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A universal reality for business professionals is the need to balance personal and professional life, striving for that ever-elusive work-life balance. This applies regardless of industry or position.
A key element of that stress and pressure is the ability, or lack thereof, to manage time effectively. Many will admit that they feel like there is never enough time in life. The days and weeks are inadequate when faced with the growing list of tasks and responsibilities we navigate on a daily basis.
Achieving these goals on time and in good shape requires tracking immediate tasks, tracking long-term projects and, most importantly, maximizing the finite business hours we work within.
Discovering how we are best equipped to manage our time effectively is something we can all strive for, a process that is ultimately unique to each of us. To see the emergence of a structured, strategic approach to achieving our professional and personal goals is to see time management in action.
Related: 15 Time Management Tips to Reach Your Goals
The relationship between time management and mental health
It is helpful to recognize the connection between time management and mental health. The two are intertwined, affecting our ability to achieve a positive work-life balance and our ability as professionals to lead effectively.
As Deanna Ritchie, editor-in-chief at Calendar, wrote“Time management and anxiety are cyclical, where poor time management can cause anxiety and high anxiety can lead to unmet deadlines.”
Those who struggle with time management may experience a heightened experience health issuesincluding stress and anxiety, psychological problems such as anxiety and depression, and insufficient or disrupted sleep.
Conversely, as an individual’s mental health progresses, there is a natural correlation to improving quality of life.
Related: 5 reasons why you should learn time management for your business
Finding the ways that work for you to improve your time management skills
To succeed, we all need to manage our time effectively – this is an idiom we can all agree on. But how do you specifically define time management?
In reality, time management will be different for everyone. Every job, every position, regardless of industry, requires achieving certain goals. How best to achieve that depends on the uniqueness of the individual. While the details may vary, there are proven strategies that can help us manage our time effectively to benefit our mental health.
- Benefits of breaks
- Stories of tomorrow
- Plan of approach
- Mind and body
- Death by distraction
Benefits of breaks
It may seem like an insignificant action to prioritize, but the benefits of frequent, short breaks to refresh and refocus our brains and vision cannot be underestimated.
You can choose to use the Pomodoro Technique, which requires a 25/5 routine: work concentrated for 25 minutes and take a five-minute break. Or you may find the research-backed 52/17 technique that was popular in 2014 best for you: For every 52 minutes of work, take 17 minutes off.
It’s about discovering the pattern that best suits your mind and integrating it into your work life.
Related: 3 proven strategies for taking breaks that will help you become more productive
Stories of tomorrow, tasks for today
Whether it’s easier for you to map out each morning what needs to be done for the day ahead, or whether your brain prefers to write down the details of what the next day has in store, the most important thing is to have a game plan to get you started. guide you throughout your day. to dawn. Consider investing in a to-do list app or notebook to make it easier to create, edit, and add to your list.
Plan of approach
Finding the calendar app that best suits your needs will go a long way in streamlining your work life, bringing structure and clarity while providing ease of use. Researching the options in the market makes the decision easier. In addition to staples like Google, Outlook, and Apple, there are plenty of options, including Calendly, Any.do, Calendar, and Fantastical.
If your daily, weekly, or monthly obligations include extensive meetings and appointments, quality scheduling apps are available to ease an often tedious process.
Mind and body
Any attempt to improve our ability to manage each day will go nowhere if our physical health is lacking. The mind can only accomplish as much as the body allows, so it’s critical to value our sleep, monitor our nutrition, and exercise regularly.
- Adopting healthy sleep habits takes intention, but experiencing consistent, quality rest can be transformative. According to the Department of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, a regular sleep rhythm (Sunday through Saturday) maintains the body’s internal clock, making it easier to fall asleep and wake up.
- The health benefits of exercise are well known, but new research has highlighted its benefits value of short five to ten minute workouts. If you’re struggling to fit exercise into your days, consider finding simple, hassle-free options to try.
- Healthy eating doesn’t have to be complicated at all! A little research can yield many simple, straight-forward tips, from portion control, flavor hacks, and eating the rainbow to weekly meal prep and the power of the slow cooker.
Death by distraction
Three words: turn off notifications. From social media updates to news alerts, text messages, and app notifications, our phones are a constant distraction — and they’re just one part of a larger constellation of daily distractions, each of which presents unique challenges. Whether you choose Apple’s focus mode or the Android version, there are several tools available that can help you reduce distraction-related death.
Related: How are time management and mental health related?
Work-life balance benefits from time management skills and focus on mental health
Our ability to achieve what needs to be done in our professional lives depends a lot on the effort and energy we invest in mastering the art of time management. Likewise, take steps to review and improve one’s mental health goes a long way toward creating and maintaining a positive work-life balance.
