Time management tools and techniques aren’t magic spells but they are magical things you can use to maximize your productivity, and not exhaust yourself. Learn the simplest and most effective time management techniques, why they matter, and how to apply them to manage your time and your life.
There are some people who seem to have time to do everything, and if you're someone who doesn't, you may be wondering what their secret is. The secret is they manage their time well. There are simple techniques and tricks that you can use to maximize your time and make it seem like you have more of it. Join SpiritualBlossom to find out the greatest form of magic you can use- managing your time. Find out things you can do to work your personal magic by managing your time, organizing your life, and maximizing your productivity every day. Once you get started wisely managing your time, you will wonder why you never worked that kind of magic before!
What is Time Management?
Time management is taking conscious control of the time you spend doing specific things. It increases your efficiency, and it helps you to balance the time that you spend doing necessary things with things that you want to do. Typically time management refers to how you spend your time working, but it doesn't have to be limited to just that. Managing your time on vacations, doing hobbies, and leisure pursuits is important to make sure that things go smoothly and get done well.
Some people just seem to naturally know how to manage their time well. They may seem like overachievers, and even though they make it look effortless, they're consciously aware of how they're spending their time. Everybody is busy, and there are only so many hours in the day period. Time management helps you to maximize your time, get things done, and accomplish everything you set out to do. If you can learn to manage your time well, a hectic schedule won't swallow you, and you can take control of your own life. After all, you have your own path to walk, and there's plenty to do. Find out if you're still on your path even if you feel like you've strayed: Am I Still on the Path That’s Right for Me?
Why Manage Your Time?
It might seem like it would be better to just go with the flow and get things done when you get them done, but using good time management is always best. Why? First you won't feel rushed and it will help you to reduce stress in your life. Next it will increase your productivity levels. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it will help you to improve your work- life balance.
To Reduce Stress
Nobody likes to feel rushed, but there may be a worse feeling- Feeling like you don't have enough time to do everything can be the most stressful feeling there is. If you use good time management techniques, you won't feel as rushed and you won't feel as if you don't have enough time to do everything. Stress is bad for your mental health and if your mental health suffers enough, it will be bad for your physical health. Anything you can do to take better care of yourself is important. So manage your time to make sure that you don't deal with unnecessary stress. Read more about what stress can do to the body here: The Effects of Stress on Your Body
Increase Productivity
If you want to increase your productivity levels, amp up your time management game. Different techniques like making sure you focus on one thing at a time helps you shut out distractions. If you do the most important things first will help you to get as much possible done in the shortest amount of time. You can also increase the accuracy of the work that you get done if you organize everything properly before you get started. In some ways, managing your time is the most magical ingredient of work, because it helps to ensure the most success.
Better Work-Life Balance
Even if you are one of the people who loves the work that you do, one day you will have to admit that work isn't everything. At some point, you have to step away from working and go do something else. To have family and friends who want to spend time with you, and you have hobbies that you enjoy that make life better than if you just work. There are so many wonderful things to participate in. If you spend all your time doing just one thing because you don't manage your time well, you will miss out on a lot. Even if you're a loner, enjoying solitude instead of focusing on work all the time is important. Read about the joys of solitude here: Embracing the Joy of Solitary Time
What Are Some Time Management Tools?
There are countless tools that you can use to manage your time more effectively, but there are a few that are most important. Organizing is a powerful time management tool and so is prioritizing. One overlooked time management tool is practicing good self-care.
Organizing
Having things well organized is very important no matter what you're doing. Think of organizing as a plan of action that you come up with before you get to work. Going over your plan before you get started will help you to know what structure you have in place to get everything done properly. Having all of the supplies you need before you get started will help to keep you from taking extra time to run out and grab more supplies, and things will go more smoothly. If there are people who are helping you, having everything well organized will help them to do their part also.
Prioritizing
Prioritizing is also a very important time management tool. There are three simple things that you can do to prioritize well. Do the most important tasks first, and then the less important ones. Do the most difficult things first and do the easiest things last, and decide what doesn't matter and then don't focus on it.
Most to Least Important
Organize your To Do List from the most important things to the least important things. That way you make sure that the most important things get done first. For example if you have errands to do during the weekend, is it most important to pay the electric bill or get pizza first? If the Electric Company closes earliest, pay the bill first, then get the pizza. If you focus on the most important things first, you will always make sure that the most important things get done. The herbs on pizza will make it taste great, but did you know that herbs can be used for magic? Find out how here: Using Magical Spices and Herbs
Do the Most Difficult Things First
The most difficult part of a job tends to be the things that we want to do least. If you do the most difficult things first, and get them out of the way, everything else that you do will seem easier. It will help to increase your enthusiasm once you finish the tough stuff, and if you know you have the easy parts to look forward to, it won't make the difficult thing seem as bad. However, if you start the easy part first, you will dread the difficult part, knowing that it's waiting for you, and you may have a hard time feeling motivated to start. So do the difficult parts first, and everything else will seem easier.
