Has your to-do list gotten out of control? Maybe you are asking, how can I improve my time management skills? So this is the right podcast for you. I've put together a step-by-step process to help you figure out how to manage time wisely, along with five key strategies to help you on track. As you rise up the ladder of success, it feels like your time shrinks. And the more success you get, the less time you have. The information that I'm going to share with you today will equip you to better manage your time so that you can be more effective and achieve your goals faster. So please bring in your pen and paper and note down all the points. Till then, I shall wait for you. Hello all, I'm Kapal Gupta, founder of Study Abroad Academy. I am on a mission to coach and mentor 100,000 high school students and help them realize the dream of studying in the best universities of the world and build happy careers for themselves. Now let's begin with the benefits of time management. Time management is often referred to as productivity. Now you may be asking, how can I make myself be more productive? It helps you to have a solid motivation to understand why it's worth the efforts to pursue time management practices. Why take the time to get good at time management? Good time management is essential to success and it's not limited to success in the workplace. Now, success as a friend, parent, spouse, fitness, or anything requires good time management skills. Achieving success in any endeavor requires giving it the proper amount of time at the right time. So time is one of the most valuable commodities that you have, and taking the time to learn how to manage your time is a very good use of your time. Time management is a particular challenge for young adults just launching out on their own. Now, according to a survey, about half of the college kids felt like that they were underperforming due to poor organizational skills, and 88% of the college students said they want to improve their ability to manage their time. As Peter F. Draka, one of the most widely known and influential thinkers on management, said, until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else. For most young adults, their schedules and priorities have been managed for them. Independence means unprecedented freedom and responsibility. Not knowing how to manage their time leads to missed deadlines, increased stress, and poorer performance at school or in the workplace. Now, this is a particular struggle for you today. And time is money, they say. But maybe time is more valuable than money. As founder and CEO of Life Hack, Leon Ho put it, if you lose money, you might get a chance to make it back. But a wasted hour is irreplaceable. Being busy doesn't mean you are being productive. You can be very busy without living out your priorities or moving closer to your goals. It's a frustrating and disappointing place to be and not a good use of your time. You must learn what your most important tasks are and how to prioritize them. Now, as you probably know, we are living in an age of unprecedented speed and volume of information. Now, this has led many of us to feel like we are dealing with an information overload. But according to David Allen, creator of the GTD, that is getting things done method, when we get stuck, it's not due to an issue of information overload, but a decision making overload. So it's the unplanned, in-the-moment decision making that most often kills productivity. Now let me introduce you to five steps to manage time better. Sometimes it's really hard to know where to begin and when getting anything organized. Now, time is no different, maybe even more challenging to organize being intangible. So these five steps can help you figure out where to begin and keep going forward as you learn how to manage time wisely. So step one, that is define your goals. Now, if you aren't clear about your goals, values, and priorities, it's hard to make a plan and hard to make a good decision on the fly. So get specific, write them down, maybe get a planner. Now, when your friends invite you out to a party the night before a big test and you haven't established that you want to get an A in chemistry, then you probably aren't going to prioritize staying home and studying. So step two, download a complete list of your activities. Now making a list of everything you need to do and add anything else you usually do. Now, while this may sound burdensome, it's more important that it appears because it lightens your mental load, it reveals non-productive activity, then it also helps you get a picture of your current workload and finally it clarifies which tasks you may need to work into your schedule. So it's important to write down your to-do list because your brain can't operate at its best when you try to keep track of all your to-dos in your head. So rather than solving problems, it's actually acting as a repeating your to-do list. So let me give you another example, and maybe the younger generation will be able to relate more to it. Let's say your brain is a smartphone and you have been taking pictures and your phone storage is full. Now it's operating slow and refusing to take more photos. And what do you do then? You get those photos off your phone so that your phone can continue operating as a phone and not a photo warehouse. An efficient mind works the same. At some point, you can become overloaded with things to do. In order to clear some working space, you need to upload so that your brain has space to think