How to manage everything: 15 golden rules

Greetings, friends!

The modern rhythm of life becomes faster and faster every year, and the question constantly sounds in my head: how to manage everything? And not just keep up, but also find time for relaxation, personal life and travel? It is possible to achieve this, and today we will work on it. However, before we begin, let's clear up one simple question:

Why is it so difficult to keep up with everything?

There are many reasons, and here are the main ones:

Multitasking. A modern person simply needs to manage too much - go to work or study; raise children, visit doctors, go shopping for groceries or clothes, play sports... To combine all this and have time to rest, you need to try hard.
Useless activities. Such activities include: watching TV, series; scrolling through the news feed on your smartphone; spending many hours on social networks. Anyone who wants to start getting things done will have to reduce these activities to a minimum.
Laziness. This feeling is common to 90% of people, and there is nothing wrong with having it sometimes. However, if laziness has begun to greatly complicate your life, it’s time to take serious measures.
Inefficiency. In other words, low labor productivity. It happens that some task can be completed in an hour, and some manage to stretch it out over the whole day. Of course, with such labor productivity it will not be easy to keep up with everything and you also need to work on this.
Low energy level. The cause of low energy can be a sedentary lifestyle, lack of exercise, and poor nutrition.

We've sorted out the reasons, now let's move on to actions.

Our program consists of 3 parts:

Creating healthy habits;
Planning and prioritization;
Increased efficiency;

Each stage contains 5 simple and understandable rules that will teach you how to do everything. If you are ready, then we begin!

How to organize your working day

If you don’t have a tactical plan for every day and a strategic plan for the month, get ready for blockages at work. When endless fatigue and nervousness have become constant partners, try changing your approach to the distribution of working time.

10 main principles of planning

Take 10 minutes to plan daily. Successful people do this every evening, so their day goes by without fuss and psychosis.
Plan based on your actual capabilities. Don't overload your day or week, the point is to distribute tasks evenly and work without stress.
Choose suitable work and rest cycles. For example:
90 min. work and 15 min. break.

Scientists have found that short breaks from work allow the brain to restore its ability to concentrate. By the way, we already wrote an article about why you get tired at work. A prerequisite for a “reboot” is physical activity and a change in activity.

IMPORTANT! Step away from the computer, don’t use social networks on your smartphone, it’s better to walk around the office and stretch your muscles.

There is no point in lumping everything together. Write down urgent, important, similar, long-term, short-term tasks in separate columns. It is more convenient to immediately plan for a week or month.
Plan the most difficult tasks that require a lot of concentration for the first half of the day so that you can complete them while you are fresh and full of energy. Break a large task into parts, maintaining the execution logic. If by the middle of the day you are overwhelmed with new work, include it in your existing plan, taking into account what is more important to do first, what can be postponed until another day.
If possible, free yourself from multitasking. Recent research has shown that multitasking is a highly inefficient way of working that drains your mental and intellectual resources.
Be flexible and adjust your plan throughout the day as needed, otherwise you risk falling off course and not being able to get back on track.
Learn to say no to people. Don't let them steal your time and be distracted by insignificant discussions, complaints and gossip.
Make an optimal plan for the day, but leave small time intervals for adjustments.
BY THE WAY! Following a rigid schedule can lead to stress if you don't listen to your condition.
Small tasks - a phone call, paying a bill - are best completed right away so that you can continue to concentrate on important tasks without interference.

These tips will help if you are not getting anything done at work. Try to plan things so that you finish before the deadline. This will lead you to career growth.

Calculate the length of time to complete tasks.

After compiling a list of activities, indicate approximately how much time you think you will have to devote to it. It is not necessary to try to calculate the exact duration. Once the duration has been set, prepare a to-do list for tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

If it turns out that the problem requires more time to resolve, reschedule it for the next 1-2 days and continue working with those already planned.

Learn to plan for a week, a month in advance

It's time to talk about how to organize your work to get everything done. Planning is at the forefront.

You will have to decide what planning media you will use.

Electronic The good thing is that you can edit, rearrange, cross out and add tasks many times, see the entire week or month on the screen, and use data from any gadget.
ADVICE! Using fills of different colors, you will immediately see urgent tasks, project deadlines, and the busyness of each day of the week. The choice of electronic planners is huge, and there are also free ones.
Paper diaries are good because they are available in any situation - during flights, in the absence of the Internet, laptop, etc.

