#95 Revealing my 'Time Management' hacks

How I manage my time has always been a secret throughout my blogging journey! Read my journey to get better at my time management and some secrets that help me keeping at it..

Feb 25, 2024

Creating a to-do list, scheduling your calendar a week in advance, assigning priority to your tasks, decreasing multi-tasking, and turning off mobile notifications are some common time management hacks you can find in every related article. These tips work in the short term but soon enough we get tired of implementing them as they don’t consistently deliver results. We fail at managing our time better and we start believing it as a myth and people lie about being a good time manager. Few even go ahead and quote that you can’t fit everything in one calendar and you should start delegating less important work to other folks and so on.

Well, everything said and done, we are often left with such feelings:

Time is running so fast that we are missing our bus to the desired destination.

Time is not in our favor yet, we need to put more effort to get everything under control

24 hours is so less of time to all the stuff that’s on our plate

"One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular." - Tony Robbins

Before we delve into my better time management journey, I want to state one clear learning that emerged out of my experience. There is no set formula to achieve better time management, it changes from person to person, their efficiency, and the environment they are in. Their goals and objectives also impact the manner they plan their time.

Does it mean that there is no hack to succeed in this battle of time?

Indeed there is and knowing the journeys of different people, and understanding their style and learning will help you to develop a strategy that works for you.

So, How did I discover my unique path to fight this battle?

This battle began during my MBA days, back in 2019 when I felt that I was losing track of my time. I can recollect the instances when I wasn’t aware of what day or date it was, only thing in my head was deliverables and their timelines. That was truly a time of living in the present without a bit of stress on what’s gonna come tomorrow. Good or bad, not sure but somehow that list of impending tasks had to be sought through and I got down to find ways to plan it better.

To-do list was the first trial for me and I began listing out my week’s deliverables and goals and planned out my time to complete each of those within an assigned time slot. There is a constant debate on creating one on paper or on Excel (desktop). I leave it up to you to decide basis what works best for you, but my style was carrying a piece of my to-do along with me.
That list just kept on increasing for me and my planning started to fall apart is when I realized that my planning had to be divided further. So, the next thing was to have 3-day plans and deliverables now stuck up on my laptop base as Notes. Every 3 days, I used to review my progress and plan for the next 3 days.
As this strategy was panning out well for me, I began creating a Gantt chart for myself for every term (3 months) to manage the speedy ride and achieve some targets in each term.

Gantt Chart for Self? How did I use it and was that helpful?

Yeah! So it was a day-wise Gantt with time slots mentioned on the left side, all deadlines, rest slots, class slots, and free slots mentioned and highlighted in a specified color. That hack worked for me as tasks and items were a bit more predictable, defined by time and ad-hoc requests were very limited.

I couldn’t think of participating in ~20 case competitions across India and managing campus events with late-night parties without these charts being put together.

Of course, it was, as Gantts provided you with a bird’s eye view of your free slots which you can use further to fill with your activities to balance a better work-life state. They get you in a decent routine with all tasks set up in a relaxed manner, so you would need be caught off guard or missing any of your important deadlines. You can go a step ahead and set reminders if you fear forgetfulness (that might clutter a bit of your calendar, though)
A quick warning for all those folks who might feel like trying this hack- it is addictive and trust me, you will feel handicapped if this file goes missing or you don’t have it handy with you.

But Is that hack still helping me after getting into corporate?

Yes and No both! Like I said different situations, goals, and environments call for new ways to derive results. Unlike MBA, today's tasks are more ad-hoc, dependent on other people, your team, and the criticality of work. While that Gantt might give you visibility for yourself but not for others. This is how my secret has evolved, It has even evolved from my days as a manager to a team lead today:

I roam around with a weekly planner dairy which has a weekly view on one page that helps to put things up easily. Interestingly, when I plan my tasks or activities in that diary, I am always left with the feeling- four pages and a month is gone; I better do something new every week now otherwise time will just fly and surprisingly it does.
For managing a team, I keep a tab on others’ bandwidth and how they are prioritizing the tasks in their week. Some plug their weekly tasks with me or some prefer getting a task list from the top every week, but the idea remains that we know what we gonna achieve at the end of the week and spillovers to be managed. Using JIRA and Sprint functionality has come in handy for this purpose
Scheduling stand-up calls and monthly tracker calls is a new addition to my hack list and an easy way to manage the chaos. Highlighting hurdles and issues within and with external teams, and listing out required escalations and discussions are chalked out in these meetings. These have been helping the leads stay on top of the projects as of now.
Setting up Focus Time for completing the tasks pending on self is another hack to cut out the clutter and chaos. No meetings, no calls, no emails, and sometimes even isolating yourself from the team bay enhances your productivity and helps you think clearly. I set up at least two such slots every week: one for taking a round-up of ongoing tasks and new requests that have come during the week, and another one for closing all my actionables, setting the way forward.

Personal life goals start adding up to your to-do list and they tend to fill up our weekend errands. I keep trying multiple ways to get better at them as well:

Using my commute time to get updates on how my close group is doing
Getting a week-long grocery once and keep them organized for easy mornings during weekdays
Plan my trips/ travels and offline meet-ups to avoid last-minute rush (Few impromptu plans still get managed here and there, if you know your non-negotiable tasks for the week are through)
Keep a time slot dedicated to my writings, social detoxing, and just doing nothing (trust me, that’s another fun thing playing your favorite tunes and thinking nothing beyond)
My hack to multi-tasking is compartmentalizing my time for some specific tasks and abiding by them. Creating these compartments keeps you organized and stress-free and making them a no-cheat task ensures you remain on your toes with your weekly goals. To help you understand better-
- My morning travel time to the office is around 20-30 minutes which is my book-reading slot
- Every Wednesday or Friday is Work from home day- which gives me focus time to wind up my personal and professional tasks
- Every Sunday, the first task post getting ready is writing my weekly blog

"Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year - and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!" -- Tony Robbins

So, What’s coming next in this journey?

It is a never-ending journey and evolving with your circumstances, environment is a sure shot way to win this battle of time. Your goals would change, your thought process would shift, and accomplishing all of them at once would continue to be a draining process. To burst that stress and anxiety, small steps have to be constantly taken to ensure transition and sanity in your head.

Currently, I am relying on weekly stand-ups with my team and weekend to-dos for myself to manage it all, but soon I want to find a way to cut down those stand-ups or reach a place where updates become automatic without my intervention or bandwidth consumption.

A Trail of Thoughts

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