Time management tips - JoomShaper

Time management tips

15 December 2016
Hits 4,809
5 min read
Time management tips

"We Have All the Time in the World" is a James Bond theme and a popular song sung by Louis Armstrong. And it's quite true that time belongs to all of us, but we cannot back the time. So how we use our time it depends on us. Each person has its own timeline, so it has to manage his time left cautiously. It doesn't matter if you are a web designer, web developer, freelancer beginner or student. In following blog post I will give you some useful tips, how to manage your time effectively.

Don't waste Your time

Time flies or drags depending on what you're doing. If you are waiting for something or someone for only 10 minutes it feels like 1 hour, right. Clock time is irrelevant. You live in real time. If you spend the whole morning in the bad or bathroom - it won't back. Reading bad news about another car collision somewhere or what famous actress dressed for the gala does not make you smarter or richer, right.

  1. Unnecessary or too longs meetings. We all go through it. Short meetings, max 15-30 min, are generally sufficient, later people are tired and they love to change the main subject.
  2.  Email inboxes with unimportant emails, don't waste your time to read them all. Create folders for different emails topics, and read them later.
  3. We often waste enormous amounts of time on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube, not to mention trolling the blogosphere.
  4. Doing what someone else is doing better than You.  If you're are not graphically skilled ask someone who is, and share with him your task and profit. Adding products to shop takes ages, do this same, hire a beginner. You will save a lot of time on programming or UX tasks, which are important in your project. It really works.

Plan what You have to do Today

  1. Start today, not tomorrow.
  2. Carry a notebook (or mobile app) and record all your thoughts, plans to do and activities for a week.  This will help you understand how much you can do and what else you have to do.
  3. Take the first 20 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don't start your day until you complete your time plan. It should contain tasks, time for them, how much they will take you and how important are they. Try using a grid, like the priority matrix, to organize your tasks into their appropriate categories:
  4. Mark Twain once said that if the first thing you do each morning is to "eat a frog", you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worse things that are going to happen to you all day long. Your "ugly frog" is your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it.
  5. Think few minutes before every call (or mail) and task to decide what result you want to attain. This will help you know what success looks like before you start.
  6. Put up a "Do not disturb" sign on Skype/Slack etc. and silent your smartphone when you absolutely have to get work done.  Don't instantly give people your attention unless it's absolutely crucial in your business to offer an immediate human response.
  7. All of us have times of day that we work better. It’s best to schedule the difficult tasks for those times.
  8. You are not a machine, people aren’t very good at multi-tasking, because it takes our brains time to refocus. Do one job, then rest awhile, then go to next challenge.
  9.  Remember that it's impossible to get everything done. Stay calm. The world will probably not end if you fail to achieve your last task of the day or leave it until tomorrow.

Sort and describe owned by your resources

At the beginning my adventure with Joomla! I collected all extensions for Joomla! and new photos in two folders (Joomla and Photos) on my hard drive. And after several months I realized that I did not make things easier, I still had to waste my time to find a proper tool or image. So I decided to create a subfolders root structure with longer names. For example "Article - Comments" > "Components"  > "Full Extension - Joomla Version - developer name" and inside I have not only zip package but some screenshots and description as well. So now many of my friends call me for extension advice and in short time I can give them a useful answer. Easy but powerful, right.

Use appropriate tools

Don’t block your productivity. Sometimes we spend an hour or maybe hours searching for a basic module for a simple website. It doesn't have to be like this each time. Save time and stop writing code. JoomShaper developed a SP Page Builder drag&drop extension for Joomla! users. It's all in one type of tool, whether you're a beginner or a professional. Over 40 useful add-ons with different features which can replace typical modules, so you will always find the addon you need. SP Page Builder gives you complete freedom to choose any Joomla! 3 Template you like. It's not a commitment to a single template or template developer. The advantage is that you're free to change templates as often as you like. Your content will always come along with you. It also includes 5 pre-designed page layouts. And Yes, you can manage your content from both front and back-end.  Empower your clients to handle their own edits on their own websites.

Joomla 3.7 front-end edition online

As we always say in JoomShaper team: Free Up Your Time and Unleash Your Creativity.

Well, thanks for reading and till the next time!

Blog post illustration copyrighted by Saurav Biswar

M
Muhsin
7 years ago
Very useful article/text :)
J
Jessicashaw
5 years ago
I find it difficult for me to get up early in the morning however once in a while I do it at any rate just to ensure each task is completed before the finish of the day. A similar thing applies to the more difficult tasks taking up time in my day.

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