Time management is one of the best meta skills you can cultivate. The benefits spread out to each and every aspect of your life. As a developer, this has been something that has been out of my grasp for a long, long time. With a messed up sleep schedule and the fatigue sitting all day causes, it's hard to accomplish goals set up at the start of the day. I have set out to rectify that, and this blog is about my mental models and experiments created as a result.
2 principles about time management:
One
Time management is actually focus management. 4 hours of unfocused time and 4 hours of focused time vastly differ in terms of output. It could be argued, hence, that you must be able to derive the maximum focus out of your day. And focus takes a LOT of mental energy.
The best way to achieve that is Time Blocking. Time blocking is basically allotting a period of time to ONE SINGLE IMPORTANT thing. Nothing more, nothing less. It can't be monotonous work, it should ideally be high output work that requires a lot of brain power.
Two
Tracking is just as important as planning
Elite performers will often measure, quantify, and track their progress in various ways. Each little measurement provides feedback. It offers a signal of whether they are making progress or need to change course. - James Clear
Think of it this way: it's like you quantify your 24 hours into cash that you spend every minute. That has a few benefits:
- You become mindful of the time you waste in mundane, useless things and you seek to optimize your workflow to eliminate those.
- You get a real world estimate of how much time it takes you to do things.
I would suggest getting a time tracking app, Toggl works perfectly for me.
All in all, so far my experiments with time boil down to 2 methods: Time Tracking and Time Blocking. I will seek to use these tools effectively, and hope you can benefit from them too. Thanks for reading!
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