5 Top Tips for Improving Time Management

Posted on March 3, 2019 in Oxford

Top tips from Nadiya Patel – MSc biomed grad, aspiring publisher, and culinary enthusiast

Time management is a key skill to acquire and is relevant to most professional areas, ranging from employment to university, and particularly in the busy world of publishing. It is an important aspect of maintaining a work-life balance, but most people don’t work in the same way – so I’ve put together a few top tips to get you started.

1. Prioritise
Try to get started by noting down all your events and deadlines, this way you can plan around what’s most important. Break down any work required for those deadlines into manageable chunks of productivity to prevent yourself from overdoing it or leaving anything too last minute. Don’t forget to make time for stress free, extracurricular activities. This may include a gym workout, yoga, cooking a delicious meal, meeting up with friends or even catching up on some good old chores. A sure-fire way to keep these priorities organised is to get yourself a diary and work through it. I’m a sucker for a cute diary but that’s just my personal preference, the key point here is plan, plan, plan! Leave no room for falling behind on deadlines and events.

2. Know your goals
Outline some short and long-term goals to understand what it is you are working towards. It makes it easier to put in hard work when you have a rough idea of how you want the outcome to be; whether that be financial goals, meeting targets or smashing grades. Once you know what you want, nothing should get in the way of you reaching that and if it does then just know that it’s all part of the process. Good things take time.

3. Find your strategy
No two people are the same (nope, not even twins!). We all use different methods and concepts to help us work. Look at the range of ways you could prepare for your event or deadline and identify the strategy that works best for you. A good method to get you started is searching up the different learning styles and understanding which one suits you. Once this is out of the way, discover more strategies that help you because as they say it is always better to work smarter than to work harder.

4. No means no… sometimes
To remain focused on your work ultimately means to cut out all potential distractions, right? I’d assume so, but sometimes opportunities do come out from the most unheard-of places. Switching your phone and tv off whilst your busy submerging yourself in work normally helps to get things done accurately and in a timely fashion. But that friend who might have called you during this period of peak productivity could have joined you in doing work over some coffee. Work + coffee is better than work + work? You choose. It’s all about balance. Know your limits.

5. Take care of yourself
I feel like when we have deadlines to meet and a neverendingly busy schedule, we forget to make time for ourselves. Mental health is important and should always come first. Don’t forget that you are the most important person in your life and nothing should come in the way of your mental wellbeing. Take some time out regularly to fit in activities that enable mindfulness and some good old headspace. This could be simple things such as taking a walk or going to meet family. Mindfulness activities have really risen in recent years and activities like adult colouring and meditation are more popular than most people think. My favourite combo is a face mask with some lo-fi music. Try it!