It is optimal to have both. Synchronize your data whenever possible so you don't miss anything.

Plan points that are too general and too detailed are ineffective: the former do not provide all the information, the latter are confusing. Follow a few rules for long-term planning:

when scheduling a business call with a partner, write down the full name, position, phone number, so that you don’t waste time searching for information later;
immediately enter appointments, conferences, meetings into the planner; at the same time, in a separate column, indicate which documents are necessary or advisable to take with you, write down contact details, addresses and other necessary information;
during the week, distribute tasks so that by Thursday the most important thing is done - as you know, fatigue accumulates, so it is better to leave simple tasks at the end of the week; clearly formulate tasks and subtasks;
think through long-term projects in detail and distribute your working time so that you get everything done and the project is completed a couple of days before the deadline; if this is not possible, again leave the simplest for last.

BY THE WAY! If you develop the habit of immediately adding tasks to your calendar and allocating time to complete them, you will never have problems with deadlines.

Start playing sports, develop your body

What are the main advantages of playing sports?:

People feel the pleasant and strong vibrations coming from you.
You are in harmony with yourself and your body.
You radiate confidence.
You are more centered.

If you give up sports and don’t take care of your body , then this is what will happen to you:

You will have little strength.
You will be lethargic and weak and will never close the topic of how to overcome laziness and change your life.
You will quickly become exhausted as soon as you have to perform difficult tasks.
Your body will begin to fail you at the right moments, you will not be able to cope with heavy physical activity.
You will lose shape further and further, and it will be very difficult for you to regain that former activity and vitality.

You can jog in the morning and evening, go to martial arts classes, and go to the gym.

Do what you like. There are a lot of different activities.

What to do when you are stuck at work?

For starters, don't panic. Instead of repeating: “I don’t have time to do my work,” start taking action.

Step-by-step guide to clearing debris:

Sort your tasks. Separate lists – documents, accounts, negotiations, meetings.
Highlight in green those tasks whose completion depends only on you.
Highlight in yellow the tasks you perform as a team.
Highlight urgent tasks in red.
Bring to the meeting those marked in yellow and red, and discuss with your colleagues the methods and deadlines for implementation. Immediately add it to your weekly plan and check how feasible the tasks are on time. If necessary, adjust and coordinate with others.
Start completing tasks from the green-red list; distribute tasks from the green list evenly across the days of the week and complete them strictly according to plan, without waiting for them to “turn red.”
When the tasks are sorted, it will no longer be difficult to create an effective plan that is realistic in terms of completion.
Contact management if co-workers are constantly delaying your work. If you are a leader, take action.

IMPORTANT! Often, blockages form because you waste your working time chatting on social networks and instant messengers. Put your phone away from your eyes, block social networks on your work computer and start working!

When a lot of work accumulates, you do not have time to complete it. And only effective planning will save you from rush jobs and missed deadlines.

If problems arise due to incorrect organization of the work process in principle, contact the manual. When management fails to organize, try to find another job. Living in constant stress leads to health problems and darkens your entire life.

Appreciate your youth, don’t sleep through your younger years, it’s time to cope with laziness

Your young years are the best years of your life. And if you spend them lying on the couch in front of the TV screen, then you are not living. You become a vegetable.

Appreciate your young body, the potential strength that you can develop if you work on yourself.

You can find a lot of hobbies - there is always a lot of room for your growth .

Only a fool knows everything. A wise person realizes how little he knows and how much new he still has to learn.

There are a lot of areas and vectors in which you can develop and succeed. Find them, decide, and then you can stop being lazy and start working.

Don't waste away at home. Use your potential, given by nature to everyone without exception.

How to find time to do household chores?

Does your home routine terrify you? Let's talk about how to cope with things without stress.

Cooking food

If you don't have time to cook after work, listen to our recommendations.

Make sure to stock your refrigerator for the entire week. It is irrational to waste time in queues after work.
Choose one day a week to go to the supermarket. Make a sample menu for the week and buy all the necessary products according to the list. If you don't have a car, buy a bag with wheels.
If you prefer not to eat processed foods, make homemade preparations - meat and vegetable cutlets, dumplings - in case you feel unwell or arrive home late. Otherwise, you won't have time to do anything around the house after work.
Save complicated meals for the weekend if you like to cook. Daily meal preparation should not take more than 40-60 minutes.
Buy all the necessary time-saving devices - multicookers, large pots and pans. Prepare for several days.

