Setting up Time Blocks and Making Their Effective Use

Being an entrepreneur, you realize that time is money. Therefore, devising strategies to make more intentional use of that time facilitates creating an atmosphere that drives success. However, business owners must understand that they don’t need additional time; rather they require learning the art of making its strategic use. For businesses, time is an invaluable resource, and business owners have every reason to protect, organize and be calculated about it.

In order to encourage clients and employees to make effective use of their time, time blocking is a crucial step towards it.

Important Steps to Take for Time-Blocking

Determine Priorities and Goals

Analyze your weekly or yearly goals, and put the largest time blocks aside in order to particularly work towards attaining that target. Unless and until you achieve this objective, everything else will seem like an interruption.  

Put the Activities into Categories

Prepare time buckets for rest of the objectives in your list. Put similar activities in one group. Here’s how you can categorize all the duties:

· Customer Work,

· Marketing,

· Business Management,

· Team Management,

· Goal Setting,

· Dealing with Personal Secretary,

· Personal Duties.

Arrange Them as Consistent Appointments

Get a calendar and schedule all these activities. This will help you come up with a weekly or monthly structure. For instance, every Monday morning, you have to get in touch with all the clients, every Wednesday afternoon you’ve to handle financials, and so on.

By practicing this (bucket time), you will be better able to schedule activities and handle them during the blocks every week with maximum amount of concentration.

It is imperative that you follow your time blocks regularly; else they will not provide desired results.  Success lies in honoring your calendar and working systematically.

Now that you have setup blocks, practice one or more of these techniques:

Task Batching

Group all the activities that you need to get done within a single time block. This will provide you with some organization and structure. Let’s say you’re working in a ‘Marketing’ time block. You have to systematically shift from one component of the marketing strategy to another, instead of haphazardly working on various components.

Time Tracking Solution

Whenever you begin working on a new block, kick start your timer. However, not all time tracking software and apps will provide you with user-friendly and seamless time tracking.

There are myriad benefits of using a time tracking solution. This software keeps you accountable, while maintaining the integrity of time blocks. Moreover, time tracking solutions also provide reports on how each minute was spent over the entire week. If you’re on the lookout for making efficient use of your time, time tracking apps and software is just what you need. Time tracking solutions also help you determine areas of work that can be delegated, saving you more productive time.  

In essence, you need to come up with solutions that balance your time and work. Chrometa provides time tracking software and apps for PC, Mac, Android and iPhone to help users track time passively. Visit http://www.chrometa.com/ to learn more about their time tracking services. 

Improved Time Management with a 3-way Strategy

It is true. We’re getting increasingly addicted to screens – be it mobile, TV, or laptop. And unknowingly, this habit is turning into procrastination. Result? We are becoming more unfocused and distracted than ever.

The internet is filled with countless tips on time management, maintaining productivity, and getting maximum amount of work done in least possible time. At times, it seems like the world wants you to save time. And guess what you’re doing: skimming through these articles while almost dozing off.

Consequently, that’s why we often recommend adopting the non-management approach towards managing time. Or more appropriately: a lethargic take at this rising trend.

Consider these time management tips for people who fail at managing.

Plan to be Interrupted

To stop procrastinating, you have to take out time for procrastination. The idea is to schedule interruptions, because somewhere you know you will be distracted.

 Take out some time and stay focused on work. Realizing that you’ll get time for your break, you will be more productive in a timely fashion – of course, without any procrastination.

In essence, you have to eradicate it from your system.

The same holds true for interruptions. Quit the habit of consistently checking e-mails and social networking platforms. There is nothing called, ‘urgent’. Schedule your time in a way that you check them after a few hours, not after every 10 minutes.

De-cluttering

Nothing can kill your productivity more than clutter.

Most people end up cleaning the mess, leaving no time for actual work – thinking, preparing and working.  More than occupying the physical space, clutter takes up your mind, attention, and concentration away from work. Whether you work from home or office, it is a good practice to keep your work space clean. This will surely help creating a productive working environment for your mind.  

In essence, de-cluttering helps, physically and mentally – saving lots of time.

Tracking Bad Habits

What is it that distracts you? May be you’re a chain smoker, or an avid social media user. When managing time and improving productivity, these habits can prove to be obstructions.

Take a week’s time and track these bad habits using a time tracker. Make sure you show consistency throughout the week. The idea is to track time for bad habits you need to get rid of.

Would you be willing to watch an assumingly interesting 5-minute video on Facebook, knowing that it counts for 5 hours for the whole week?

Similarly, if you start tracking time for your unimportant work for a string of few weeks, you may find out that you waste most part of the week in doing unproductive stuff.

As you follow these crucial steps, investing in a personal, passive timekeeper is a good move. Chrometa is a time tracking software and app that captures time as you work on PC, Mac, iPhone and Android. It passively records time and puts on a timesheet for easy viewing.

Click to download its free 30-day trial.