It’s very important to master your life and control where your time is spent, regardless of who you are. However, it becomes much more crucial for women as they have different roles to play, managing their dream careers and living life on their own terms.
For everything, it starts with having good control over overtime management. And to help yourself master the time and be productive, so you are happy instead of stressed, here is a quick guide to more time management for women.
Tips Before You Start Time Management
Some weeks you are doing extremely well, whereas some weeks, you are not.
However, understanding why time management is needed and why it might not work for you.
Understanding Your Mood Swings
Some days you are cheerful and energetic; some days, you require to drag yourself from bed to get even basic things done.
If it sounds like you, there are high chances you are feeling frustrated with your swings in mood, energy, and productivity.
You might try to use a to-do list or bullet journal to fix this. However, you bought the best ideas, the external solutions to force you to follow the 24-hour circadian cycle.
But you must focus on understanding the woman’s natural and 28-day hormone clock.
Taking The Leverage Of Your Hormones
As a woman, you have a cyclical nature which means you can and should work much differently depending on the abilities forward by the hormones during different phases.
When you start to get familiar with what your strengths are, you can turn into a predictable powerhouse at work and in life.
Also, it can help you in not turn yourself into a victim because of your hormonal fluctuations.
Understanding How To Step Into Power
Time management is important when you are syncing the right diet with exercise. According to research, your body has a different need when it comes to micronutrients each week.
As hormonally, this makes you much more equipped for handling better workouts and intenseness during the first half of the cycle.
So when you have the nourishment and movement that you need and when you need, this helps you to feel much more creative, energized, and productive.
Respecting The Feminine Energy
Another point that you should learn is understanding as well as respecting feminine energy.
It’s not about how you behave and dress, it’s better to connect with having the unique cyclical nature as a woman. It’s important to recognize the nature shifts you get in focus and energy along with each part of the cycle.
These shifts are not your vulnerabilities, so you need to understand how to make this your stronger side.
Point Out The Timing And Seasonality
The next thing you need to consider is the timing and seasonality in life when you use it in your knowledge for your benefit.
So you need to learn cycle syncing. Practicing the cycle sync allows you to be better productive and creative without adding stress.
Understanding the cycle and syncing it can help you accomplish more of what is actually important with ease, less stress, and much more grace.
Learning The Four Phrases
The last step you get is to embody the cycle sync by learning all four phases to cycle and align with activities with strength in different phases.
Well, the four-phase it includes :
The Follicular Phase
The follicular phase starts when your period ends, and it happens when estrogen is on its rise.
To handle this, you need to set the intonation for the future, spend time journaling, clarify the vision, and spending time on organizing what you need to accomplish within the coming weeks.
The Ovulation Phase
Well, the second cycle is the ovulation phase; it’s mid-cycle for 3 or 5 days. It happens when estrogen is at its highest point.
Here you can use it for talking about the vision, collaborating with folks who share similar minds, connecting with others, and scheduling the meetings.
The Luteal Or Premenstrual Phase
The next one starts about 10 – 12 days before your period starts, and your progesterone hormone is at its highest level.
To handle this, you do time, and here you are most organized during the phase and love getting granular about the details.
Make this phase about accomplishing the goals and activities to outline the follicular phase.
The Menstruation Phase
This is when you are on your period, and when your hormones are at their lowest point.
So it’s best to slow down and reflect on what happened last month and practice gratitude for all the good things that you have accomplished.
Here is when you are less productive, more sensitive, and tired. Not just that, it takes much more energy and causes stress that ends up damaging time management.
How Time Management Is Different For Women?
Well when you are doing time management, it’s important to understand how you are managing it as a woman.
Here you need to aim for not doing more as you are already handling too much. Here the purpose of time management is to help in finding more time as well as energy for :
- Doing the meaningful work
- Spending time with people you love
- Give time to yourself and enjoy every single minute of it.
How To Make More Time For Time Management?
Prioritizing the time can help you understand what you need to manage and how to adjust.
So when you are able to make more time to get things done, manage the overall work along with focusing on important things.
As a woman, you also need to adjust the time according to your natural mood swings and other changes.
For getting the time, here are basic steps you need to follow :
Step 1: Step Back From Everything For A Second
The first step is to step back so you get time to figure out why you need more time and for what.
Also, it’s impossible to win the game when you haven’t defined it yet.
This helps you to stay much more motivated and have specific goals to achieve.
Well, for that, you need to start with two basic things:
Making A Wish List
To make a wish list, you need to write down all the activities that you need to do, it can be anything; maybe it can be something for making yourself happy, sane, or relaxed.
Rank all the items in order of their importance and pick one to stick with it.
Write Down Where You Are Spending Time
You can keep a detailed diary where you need to write down all things where you are spending time.
The key here is to question whether you are spending on things that are right for your life.
Step 2: Give Up On What Can Be Possible
To make things time, you need to remove or give up on some things.
So devote your time to things that you actually love. Consider devoting time to things that can help you be productive and creative instead of hurting your motivation.
When you have unnecessary things on the list, this can end up causing procrastination.
