We’ve talked a lot about time management tips and tricks, but what about actual skills that you can start using today? Are you ready to start managing your time more efficiently?

ONE = Time-Wasting Tasks to Avoid in the Mornings (also known as anti time management skills)

It’s a well-known fact that we all have responsibilities in life. If you find yourself doing any of the things listed below, make a concerted effort to stop. Sometimes the best time management skills are the things we stop doing.

You are allowing yourself to waste precious time. If any of these are something you need to do regularly for work or to get important information you need to run your life more efficiently, limit the time you spend on them. When you limit the time, you may be amazed at how much “extra” time you have at the end of the day. Plus, you’ll notice how much more productive you were.

1. Checking social media networks – Stop checking social media networks first thing in the morning. It is important to stop yourself before you waste your time because checking these sites first can be a habit that will drain your productivity for the rest of the day.
2. Listening to the news – Stop squandering your time by checking on breaking news, unless there is a local event you need to know about. You only get the overnight news, weather, and some fluff in the morning. To stay informed, watch the evening news to get the full stories.
3. Over-analyzing – It is not a time management skill to overanalyze things when you need to make an important decision. It will prevent you from being productive and waste your time. Likewise, when you have a good experience, don’t overanalyze or question why it happened.
4. Anticipating bad news – If you check for negative news before doing anything else, you set yourself up to focus on negative events for the day. You want to start every day on a positive note. You will waste even more time when you invite intrusive thoughts into your mind.
5. Lying in bed – Stop waiting to fall back asleep or thinking about the day. Go ahead and get up. You can use your time more wisely by taking care of a short, simple task. Many people have difficulty falling asleep. Sometimes, doing a short task is enough to relax you.
6. Getting ready for the day – If you’re perplexed about what to wear every morning, you’re wasting your time. You can eliminate this problem by laying out the clothes you will wear on the night before. Consider making this a nightly routine before you go to bed.
7. Procrastination – This is the opposite of time management skills. To prevent yourself from procrastinating, figure out what you tend to put off doing the most and why you keep delaying the task. Figure out what you find a rewarding about putting the task off.
8. Food – Stop wasting your time if you are still thinking about breakfast in bed. Instead, get up and eat right away to stop delaying. Planning your meals will help you avoid any time-wasting problems around food in the morning.
9. Watching too much TV – Stop wasting your time watching too much TV. It’s easy to get involved in a storyline but you need to limit how many shows you watch. If you are home, work on personal projects or opt to read during this time, instead of sitting in front of the television.
10. Multitasking – People cannot multitask effectively. If you’re trying to do multiple things each morning, you’re probably not focusing sufficiently on what you’re doing. Instead, look at your schedule and stick to your plans by focusing on one thing at a time.

Avoiding morning time wasters is essential to your overall daily productivity. You’ll be more productive if you are more self-aware and stop wasting time during your morning routines at home and at work.

TWO = Tiny Decluttering Steps You Can Take Today

THREE = How Small Steps Lead to Big Results

If you aren’t familiar with SMART goals, SMART is an acronym for the elements you will use in each of your goals to help you get the results you want to achieve. Below, you can see what goes into writing and creating a SMART goal.

Once you set the goals, add the action steps into your calendar and schedule. Ultimately, you want to make it easier to develop daily habits that lead you to achieve your goal. Use consistency every day to make it easier for you, don’t expect BIG results immediately. Keep in mind that slow and steady wins this race.

To be more consistent so that your small steps lead to big results in your life, use SMART goals and be sure to schedule consistency for yourself. Write your action plan into your schedule realistically.

If you write down an action, make sure you study the action to ensure the impact and that you have the time and resources to do it. Then take the steps daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on the action and your schedule. Finally, measure the results to keep doing what works and less of what isn’t working.

