Here are 6 of my favorite task management tips to help you stop procrastinating in your work and personal life. Think about which one of these ideas could be most helpful to you right now, in your current situation. 1) Manage and Organize Your Tasks on Paper. Prepare thoroughly if you want to get things done. List every step of the job in advance. Create a To-do List. Start your week by making a list of items that you have to finish that particular week. Write them down on a whiteboard, a calendar or in your e-mail task manager. It’s important for the list to always be in your sight so that you can remember it and organize your days accordingly.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
How many times during the day do we multitask? We are so used to multitasking that we most probably do not even count. The problem is that unstructured work on parallel tasks often brings significant productivity loss that effects on all our daily activities and results generally. Some of the negative consequences of multitasking are:
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This creates work chaos and that is why multitasking leads to decreased productivity. If you are running big projects that have multiple tasks and multiple people working on them, it can be very easy to lose track or have no idea where the project is going at any point in time.
Multitasking: the inevitable evil“…you can’t get rid of multitasking. It’s a natural part of work and life…”
If, as it’s said in the quote, we cannot get rid of multitasking, we need to know how do we better handle multiple tasks and which solution to use for this goal. Task is a key component of any workflow. It is a simple activity that is usually executed quickly by a responsible person. However, your projects might need to assign and track multiple tasks and in this case, you need to think about such elements as:
To cope with all of them with minimum mistakes you better use a workflow management system.
Workflow – is a sequence of interdependent tasks usually assigned to people with different roles and skills. A workflow defines the rules specified in the company for distributing tasks to employees. A workflow’s configuration matches tasks into queues, assigns each task’s priority, and configures time-based rules for escalating the task. How we’re solving it
To manage your tasks effectively, I highly recommend you try Comindware Tracker. I found this tool to be extremely effective in managing my tasks as a copyrighter and more importantly remembering all the details of a task on one slip. I will demonstrate it on my own example. Here is my plan for the future blog topics:
Plan in Execution with Comindware Solution
As you can see, I have many blog entries to write. The only disadvantage is that no one but me can see this Excel file and status updates, including my manager, web marketing team and designer, who are involved into the process and need to know about details, as well as plan their time and availability. There are no action items, even though we work in tight collaboration. That is why I switched to Comindware Tracker to execute my plan.
Comindware Tracker is an online workflow and task management solution. It allows to design, run and modify workflows using drag-and-drop interface. Since I’ve started using this system, anybody who needs to see my plan, task execution progress and assignees who are working with me on tasks can do this at any time. It’s nothing like a single-standing Excel plan, because now it is opened for my coworkers and superiors to see. Moreover, it has a powerful functionality that brings significant advantages, including:
Plan in Execution
Comindware helps you manage your daily work tasks and eliminates headache that walks hand in hand with multitasking. You will spend less time on organizing your work, and more time focusing on getting tasks done, because this solution allows for:
Setting goals is essential to a successful self-improvement journey. But where do you start? Here are a few examples of personal development goals to get you moving toward the right track.
1. Organize your work space
Have you ever intended to spend less than 15 minutes on a small task, only to spend the first five looking for something in your office that you can’t complete the task without? Believe it or not, this common problem is completely fixable.
If you are easily distracted by the mess in your office, it might be time to reorganize. Rearrange your furniture so you don’t have to walk across your office to get to a particular shelf or cabinet. Keep your desk free of clutter and make sure you have adequate lighting, too, for better productivity.
2. Communicate more effectively with friends/colleagues/family membersThings 2 8 3 – Elegant Personal Task Management Skills
This isn’t as silly of a goal as it might sound. Pay better attention to how you talk with and respond to others in your life. Do you interrupt and talk over people without meaning to? Are you not as great of a listener as you may have thought? This is something you might do unintentionally, but it’s something you can work on.
It is important to know themost effective ways to communicate with the people around you, and a great goal to work toward both in your personal and professional life. Good communication is the key to a successful work and home environment.
3. Learn how to manage your time better
Time management, or lack thereof, can mean the difference between a productive yet low-stress environment and a day so crammed with last-minute projects that you can’t even let yourself enjoy a single minute of it.
Practice better time management techniques by learning how to prioritize your to-do lists and make better use of calendar and scheduling apps. With better time management skills, you will be able to get a lot more done with much higher quality results.
Things 2 8 3 – Elegant Personal Task Management Tool4. Work on mono-tasking
We still here over and over again that multi-tasking is the best way to get things done, but anyone who claims that theory to be true just isn’t on the right track anymore. Mono-tasking is the new way to be productive, and the best time to start learning how is right now.
Choose one task at a time to work on. Only work on that one task for about an hour before taking a break. You can either go back to that task after your break or move on to a different one. The idea is not to jump between multiple smaller tasks at once, which is not good for our brains.
5. Create methods to stop procrastinating
If procrastination isn’t your worst enemy, you’re lucky. We all struggle with it to some degree in different areas of our lives. When it comes to personal development, learning to manage our procrastination habits should be one of the first things on your list.
You have tostop procrastinating, at least to the point where it’s negatively impacting you or other people. Take that task that you want to do the least and get it done first. Eliminate those pesky distractions and get to work, so you can be stress free sooner.
6. Practice techniques for better stress management
If you aren’t good at managing your own stress, there will never be a ‘good’ time to start learning how. It is one of those goals you simply have to decide to do, and start working on achieving right away.
Figure out which stress relief techniques work best for you. Ten short minutes of meditation? Yoga? Writing in a journal? The key is to find the best way to keep your stress levels under control and stick with it.
7. Start complimenting people more often
Think of how it feels whenever someone gives you a compliment. On the surface, it might feel a little embarrassing when someone calls attention to you. Deep down, though, compliments feel good. They reassure us that we’ve done something right today.
Though you might not like compliments all that much, internally, they can make a world of difference. You aren’t the only one who feels this way, either, which is why a good personal development goal is totry complimenting other people more often. Make someone else feel good: it will make you feel good, too.
![]() Things 2 8 3 – Elegant Personal Task Management System8. Use the word “I” less in conversation
The world doesn’t revolve around you, and even without meaning to, you can give off the impression that you believe it does just by the way you phrase your sentences. It is tempting to use yourself as an example for every piece of commentary you offer up, but it isn’t necessary.
Try using the word “I” less often, especially when dealing with confrontation with other people. “It’s hard to get this done when we aren’t staying on task” sounds a lot less intimidating than, “I can’t get anything done when people aren’t paying attention.” Focus less on you and more on the entire equation you are a part of.
9. Complete a personal project from start to finishThings 2 8 3 – Elegant Personal Task Management Software
As we dive further and further into the workforce, we tend to find there is a lot less time and energy left over from our jobs to put into personal projects we do on our own after work. Things like building our own bookshelves, putting together scrapbooks and other hobbies tend to fall between the cracks.
Make it a goal to focus on one personal project from start to finish. Dedicate a little bit of time each weekday or time over the weekends to work on that project until it’s done. We need these kinds of projects to keep us motivated and take our minds off of work.
No matter your goals, remember to make them specific. It’s okay if they seem a little self-centered: these are personal goals, after all; they’re supposed to focus on you. Living the kind of life you have always wished you could live isn’t as far off of a dream as you might have thought.
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