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How I Manage My Time

(Image credit to ME: PLEASE DO NOT REPOST)

Hi all!

I’ve had quite a number of asks wanting some time management tips, so I thought I’d make a post about my time management plan!

1ST RULE: Break Long-term Tasks into Short-term Tasks

So on Friday evening, I sit down with a piece of paper and write down the heading: BIG TASKS, and list the major tasks for the weekend + following week under the heading.

Then I break each of these tasks into smaller pieces where I can. (Tests&essays are already planned for, using the study time planner I posted last week.)

Then I categorise each task as one of the following 4 categories:
1. Urgent and important
2. Important but not urgent
3. Urgent but not important
4. Not urgent and not important.
IMPORTANT task is something that has to be done. There are consequences if it isn’t done.
URGENT task has a deadline, and can’t be caught up with once the deadline has passed.

I made the following sets of questions to aid in categorising the tasks.

So from my example:
my philosophy essay is due on Monday; therefore it is urgent. If I don’t hand this essay in, I may fail my course; therefore it is important.
My mom’s birthday is soon, so I want to send her a card. This task is important, but not urgent; I can send it anytime, as long as she gets it before her birthday.
My dancing class is urgent; if I miss this practice session I can’t catch up later, since they move on anyway in the next session. But since I’m admittedly not committed to dancing, missing the lesson will not have huge consequences. It is technically not important.
My friends and I want to have a movie night sometime. This task is not important - it has no serious consequences attached to it even if it doesn’t happen. It is not urgent - we can throw it anytime we want.

I write the category number next to the task.

Once I am done categorising, I copy the tasks onto the following template:
Like this!

(If you guys want the time-square template, it can be found here, or here.)

2ND RULE: Task Decides Time

What I do next is assign X-amount of hours to each task. The number of hours I assign to each task depends on its category!

The minimum ratio that I have set between the number of hours assigned to the 4 categories is 4:2:2:1.
i.e. Category 1 tasks must take up AT LEAST twice as many hours as category 2 or 3 tasks, and AT LEAST quadruple the amount of hours for category 4 tasks.
This ratio, of course, varies from week to week. But as long as the ratio is bigger than 4:2:2:1, I’m happy.

This week being a test week and all, there is a lot of work to be done so category 1 is pretty full. (plus the birthday party contributed significantly to category 3)

Next step is to divide these hours over the days of the week. Obviously I have to put the deadlines into consideration, and my set schedules (like lectures).

I assign a task/part of task to each day, and a number of hours to spend on that task.
I don’t, however, specify the time.
I personally find that time-specific schedulers don’t work for me, simply because of the fact that I suck at sticking to the times. It means that if I don’t finish your task by the set time (eg. study maths at 11:00am), that task is left hanging because I have to move onto the next task for the next hour (write essay at 12:00pm). This creates a build-up of incomplete work and is simply NOT efficient. That’s why I don’t use them.
Everyday I keep my list of tasks in my head, and complete them one by one whenever I have the time.
The goal is to get all of the tasks done before I go to bed.
Unless there is a time constraint attached (eg. meetings, or closing times for shops), whether I complete the task (especially studying) during lunchtime or before I go to bed doesn’t matter too much.

I draw a weekly planner into my bullet journal page.
Then I divide the tasks among the days!
I then transfer these tasks onto my daily bullet journal pages throughout the week.

3RD RULE: Leave Room For Compromise

I’m only human. I always end up doing something wrong and leaving some tasks incomplete during the week.

To compensate for this, I do 2 things:

1. Abandon low-priority tasks
If I had category 1 and category 4 tasks left incomplete for example, and I simply had no time to do both things, I’d give up the category 4 task and give my undivided attention to the high-priority task! I have to know what I need to sacrifice for the greater good.
2. Integrate “catch-up time” into your plan
Sometimes you can’t give up any of the tasks. CRISIS! To prevent situations like this, you should plan some “free time” into your week so that you can use them to catch up with things you are behind with. So my plan should technically never look full.

This has been another long post…
I hope you guys foundd this post helpful! Inbox me if you have any questions :)

-Gia