Eliminate What Doesn’t Matter
Any time you have something important to do, you should focus on that, because it matters. If something doesn't matter, it's something that you can completely eliminate from your tasks. Remember when you are learning to manage your time better, you have to focus on the most important things first. Therefore, if something isn't important at all, it doesn't deserve any attention. There are plenty of important things in life to worry about, and to focus on. If something isn't important it's not worth your time. One thing that is very important to focus on is personal healing. Once trauma has happened, focus on your healing from that trauma. Find tips and techniques for healing from trauma here: Healing Form Past Traumas
Practicing Self Care
Some people think that self-care is selfish, but it's not. It's necessary. When you're trying to manage your time well, you should take care of yourself to make sure that you're in the best possible shape to perform well. Take breaks when you need them, take care of your health, and know your personal limits.
Take Breaks
If you focus too long on the same thing, you may become exhausted, so take breaks. You might also become bored or feel overwhelmed, and stepping away from what you're doing will help you to refocus your energy when you come back to it. Even when it's something that you enjoy doing, allowing yourself breaks will help. If you have multiple projects to do and tight deadlines to reach, you can step away from one project for a short time to focus on another one if your mind needs a break from what you're doing.
Care for Your Health
if you don't have your health, you really don't have anything, so take care of yourself. Work is very important, but not if it destroys your health. If you don't eat right, refuse to take your medication, don't get the right amount of sleep, and don't get good exercise, your body is going to suffer. Your mental health is just as important as your physical health, and stress reduction, making sure you are in a nurturing environment, and making sure that you are mentally stimulated are just as important as eating properly and taking your medication. If your body and your mind start to suffer, your ability to perform well suffers also. So, take care of yourself, it’s one way to practice self-love. Read more about self-love here: Practicing Self Love
Know Your Limits
Do you think that you are limitless and can accomplish anything no matter what? Don't kid yourself. We all have limits. Knowing what those are will save you from disasters. Maybe your coworker in the next office can get by on 4 hours of sleep at night, but when you do it your ability to concentrate drops significantly. Maybe your next door neighbor can handle mowing the lawn and the heat of midday, but when you do it you have an asthma attack. Don't stress yourself unnecessarily trying to prove that you have no limitations. Respect your body and mind’s needs and respect your limits.
Tips to Use Time Management
There are a few more tips to help you with time management skills. Lists and schedules will help you. Shutting out distractions will too. Focusing on just doing one thing at a time and sticking to your plan will help things to go smoothly while you're managing your time.
Create Lists
Are you one of those people who forgets things at the store every time? Make a list and add to it for a few days before you go to the store, and it will save you from making extra trips. If you have a lot of errands and chores to do on the weekend, make a list of everything, prioritize the list, and check things off one by one.
Make a Schedule
Schedules help too. If you block off certain times of the day to do certain things, not allowing anything to interfere, that will help you to make sure you succeed. One great tip for this is to utilize your body's natural clock. What times of the day or night are you most productive? Schedule the most difficult tasks for those times of day and watch yourself get more done.
Shut Out Distractions
Distractions can keep you from getting things accomplished. If you like to look out the window, close the curtains so that you're not tempted to do so while you're working. If you can hear the neighbors' kids yelling while you're working in your Home Office, consider moving your office somewhere in your house where you can't hear the noise. Have a designated workspace where no one is welcome so you have to focus. Shutting out distractions will help you to focus better and get your work done more quickly.
Do One Thing at a Time
Multitasking can make you feel like you're getting a lot of things done at once, but it can take your attention from each task and slow you down. Focusing on one thing at a time is necessary for some tasks, especially when there are things that you really need to consciously focus on. Get started early if you need to, but do one thing at a time when it requires that level of focus.
Stick to a Plan
Throwing away all the work you've done and starting again is necessary sometimes, but sometimes it isn't. Once you make a great plan, stick with it. If things are going well and you have a good system down for getting everything accomplished, go with what works. It will save time in the long run.
Time management isn't spellwork, but it's a powerful form of magic. By organizing things, deciding when and how you will do things, and taking breaks because you understand your own limits, you will make things fall into place and it will seem like things get done effortlessly. Instead of burning a candle or chanting a spell, make lists and schedules, ignore distractions, do one thing at a time, and stick to your plan. Time management done right will maximize the time that you have and ensure that you get everything done well. That’s magic!
Would you like to consult a psychic to see what things you can do to organize your life better? We are available to help all day every day, so get a reading started anytime!
About the Author: Lady Saoirse has studied magic and lore for most of her life but started walking her own Magical Path after being spiritually reborn in the desert. Today she is a High Priestess for The Temple of the Goddess, she is a psychic advisor and spiritual counselor, she shares her gifts as a Psychic and Content Writer for Mysticsense and SpiritualBlossom, and she writes for The Green Egg Magazine and PaganPages.Org emag.
