‘tips n tricks’ – for efficient time management.

Efficient time management will play a major role in your success as a remote worker. With neither physical boundaries to your workspace, nor any manager feedback, you are on your own to structure and manage your time. But you are not quite alone — here are some tips for you to ace this aspect of remote work.

track, track and track your time.

When you understand how you need to use your time, it’s half the battle won. That is why time tracking becomes so critical — it helps you accurately estimate the time taken to complete different tasks, understand the pockets of inefficiencies and distractions (and so successfully avoid them). Beside continually improving your time management processes, it also lets you develop healthy work patterns and protect yourself from burnout.

Use some great digital work timers that capture this data — so that you need not spend extra time and effort to track your time.

use the ‘time blocking’ method for priority tasks.

This is very effective in ensuring that nothing interferes in completing your must-do tasks. Set specific time packets for different activities in your workday, based on the complexity of the tasks. This way, you allocate the right proportion of time for the effort needed. It also helps to prevent smaller tasks from ballooning into unmanageable ones,

and efficiently separate high-value efforts for the low-value ones. In short, time blocking is a great way to start with your complex and high-priority tasks when your productive flow is at the highest.

don’t miss out on any meeting or event.

As a remote worker, there is a higher possibility of forgetting or missing out on an important call or meeting because you were deeply immersed in your workflow. While remote work gives you the space to focus deeper on productive work, you cannot afford to miss out on team events and commitments.

Here’s how you can avoid this pitfall — before logging out of work each day, check your next day’s schedule and block out the time. If you find an unproductive pattern of smaller tasks consistently interrupting your priority work, use a smart scheduler to reschedule them so that you have more time for critical work.

make your workspace work for you.

When the work gets tedious, do you have the urge to move away to respond to emails that don’t need immediate responses? Or to take a quick look at your social media messages? You are not the first to feel so. You can be intelligent in protecting your focus and time leakage in tackling such distractions. Block all notifications as a first step (the first glance at the notified message is the most dangerous!). And maybe check out on some interesting anti-distraction apps to keep them as the next layer of defense — such as ‘Freedom’, ‘RescueTime’, ‘Forest’,

etc.

breaks need not break your schedule.

Studies show that remote workers take fewer breaks, a definite road to burnout. The trick is not to think of time management as a way to cram the maximum possible work in a given period of time — but to do as much as we can, as effectively we can. Work breaks are the perfect way to achieve this. Start with scheduling short and regular breaks to break the monotony of work. By being more aware of how you manage these breaks, you can, over time, juggle the micro-breaks with the longer ones to boost your performance. And remember, don’t feel guilty about taking breaks, you are entitled to them.

All the best in your journey to efficient time management!