If you’re a young professional just making the transition from college student to entry-level worker, you may be finding it difficult to manage your time. In your college days, you were free to wake up in the late morning and study until whatever hours of the night to complete your work.
But in a professional setting, you’re expected to complete all your work between a certain set of hours. You have deadlines to meet and must work around meetings and other individuals to get your tasks and assignments done. You aren’t free to take a nap break or spend hours at lunch with your friends. You need to learn excellent time management skills if you want to succeed.
Here are three time management hacks you can use to better meet your deadlines, finish your work, and succeed as a young professional.
1. The 45-15 Minute Rule
This rule has been frequently used by professionals and students to stay focused and get work done. For each hour that you are working, spend 45 minutes completely focused on the project or assignment you are trying to complete. At the end of the 45 minutes, spend the last 15 minutes of the hour doing something unrelated to the project or task.
You could choose to do something completely freeing, such as browsing the web, or another task you need to complete, like responding to emails. This strategy ensures you spend the majority of the day working on your tasks and completing your assignments while still ensuring you are taking necessary breaks and not putting short-term assignments too far on the back burner.
2. BPM Software
Business process management software, shortened to BPM, teaches users discipline when it comes to managing time and tasks. With BPM, you would consistently look at the process of completing a task and a project and work to continuously improve.
Doing BPM could help you develop time management skills as a young professional because it will allow you to keep revisiting the task of refining your strategies and processes. As you fine tune one aspect, you can work harder to make it even better the next time. This allows you to continuously improve on your skills and reach better levels of time management success.
3. Plan and Track Your Time
Simply planning and tracking your time can be a relatively easy way to manage your time. Using an online or digital calendar, map out projections of what you would like your day or week to look like. Schedule all calls or team meetings you already know you have and then fill in time to work on certain tasks. Be sure to schedule in your lunch break and short periods of time to check your email and return messages. Also be sure to leave some gap time for unexpected events or assignments.
Use alarms to alert you when your time is up for a certain project. If you give yourself an hour to work on one project, only work on it for an hour. Even if you aren’t finished with the task, move on to the next task. This will give you a better indication of how realistic you were when creating your calendar and allow you to modify your scheduling for the next week or day. Eventually, you will know exactly how long it takes you to complete each project and you’ll be left with a refined calendar you can follow strictly.
These three strategies can help any young professionals needing to manage their time in an office. Just entering the workforce can be scary and overwhelming, but when you can master your time, you can become an expert in your projects and excel at your job. With great time management skills, you'll master your entry-level position and find a promotion more quickly.
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