and create and not just store repeated meaningless information. Right? So coming to step three. That is prioritize your activities with the time management matrix. Now the Eisenhower matrix is one of the most popular time management tools, especially for setting priorities. And yes, it's named after 34th US President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Now advice from the two-term president, five-star general, and the first Supreme Commander of NATO is worth listening to. Oh, and did you know this guy squeezed in over 800 rounds of golf during his presidency? So, in short, this tool works by having you sort your task list into four categories. The first category is do first. That is where you put your most urgent and important tasks. Then second, schedule. Now these tasks are important enough to get you on your calendar, but not urgent and can be done later. Then three, assign. These are tasks that are urgent, but not important enough to take from your limited time. These can be delegated or automated. Four, diminish. Neither urgent nor important these tasks to remove and reduce or do only for fun in your after hours. Now coming to step four, that is plan your schedule. So you now should have all the information that you need to make a solid plan. Set up a blank calendar. It can be a spreadsheet, paper, or any application. So as a first step, schedule your time inflexible, that is high priorities activities first. Secondly, schedule your deep or hard work around your highest energy levels. Then fill in your schedule with your like lower priority activities, and finally, remove the lowest priority items altogether or set them aside as schedule treats. Now coming to step five. That is develop strategies to keep you on plan. Remember, it's the unplanned, in-the-moment decision making that offens clear productivity. So the purpose of the plan is to have the decisions made so that you can confidently focus your energy on actions that are worth your time at the right time. Now, this doesn't mean your schedule won't require some tweaking and flexibility, especially as you get started. But as a default, stick to the schedule. So these were the five steps to manage your time. But how to keep yourself on track? I shall also give you five time management strategies today that will keep you motivated to stick to your plan. So, number one, set artificial deadlines to create space and structure. Like, do you need to be there at 3 p.m.? Okay, then aim for 2 45 p.m. Or do you need to get through your emails? Set a deadline to empty your inbox, let's say by Friday noon. And let's say blog post taking too long to write. Okay, set a timer to finish the first draft. Then, second, give yourself scheduled reads. Now, scheduled reads are low value but fun or relaxing indulgences. This might be something like scrolling through social media, listening to music, meditating, reading. Or did you get there early? Spend your waiting time catching up on Instagram. Or did you empty your email box early? So spend your extra time reading a favorite book. Then third, pick your top three activities for each day. And this is very, very important. Because you can either choose the night before or the morning off. Maybe you make the list the night before and re-evaluate in the morning. Whatever the case, start your day by being clear on your priorities. In addition, I find it helpful to have a list of the most important tasks written out one to three months in advance. I pick one thing each day as most important task. Now that one thing that is the priority over all else for that day. So the bird's eye view helps me see and plot out movement forward towards my goals more effectively. Then four, do similar little tasks together. Batch task the little things like two to five minute tasks. For example, do all your tasks that require driving together or tag them onto your routine for two minutes or less, like wipe your bathroom sink when you finish getting ready in the morning, or take out the trash as you head out the door. Then finally, the fifth one that is multitask judiciously. Now, honestly, most experts recommend ditching multitasking altogether. They say multitasking often feels more productive. Some studies indicate it does more damage than good. So, according to an article in Forbes, it kills your performance and even damages your brain. Others, myself included, find that combining low-important tasks works well. Maybe you already know some of this and just haven't taken the steps to get more productive. You may wonder why is it so hard for me to be productive? Perhaps you don't feel like you have time to manage your time. You think working faster in your current pattern will pay off. Remember, being busy doesn't mean you are being productive. In fact, busyness can be a barrier to true productivity. So always remember, making time for time management is like using a wish to ask for more wishes and it pays off in space. I hope you find this podcast useful. If yes, please subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, and Google Podcasts to get notified. All my podcasts are around 10 to 15 minutes, so they are short and crisp. Please share a 5 star review. And if you're part of my community, please share your learnings below. If you wish to reach out to me, I'm Kapil Gupta, your study abroad expert, and join my career advisor hub on Facebook and Instagram channel BrainX Edutec and get a lot more useful information. Until the next episode, cheers, God bless, keep inspiring. Bye.