Time management is a life skill that can help a person get more done in less time. It falls in line with the concept “Work smarter, not harder.”

According to the Corporate Finance Institute, “The ability to manage your time effectively is important. Good time management leads to improved efficiency and productivity, less stress and more success in life.” Learning how to better manage your time provides certain benefits: stress relief, extra time, more opportunities and the ability to realize goals.

 A few skills to help improve time management include prioritization, planning, stress management, goal-setting and communication. In order to do this, there are numerous tactics and strategies you can try. The first step, as suggested by Indeed, is to start tasks early. “If you have the opportunity, starting a task before you’re scheduled to begin working on it can help you overcome the initial preparatory stages of an assignment. This enables you to start developing your strategy preemptively, which can also help overcome procrastination,” Indeed reported.

Another way to increase time management is to multitask, but only if you do it the correct way. Multitasking is a well known concept that involves performing multiple tasks at once. While this can be helpful in certain situations, it can also end up decreasing the amount of work done in a time span.

Southern Nazarene University stated, “The truth is that multitasking usually wastes more time than it saves and can erode performance on every task. You can’t do two tasks at once and do them well. What you can do is take advantage of forced downtime and boredom to get more done. Take your work and your schedule with you everywhere you go so that you can take advantage of sudden gifts of time. Moments that once felt boring are actually a great opportunity to read a few pages, respond to emails or outline a paper.”

To multitask the correct way, take advantage of situations such as time in a waiting room or waiting in long lines. Time spent on these types of activities may add up over a long period of time and, while it may not seem helpful at first, will ultimately help get things done faster.

For more information on how to improve time management check out the image below listing the full steps Indeed reported for improving time management skills.

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PHOTO Bree Soule