In today’s world, where we are bombarded with distractions vying for your attention, it can be difficult to make quality time with your family a priority. Indeed, even with things like movie nights where the focus should be purely on eating popcorn and watching a film have turned into a multitasking distraction fest. Like Pavlov’s Dogs, we all seem to be living in reaction to the dings and vibrations of social media alerts and emails coming through every waking hour.
In such a hectic and fast paced world, it’s important to balance your time whilst also making enough money to survive and nurture your career. Time is an often overlooked and under-appreciated gift. We are each blessed with 24 hours every single day, yet many of these hours are spent doing things that aren’t as important or meaningful to our lives as they could be – which is where making more time for your family comes in.
Check out these three time management tips to help you squeeze the most from you working day and free up your time.
1. WORK REMOTELY
If you are able to work remotely, from home, this will enable you to work more flexible hours meaning your work can fit around your family life. Similarly, if you were to study say a professional microsoft outlook class there’s no need to attend a physical course, as today there’s a plethora of online courses available; anything from vocational short courses to advanced degrees. The flexibility and time saving nature of these courses can help free up a lot of your time.
2.. ORGANISE YOUR TIME
We all seem to spend far too much time living in reaction to work – trying to fit our lives around work, yet it doesn’t have to be that way; the key to overcoming this is investing in a good planning system. This way, you are living your life in response rather than reaction – which is a much calmer and productive state to be in.
3. THE PARETO PRINCIPLE
The Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule suggests 20% of our activities account for 80% of the outcome. In simple terms, you want to focus on what tasks are going to have the greatest impact and get these done first. Often, we can get lost in the small tasks that create a lot of “busyness” in our lives and detract from the time we need to manage our “business” – be that in a commercial or personal context.
BONUS TIP: WORK WHEN YOU WORK AND REST WHEN YOU REST
Brian Tracy, a pre-eminent time management expert advocates the idea that you work when you work and rest when your rest; meaning, if you are sitting down to work – ensure you have a singular laser like focus on the task at hand in a distraction free environment.
Today, particularly when working from home, people multitask by working with their laptop on their lap whilst having the TV on in the background, or even dropping in and out of a conversation with their spouse. By fully working when you work, you can reduce the amount of time you are needing to work – and you’ll get the added benefit of being able to fully rest when you rest.