Ring in 2020 with these time management tips

Anyone who's attended college knows about procrastination, whether you were the procrastinator or the dorm mate of a procrastinator. Being an expert at time management can seem daunting in a 24/7, tech- and media-saturated environment filled with potential distractions. Your life might be cluttered and feel like it’s moving at the speed of light. Worst of all, the number of tasks we should and want to do just seems to grow.

You likely have the time. You might just need the management part.

There’s no ideal time management system except for the one you create for yourself. Getting wrapped up in having the best "time management strategies" is pointless. Reading so many articles or books on time management is also a fantastic way to waste your time.

I’ll start out with a quick important tip: If a task takes less than 5 minutes to complete, do it now.

I'd also like to share four principles, and accompanying tips involving each one, that I hope you can utilize to get a better hold of time management. These principles include: (1) Out of your mind (2) Into next steps (3) Onto the calendar and (4) Into the right file(s).

1. Out of your mind

No, I don’t mean feeling literally “out of your mind”! Rather, when something comes into your mind that you want or need to do, write it down immediately and throw it in a to-do box to come back to later. A to-do box takes several forms, including paper and digital places to store your to-do items. For example, I have a physical box, my Gmail account, my Evernote (a notebook app), a tote bag, and Google Drive as to-do boxes. You can schedule a time to go through your boxes daily or whenever is most convenient.

2. Into next steps

If a task or project is going to be time- and labor-intensive, the best way to tackle it is to break it down into the ‘next steps’. A ‘next step’ is what it sounds like: the next step toward completion of a project. The next step might vary in time or attention to detail. You can have one, two, or forty next steps before a project is completed. What matters is you clearly define the next step and schedule it on your calendar.

3. On the calendar

When you're going through your to-do boxes, estimate how long the next step is and when it will be done. If the next step takes 15 minutes or more, schedule the event on your calendar. Figuring out how much time a task will take can be tricky, but what’s most important is that it’s scheduled on a calendar. I like using Google Calendar, which can alert me on my phone and laptop five minutes in advance of a task I’ve scheduled. If tasks take longer or shorter than you estimate, just revise accordingly. Continue working through the next steps and scheduling them until your project is completed.

4. In the right file(s)

It’s helpful to have a system of organization in which you can store all information related to the tasks and projects you've already finished. For example, once you’re done answering an email or working on a document you have to refer to later, organize your Gmail account into separate folders and mark the emails so that they're placed in special folders and easily retrievable. If it's a digital document, store it in a folder on your computer within one of two broad categories: "personal" and "work". For me, I organize sub-folders within those two categories on my laptop and make sure to back up OneDrive (a cloud-based file hosting software for Windows) regularly. For a paper system, I use a filing cabinet with alphabetical file folders. Once a bill is paid or piece of correspondence is answered but I need to return to it later, I stick it in the appropriate file folder.

Ultimately, you’ll probably have to experiment with a system before something works for you. I hope the above tips can assist you with having a time-saving and well-managed 2020.