How to plan work effectively

Time management, time scheduling, task management – we can name it in many ways. Probably everyone has struggled and dealt with it in some capacity in either their professional or personal life. Effective planning of work and time is an issue many of us have trouble with. All of us experience the same amount of hours in a day. The difference between those of us who are using our time efficiently and those of us who are not is how each of us prioritizes and manages it. For many of us, on Sunday evening, we plan out our entire workweek, only to find that on Friday afternoon we have an incredible amount of unfulfilled tasks. It’s time to start planning effectively. And we will advise you how.

The beginning of effective planning is the ability to give priority to tasks and schedule the tasks for the entire week ahead. Select 4 to 6 tasks that you must handle, whether it is a finishing of seminar work at your MBA or checking work e-mails, and give them the highest priority. Begin to think and focus on what matters the most. Plan your time in a way to be able to concentrate on the most important tasks at the beginning of the week, and by the end of the week, you will open up other things to take care of or have free time.

Start your day with the most important task. It’s important to live by the saying ‘first work, then play.’ Once you have the most difficult tasks of the day finished, you’ll enjoy the rest of the day a lot more. Thus, do not worry about the irrelevant mini-tasks, which distract your attention.

Procrastination:

Procrastination is an unpleasant quality. It is a strong tendency to postpone the duties and tasks (especially the difficult ones) to a later time. It can result in stress, guilt, loss of productivity and it even presents a risk to your mental health.

So forget about procrastination. Once you learn how to do things in order while studying, you will also use it at work. For example, an MBA program is time-consuming for writing seminar papers and passing e-learning exams. Therefore it is important to plan when and in what time frame you will write the seminar paper or take the test, and to keep to it as well.

Tips for efficient work planning:

• Plan only 4-5 hours of real work per day. There is always something to fill in the remaining time (additional work, entertainment, sleep, etc.).
• Work more when you feel well rested. Give yourself a chance to rest when needed.
• So-called multitasking (working on multiple tasks simultaneously) will not help you to finish tasks quickly, rather the opposite.
• If the task is possible to be divided into ‘thinking’ and ‘implementing’ parts, divide it up and work on each part separately and comprehensively.
• Time similar types of work together – e.g. telephone calls, e-mail handling, etc.

Set deadlines for all tasks. You can then concentrate better and are more productive.