The fundamentals of time management for IT specialists

If you are late for work almost every day, work overtime, feel persistent fatigue, and you know what it is like to miss planned meetings and forget important calls, it is worth working on time management. 

Time management is an increasingly vital skill today, but its concept is not yet fully understood by many people. Therefore, learning how to be productive and minimize the waste of resources, energy and time is essential.

A good understanding of which tasks, activities and actions take your time is required to rearrange this process more effectively. The following experiment can help you here – choose one day and write down all your activities in detail from the beginning of the day till the evening. It will surely not be easy, and this day will be different from your daily routine, but consequently, you will be able to find out what consumes your time the most.

As practice shows, the main «time consumers» can be:

• unclear goals (when it is not specified what needs to be done);
• the tasks are not prioritized;
• the fear/inability to say «No» in the situations that require it;
• the large number of tasks that require high concentration; 
• absence of personal motivation;
• distractions in the workplace; 
• non-work-related calls;
• contacts with colleagues during the task;
• not enough delegation of tasks to subordinates;
• unorganized storing of information;
• sudden meetings.

The ability to manage your time is the main instrument in the fight to increase personal efficiency, achieve goals and implement plans, and here helps time management.  

The main methods of time managers include:

1. Planning

Learn how to write down all your thoughts and plans in as much detail as possible so that, after opening the records, you can quickly start working on the described task. In the modern world, almost everyone has a smartphone/laptop and other devices. They are with us for the biggest part of the day, so we need to install the corresponding applications placed in the Play Market and App Store (for mobile devices). These wonderful tools promptly change records, plan long-term events, and set reminders. As Inshakov said: «People physiologically tend to take up urgent insignificant matters, not paying enough attention to the less urgent but more important.» When doing urgent but not important tasks, people often postpone the important and challenging ones that can wait a while. As a result, there comes a moment when the task becomes critical, and its resolution can be very stressful. 

2. The task distribution by priority

After the day has been already planned, you should view the tasks for their social value. To have time to do planned tasks on the most difficult and busy days, it is necessary to prioritize the tasks. 

Make the to-do list at the beginning of the day/week, adding and deleting the planned items from it. It would be best for the unpleasant or challenging tasks, that we often want to put off, to be done in the first part of the day. That will helps to get rid of the anxious feelings about uncompleted assignments which still need to be done. At the end of the working day, check and process the list. Spending just about 10 minutes in the morning and evening, you can get complete control over plans, goals and duties.

3. Defining goals and setting deadlines

It must be noted that making plans and defining priorities – is the first thing to do, but no less important condition is to follow them. Every action must be aimed at achieving any goal. That is why it is essential to set deadlines when planning tasks.

The deadlines have an essential value for any goal or assignment. However, one of the reasons for stress and anxiety is the lack of set deadlines. The lack of determination when the project should be finished or the task completed, it might pressure the team as in the process of performing the task, not always everything is going as planned. For example, different problems may arise, so there can be a need to go beyond the deadline. The solution is always to have extra time to avoid such cases.

4. Multitasking is not the same as fast and high quality

In fact, if people do several things at once, it only gives the illusion that they have enough time to do everything and do it fast. As a result, efficiency remains at the same level as if these tasks were performed one after the other. But at the same time, an adverse effect appears very quickly – fatigue, and, as a result, the probability of doing any work with errors increases. Without a doubt, it is something you should avoid at any cost. Therefore, it is worth performing tasks one at a time, depending on their priority. The most effective result is achieved by concentrating on one task.

So, what methods can we use to prioritize the tasks? Several methods are worth to be mentioned:

ABCD

A – signifies critical tasks that need to be done right away. Without completing them on time, they can lead to negative consequences. When there are several critical tasks, you can additionally use the numbers: A-1, A-2, and A-3.

B – is assigned to the tasks that need to be completed after the A-priority ones. They are less critical, and the consequences are not that severe in case of not meeting the deadline, but their completion is also important.

С –  actions/tasks that «would be nice to do.» It can be shopping or a walk with friends, etc.

D – tasks that can be delegated. If there is such an opportunity, then it will be good to transfer part of the duties to another person, as long as they are able to do it.

The Ivy Lee method

1. At the end of each day, write down the five most necessary things to do tomorrow (5-6 tasks, no more).
2. Prioritize them in order of importance;
3. Starting work the next day, focus on the first task. And after completing it, you can move on to the next one.
4. Continue to work with the rest of your list in the same way. If there are tasks left on the list at the end of the day, transfer them to the next day's list (the list should still not exceed 5-6 items).
5. Repeat these processes for several days (to make it a habit, that way, it would be easier to perform them every day).

There are many methods and time management approaches today, and everyone can choose a method to their liking. But all of them will help you cope with tasks more effectively and manage your time.

Time management provides a huge number of advantages:

• first to achieve the set goals;
• perform a large number of tasks in a short period of time;
• always have a clear action plan;
• get rid of the feeling of constant fatigue;
• create comfortable work/rest conditions and have control over your life (achieving a goal and success).

This is just part of the positive impact that time management has on a person's life.

To sum up, in the modern world, personal time is the main and most expensive human resource, which has a much higher value than material goods. All because it cannot be returned or changed. And that is why it is so important to learn the great art of time management!