FOUR = The 2-Minute Rule for your Time Management Skills

Talk about time management skills! Something that only takes two minutes? This is the 2-minute rule you need to finally end your procrastination or other bad habits and achieve more out of life. Procrastination and other lousy time management habits lead to many missed opportunities and chances for personal growth to build up your business. It encourages laziness and lacks accountability, in turn stalling your momentum, focus, and consistency needed for success.

What Exactly Is The 2-Minute Rule?
It’s a stress-free approach to starting new habits and kicking bad ones. It’s a rule designed to help you achieve more goals without feeling overwhelmed and keeps you from delaying action any longer than you should.

The two main concepts for the rule include:

• If it only takes two minutes, then get it out of the way right now.
• Establishing new habits or routines should only take two minutes to begin with.

As with most methods, if they are misused, they provide the opposite results than you intend.

Here’s how to use the 2-minute rule effectively to kick your bad habits and achieve max productivity:

Keep It Relevant and Realistic

Only use the rule if it is relevant to whatever you are doing at that time. In other words, don’t just do whatever task comes to mind if it doesn’t relate to what you are actively doing.

For example, if you are trying to finish your next content package for your client, it’s not a good idea to go ahead and get that email notification about your next business meeting out of the way. It is unrelated and will ultimately get you off track and prevent you from finishing your course. Instead, think, “what can I do in two minutes to finish this course?”

Don’t Make It Hard

You don’t need to gain success or be the best overnight. Don’t make adopting new habits challenging and overwhelming by speeding up the process. Small gradual changes make it easier to accomplish and stick around long term. For example, science proves that those who lose weight over a more extended period of time maintain the weight longer than those who lose it very quickly.

Meaning you shouldn’t focus on what you can’t do; rather, what you can do instead. For just two minutes, what can you do towards changing one bad habit? Then the next day, add two more minutes and keep repeating the process.

It’s All About Perspective

The main goal of the 2-minute rule is to change your perspective on how you see a challenge or annoying tasks. You can trick your brain into believing a task is simple and easy, even though it can be hard. Anyone can deal with something for just two minutes, and sometimes the most challenging part is just starting.

Give this 2-minute rule a try the next time you feel that you need to push off your work to Monday. You won’t regret giving it a try.

FIVE = BONUS Tips for Time Management Skills

This is another article meant to help those whose productivity guilt stems from a lack of effective time management, but these tips will help anyone who cares to implement them. Try these out for yourself to see how they improve your life (and your productivity and productivity guilt).

Make A Time Log

Keep track of what you do at work in a journal or log for two weeks. Break it down into quarter or half-hour increments. This is a pain to do but it will show you exactly where you are spending (and not spending) your time and where you need to make some changes.

Create And Keep A Daily Schedule

Kids are not the only ones who benefit from having a routine and sticking to it as much as possible. Adults benefit from it at least as much. Routines are also vital for anyone who is neurodivergent.

Stop Trying To Multitask

Just stop. Humans are not meant to multitask. We are terrible at it. This has been proven over and over again, yet people keep trying to do it. Stop it for good. Focus on one task at a time and you will improve your life and your work output tremendously.

Batch Tasks Together

When you create a schedule and prioritize your to-do list, put tasks that are similar together. Print all of your reports at once. Do all the bookkeeping for your clients on the same day. This reduces task switching, which causes fatigue and interrupts your focus, and helps you get things done faster.

Use Time Management Skills and Tools

There is no shame in needing help and there are enough tools on the market today that anyone can find the right tool to act as their own personal assistant. Many of them are even free. A few examples include Alexa, Asana, Trello, Google Suite, and Hubstaff, but there are dozens more. Try out a few different ones until you find the best one for you and your needs. And sometimes proactive time management skills can be a huge help.

Create Time Limits For Every Task

Do not let the open-ended tasks on your to-do list eat your time! They will if you give them a chance. That is the nature of such tasks. You have more than one thing to do every day. So set a hard time limit for each such task. When the time is up, put it aside and go on to the next thing. Set alarms or times if you need them to remind you.