Cleaning

If you don’t have time to clean up after work, then the best way is to keep it clean and tidy every day.

Immediately put clothes in the closet or laundry basket, put all items back in their place after use, and do not accumulate dirty dishes.
Rational owners immediately wipe down the stove, wash the plumbing in between, and sweep the floor after cooking.
Consider purchasing a dishwasher and a robot vacuum cleaner; with such helpers, your life will become easier and more enjoyable.

Try to follow these rules. Then there will no longer be a need to spend hours cleaning the apartment on weekends and carry out general cleaning once every six months.

ADVICE! Train your children to help you around the house. Organize a competition to see who can wipe off the dust the fastest, polish the mirrors until they shine, or wash the shoes. A small prize will be a great incentive.

When you do household chores together, you not only get the job done faster, but also unite the family and teach your children to take care of others.

Part 3: Efficiency

Focus on 1 thing

There is a certain illusion that by doing several things at the same time, you can get more done. However, our brain cannot concentrate on efficiently performing several tasks at the same time, and as a result, it takes more time to do this than to complete each of these tasks separately.

Make it a rule to work exclusively on one thing at a time , completely eliminating distractions. This way you will not only have time to do more, but you will also do everything efficiently and save more energy.

Remember to rest

As surprising as it may sound, quality rest is an important step towards getting everything done. I have been convinced of this more than once. In particular, sometimes I set myself a very large number of tasks, working early in the morning, in the evening after work, and on weekends. Of course, at first I walked at an excellent pace, but at one point I “burned out” and my productivity decreased many times over. During the time it took me to regain my strength, I was already well behind schedule.

In order not to repeat my mistakes, learn to distribute your forces so that you always have time to rest. Don't plan too many things on the weekend - give yourself at least one day when you can fully relax. Just remember that sitting in front of a monitor is not relaxation. Better get out into nature, get a good night's sleep and spend time talking with friends, exercising, or reading.

Eliminate distractions

I used to like to work with the TV on in the room (in this case, I mean working on the website and writing articles). It seemed to me that this made the work process more enjoyable and not so tedious. However, over time, I noticed that when the TV was on, my productivity decreased by 2-3 times!

This led me to believe that distractions should be eliminated 100%. Turn off the TV, put your smartphone away, and concentrate only on the task at hand.

Time yourself

Many well-known researchers in the field of time management claim: in order to cope with any task faster and more efficiently, you need to set a time for its completion , and try to meet the deadline. In addition, scientists have proven that time limits help the brain work more efficiently.

This principle can be applied to absolutely everything, and the result will be the same - you will work faster. You just need to time it thoughtfully – not too little and not too much. Make it a habit to use a stopwatch when you start any task, and this will be another important step towards being on time.

Reward yourself

Remember that motivation is important in any business. And as soon as your motivation disappears, you suddenly feel that the desire to work and achieve goals has disappeared. To prevent this from happening, you need to constantly motivate yourself. A great way to do this is to reward yourself for your achievements.

If you set a big goal for yourself and were able to achieve it, do something nice for yourself. For example, treat yourself to a delicious dish, buy a desired item, or relax while watching your favorite TV series. The main thing is that you have a stable understanding in your head that achieving a goal is followed by a reward. This will help you always stay motivated, never stop moving towards your goals, and of course, succeed in everything.

Psychologist's advice

Psychologists tell us how to learn to manage everything at work and at home. Here are the main recommendations.

Get enough sleep. This is one of your main tasks. 7-8 hours of sleep is necessary for good health and well-being.
IMPORTANT! The ability to focus and spend less time on complex tasks is directly related to the duration and quality of sleep.
Don't skip breakfast. A cup of coffee will help you cheer up, but will not fill you up. Brain activity is stimulated by nutrients, do not starve your brain.
Give yourself a good mood in the morning. Don't read the news or watch TV before work. Pleasant music, light exercises, and a delicious breakfast will set you up for a productive day. In the morning you can even exercise without compromising your service.
Social networks absorb your energy in huge quantities. As a result, the ability to focus on what is important and think creatively decreases. Give up social media for a few days and you will be surprised how much your work productivity increases. By

Set your priorities.

There is a simple, but very practical and effective way to divide tasks according to criteria of importance and urgency . Its inventor is US President Dwight Eisenhower. The scheme he came up with is named after him and consists of 4 sections. The horizontal lines indicate how urgently tasks need to be completed. Vertically they are divided into what is important and not so important.

