The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People<\/a>: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen Covey.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCovey found that the most effective method is to divide activities and sort them by both importance and urgency. Then he places them into one of four quadrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first quadrant is the easiest one to determine. The most pressing tasks take precedence here. Important deadlines, crises you need to deal with, and important meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second quadrant is all the things that involve planning and setting long-term goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thirdly, you have things that are less important, but are no less urgent. Things like returning calls and replying to emails. Events and regular meetings should be placed here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last quadrant is the list of unimportant and non-urgent items. Here is the good news! This quadrant is reserved for you<\/em>. It\u2019s the non-work things, like scrolling through social media, binging TV shows, et cetera.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe purpose of sorting your tasks into quadrants doesn\u2019t just bring you peace of mind. It also helps you become the most productive version of yourself. When people try this method, they\u2019re often surprised about how many of their daily tasks actually fall into the third and fourth quadrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Save Time With Time Frames<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\nAll right, now what to do with the tasks that require the most effort? And what to do with the ones that require less effort, but will be more time consuming?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In order to stay in control of your schedule and complete things on time, setting a time frame for every task is essential and life saving. Take a look at your to-do list and determine the time needed for each task. You know answering emails won\u2019t take the same amount of time as writing a report, for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This way, a task won\u2019t take up a large chunk of your day before you realize what\u2019s happening. If you\u2019re working on something and it\u2019s taking longer than expected, if it\u2019s not that important of a task, feel free to put it aside and focus on the next task, in order to be as efficient as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eat the Frog<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n\u201cEat the frog\u201d is a quote by Mark Twain that fits perfectly for those who are trying to stay on top of their tasks. The whole sentence is \u201cEat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Author Brian Tracy went on to apply this quote to task management. He suggests that each day, everyone has that one <\/em>dreaded or super important task. However, with an entire day stretching ahead, most people tend to put off that task until they settle in, until they check their email, until they– the list goes on. The task ends up being pushed back until it makes your stomach turn just thinking about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSo do as Mark Twain and Brian Tracy suggest and tackle your own business \u201cfrog\u201d first thing– the task you\u2019re most likely to procrastinate about. Whether it\u2019s a deadline, a presentation, research; do it first, before anything else, and just get it over with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the troublesome task out of the way, the rest of the day will suddenly seem far less daunting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Apply the Inbox Zero Method<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\nThe Inbox Zero method is a brutal and efficient approach to email management that keeps your inbox empty. If you receive dozens of emails a day, you know how time-consuming and energy-draining it can be to reply– not to mention how email notifications tend to interrupt focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The obvious approach is to not reply to each email as soon as it comes in. But the Inbox Zero method goes beyond that. Productivity expert Merlin Mann developed it. Mann says that the \u201czero\u201d doesn\u2019t actually refer to the number of messages you have in an inbox. Instead, it refers to the \u201camount of time an employee\u2019s brain\u201d is in their inbox.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mann has five actions you can take to deal with each email. They are: delete, delegate, respond, defer, and do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To put his philosophy in a nutshell: periodically check your emails and organize them into folders. Messages that will take less than two minutes are ones you can respond to immediately. Any other emails– and any messages that can be answered later on– those can go into a \u201crequires response\u201d folder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each day, pencil in a period of time where you\u2019ll address the \u201crequires response\u201d folder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019ll be surprised how organized your lifefeels when your inbox isn\u2019t a stress-inducing, overflowing mess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n