (“key tasks”) and technology for the implementation of global events (“elephant tasks”). At the same time, the use of a “time manager” turned out to be acceptable only for people who were organized and disciplined by nature, and besides, significant financial costs were required for training and acquisition.
Nevertheless, the name of this kind of "organizer" - "time manager" - has become a household name and today denotes a general approach to the active use of time as a managerial resource.

The development of scientific and technical progress in recent decades has led to the creation of electronic time planning tools that are fundamentally new from a technological point of view: an electronic notebook, various PC service programs, mobile phones, smartphones, etc.

The best modern time management technologies:

1.Trello is a free web application for small team project management. Trello allows you to work more productively in closer collaboration. Trello is boards, lists, and maps that let you organize and prioritize projects in a fun, flexible, and easily customizable way.

2. Evernote is a web service and a set of software for creating and storing notes. A note can be a piece of rich text, an entire web page, a photo, an audio file, or a handwritten note. Notes can also contain attachments with other types of files. Notes can be sorted into notebooks, labeled, edited, and exported.

Greetings to all guests and regular readers. In this article, I will share with you the secrets of how to manage to do everything and what is home time management in general. After all, for sure, many of you are already tired of the constant rush of things that never ends.

At the same time, general fatigue is accumulating, which over time threatens to develop into a serious depression. Let's talk today about how to keep up with everything and at the same time not feel like a “driven horse”.

Why do you need home planning?

Of course, everyone has different goals. Someone wants to unload their schedule so that there is time for communication with loved ones, for relaxation and for hobbies. Someone is constantly sewn up in cleaning, cooking and washing and is late for work because of this. Someone is tired of the constant "Groundhog Day".

This is a state when every day resembles the previous one, but at the same time you do not get any feedback at all and do not achieve your goal. A home management system will help you organize your time correctly and efficiently so that you can do everything!

Another very important and effective time management technique is not only to strictly follow the set plan, but also to analyze what you have done. This is very important for strengthening your own motivation and understanding that you are on the right path.

It is not enough to simply cross out all the household items at the end of the week. Analyze the list, mentally dividing it into 3 groups:

1. For which I can praise myself.
2. What did I fail to do and why?
3. What should I focus on next week.

There are a large number of types of time management, but they all have the same goal: “Do more and get tired less!”

Golden Rules for Home Planning

• No need to just write a huge to-do list that you will never be able to complete in 1 day in your life. This is ineffective time management, which will lead to a loss of motivation. You are more likely to abandon the entire time control system by losing faith in it. That is, the task of effective time management lies precisely in the rational distribution of time, which means that when setting a task, you need to clearly understand how much time it will take to complete it. Do not deceive yourself and do not “throw on” too much, then you will definitely not have time for anything.
• Clearly rank household chores in order of their importance.
• Break up a big job that has been lying unfulfilled for months, or even years, into small parts and pieces. This may be a move, repair, general cleaning, etc.
• Combine several things at once. (Useful + super useful, pleasant + useful, pleasant + pleasant). For example, a woman is torn between a lot of ironing, cleaning, the need to clean up before the event and the desire to relax watching her favorite series. Why not organize your day in such a way that from 12-13 you iron, while you can turn on your favorite series or show, and then apply a mask on your face and at the same time do a little cleaning.
• Find your time wasters. What distracts you most from your work tasks (TV, social media, phone calls)? You don't have to cut them out of your life forever. If all these little things give you pleasure, then just set aside a clear period of time for them. To this rule, perhaps, the saying is perfect: “Did the job - walk boldly!”.

• Set aside some time for household chores. This rule applies to very busy people who disappear from work for 10-12 hours. In this case, no matter how the day is planned, it does not have 3-4 hours for cleaning, cooking, washing and ironing. Therefore, do not torture yourself and allocate only 30 minutes. Indicate that on Monday you spend 30 minutes in the bathroom, on Tuesday - exactly 30 minutes ironing? This time is not enough - transfer another 30 minutes of ironing to another day of the week, etc. This is much better than the only day off, with a "tongue on the shoulder" to do a global cleaning in the house, at the same time wash, iron and cook for the whole week. What will you get at the end of such a day off? Depression and terrible fatigue!

Many women complain that cooking takes them a huge amount of time, but at the same time they have a daily panic at work that the family will have nothing to eat in the evening! This suggests that you are inefficiently managing time and organizing time incorrectly.

There is even such a type of time management as home catering. In short, you should always make a menu for the week. Based on this, buy food + think to the maximum on a day off, what can be prepared from this menu. And in order not to feel like a “victim of home life”, you can combine Sunday cooking for a week

I can do it all!

Many who first encounter the newfangled and overseas concept of "time management" automatically reject such a time management system. Like, why do I need all these systems, so I have time for everything!

Possibly, but consider how much more efficiently you could use your resources. You could learn a new business, learn a foreign language, master some specialty or read more interesting books, attend cultural events.

Yes, maybe you really have time for everything, but what is the price? Are you tired, come home with only one thought to go to sleep? You are satisfied with yourself, so you did everything, but at the same time there were no interesting and bright moments in your day.

Don't limit your life to just household chores. An effective time management system will help make life brighter and save you from general fatigue!

Be sure to rest!

This is a very important rule, which many people either forget or do not attach importance to. Now I don’t mean a dream when you, tired on the machine, carried your body to bed and, with the last of your strength, started an alarm clock.

I'm talking now about a good rest, to allocate time for which one of the types of effective home time management will help you.

• When making a plan for each day, be sure to imagine the time resources that will be spent on the task.
• Clearly define "working" time and rest time.
• Write to yourself the types of recreation that are ideal for you. It can be going to the cinema, to the theater, to an exhibition, reading a book (which you have been wanting to read for a year), watching TV with your loved one, having dinner in a cafe, walking in the park, visiting guests. Why is it so important to write it down? In order to avoid that very feeling of the notorious “Groundhog Day” and so that you can clearly see how much more diverse, brighter and richer your life can be.
• Now that you have written out how you want to relax, make a short-term plan. Set aside time in your schedule to do things you love every day. For the weekend, take those that require more time (theater, cinema, walk, picnic). And every evening, set aside 1-2 hours for rest (a film, a book, a tea party with loved ones, etc.)

Successful business consultants who teach the basics of effective time management say that there is no worse enemy to yourself than chronic fatigue! Nothing demotivates us, does not reduce our efficiency and does not interfere with the implementation of our goals, like chronic fatigue. So the time management system is just aimed at saving you from this feeling.

In general, we can talk about effective time management for a very long time, but it’s better to visit time management training and you will see how much better your life can be.

Share in the comments how you plan your household chores, and does such a system help you in life? Subscribe if you haven't already and see you soon!