Eisenhower Matrix.

Try using the priority matrix and creating your own priority set. You will be amazed at how much time you spend on urgent but not important tasks. One has only to remember a mobile phone, which is a serious source of additional distractions: notifications about messages on social networks, SMS, calls, checking email. A long list, you will agree.

Try to devote more personal time to really necessary tasks: complete important and urgent ones first . The results should not be long in coming.

Useful video

I suggest you watch an interesting video on the topic of how to manage everything not only at work, but also in life:

You've probably found the answer to the question of why you don't have time at work. Learn to be productive and focused, use your time wisely. Then you will get more freedom and will be able to solve problems many times faster. You will have time for family, communication, hobbies, walks and relaxation.

Neglecting planning means voluntarily agreeing to a deterioration in the quality of life. Organize your time, forget about stress and enjoy life.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar is free and integrates with gmail.

It allows you to set meeting times, create recurring events, set reminders, and invite other participants.

The benefit of this service is sharing.

Show it only to selected users or make it public.

Working with the Calendar is carried out in a browser window via a web interface; the calendar also supports synchronization with mobile devices.

Event reminders are sent via email and push notifications.

The Role of Planning

Crisis in relationships and family life by year - features

Only 3% of people are used to scheduling each day point by point, although planning is an ideal way to use time rationally. The rest simply float through life wherever their hopes or fantasies take them. Planning will help you find time for yourself not only for successful business people, but also for housewives overwhelmed with endless monotonous work, and for teenagers to have time to study, attend extra classes and go for walks.

What will help a student get everything done?

Planning always begins with a goal, it makes you think about how you would like to live your life, what to achieve. As a result, it becomes clear where you need to move, and the result will be pleasing.

Living according to a plan helps you accommodate more events and adventures, it allows you to stay focused on important things like health and relaxation, it improves your financial situation, teaches you to appreciate every hour and reduces stress levels.

How to manage time rationally and get everything done? Do some planning. After all, a day divided into tasks has many advantages:

disciplines;
gives clear instructions, which makes it easier to complete complex tasks;
frees up free time for leisure;
emotionally prepares for performance;
insists on proper rest;
drives away uncertainty;
contributes to achieving the goal.

Separating work from home

How to cheer yourself up quickly when you feel bad - methods and tips

When personal life merges with professional activity, both of them lose. Under such conditions, it is difficult to achieve proper rest or a change in activity. Psychologists advise following simple rules to separate these areas. It is especially difficult for a woman to solve the question of how to manage everything without getting tired, because today she not only continues to be the keeper of the family hearth, but is often a full-fledged breadwinner on a par with a man.

It is better to work and think about projects in the office. Try not to be distracted by thoughts about children, vacations, or unresolved family problems. Organize supervision for younger children; older children will become more independent if they are controlled less. There is no need to think about work issues at home. It’s better to immerse yourself in household chores and give quality communication to your husband and children.

It’s good if you have the opportunity to use a laptop at work, and a tablet at home for relaxation. You can buy 2 phones (not one with two SIM cards): a work one and one for family and friends; create 2 diaries, divided according to the same principle. Moreover, the working version can only be used in the office.

Important! For those who work at home, it is advisable to have a separate office.

How can a woman with children manage everything?

ask for help: let the husband take care of the youngest child, the elders will put things in order while the mother resolves urgent issues or rests if she is tired;
You can communicate with your girlfriends in a beauty salon, this will help kill two birds with one stone;
be sure to plan time for rest;
combine simple housework with listening to audio related to professional activities or leisure.

You can combine cleaning with your favorite music

Take care of your physical health. Find a creative hobby

If you don't feel well, you are unlikely to want to conquer the peaks.

People who are keen on running or swimming will confirm the fact that while playing sports they come up with solutions to previously unresolved issues. This is true. Even 10 minutes of physical activity is enough to trigger the body’s mechanisms for producing gamma-aminobutyric acid, an important neurotransmitter, the action of which reduces stress, which means it allows us to look at things from a different angle. Find the physical activity that you enjoy and make it a mandatory part of the weekend.

Creativity, whether it's the guitar, gardening or painting, allows you to disconnect from the everyday hustle and bustle. Even if you do not become famous as an artist, you will return to work rested, full of strength and energy.