However, instead of giving up, you can also do the delegation. and here is what you need to know :
What You Can Delegate :
So there are some tasks that you don’t need to do on your own; you can let others do it for you. For this, you can share your house responsibilities with your spouse and partner.
You can also use this strategy at work, you can share the junior staffer for assignments to stretch their capabilities instead of doing it on your own.
What You Can Outsource :
House Cleaning is one of the tasks that you don’t have to do on your one, but things like tutoring go with it.
Before you decide that maybe it’s not in your budget, scrutinize the spending.
You can allocate the resources, and also you need to understand how outsourcing can help.
What You Can Do Less Perfect :
The next thing you need to consider is avoiding things instead of doing them perfectly.
Also, you need to find a list of work where you need to do minimum instead of perfectly.
What Distraction You Can Limit :
There are some distractions you can eliminate, but some need to be limited if you can remove them completely.
Here are some of the points that can help you :
- Start with shutting the door when you are working; it’s important to make it completely clear that you need to be left alone.
- At work, you need to check your email at least twice a day, it can be at noon or at 4 pm.
- Also, use the auto-respond feature so you have a template ready to get instant text and message replays.
- When you are at home, make sure you are leaving your phone alone.
- As for tv, keep one episode of your favorite tv show and shut your tv after that instead of watching every single thing,
Step 3: Reschedule The Schedule Of Yours
Well, now that you have freed up the minutes, you can decide how you want to spend the time and where to invest the energy.
Start with establishing one or two which are non-negotiables and work the schedule around it.
The next thing you need to do is create a daily to-do list and use the index cards. By using the card force to understand what is important.
Write down only what can be accomplished realistically within three to five items.
Then make sure you at least have items on top of the wishlist of your weekly plan.
Schedule the quick and brainless important tasks first and also the most onerous for a second.
You can also challenge the list and items that have the least reflections for mattering the most.
Step 4: Back Up Your Plan Using Right Tools
There are tools you need to find that can back up your scheduling and help avoid procrastination.
To ensure that you are staying on the important tasks, here are some of the tips that can help you :
Do Just A Dash Of What You Are Avoiding
Work on tasks even for a short period of time; it can be even for a minute. When you do it, this can help you in relaxing the anxiety that was created just in your head, and it gives you the hold that you need to get things done.
Post The Procrastination Busting With Post-it
Sometimes, you invent things just because you need to avoid important work.
So you need to use the post in order to avoid the things that are stopping you from starting it out.
Breaking Projects Into Smaller Pieces
The optimal amount of time for spending the tasks within 40 to 90 minutes and then taking a break to get recharged.
Keep in mind that your tasks will take more time if you are giving them, so schedule the time and fix it.
So give the incremental deadlines, so you will get more work done within the given hours.
Take The Rest Very Seriously
Not only will you get much better but also you need to pay attention to how you are taking rest seriously.
You also help in improving efficiency and productivity.
It’s Better To Be Happy
Take this as a word of encouragement, so stay happy instead of worrying about time management.
Give yourself time to enjoy and improve your chances of doing better performance.
What Are The Good Habits To Form Time Management?
Time management habits can help you in making small changes and helping you in being more productive, manage time well, and having a stressless schedule.
It includes :
Not Having Plan Means Letting Calendar Control You
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is doing things as they come your way and at the exact time when it can be scheduled to another time, as you have many important tasks in hand.
To achieve the goals, you need to learn discipline and planning. This is why you should have the plan ready, so you know what you are doing every day and schedule all the activities into your calendar.
Create The Ritual For Every Morning
Instead of checking your emails as the first thing after you wake up, it’s best to create a ritual that can help you stay in a positive mindset and energetic.
So don’t check emails and messages, as it will ruin your whole day. Instead, add things like meditating, listening to affirmation, journaling, reviewing the vision board, and exercising.
This can help you keep your mind fresh so you can start a productive day.
Set Boundaries For Personal, Social Media, And Family Time
It’s very important that you have time for your family and for yourself. Even spending time on social media is needed; however, for all of these activities where time could fly, it’s important to set boundaries.
You can set Sundays for family fun and schedule your work for Monday to Friday instead of doing both things simultaneously.
But when you are working, make sure your family is not disturbing you. It’s important to guard your time as much as possible.
Categorize Time For Administrative, Focus, And Sacred
One of the crucial time management habits that you should develop is to categorize your time. Start with writing down all the tasks at work, and then circle the tasks which will help you in getting a promotion, raise or make you happy.
Also, circle those similar-looking tasks like sales calls, conversations, etc. These are called focus time blocks; try to do it for your whole day so it can help you in staying much more focused.
You need to put time for a sacred time such as personal time, family, hobbies, etc.
Free Up The Time
It’s important that you are freeing up the time instead of adding the tasks for the sake of it.
If you are on holiday, but you need to get some important work done, sugarless how your sister’s invitation to babysit her kid is important. It’s better to say no.
By saying no, you can help yourself get loaded up with tasks that add no value. Also, you can manage your time well.
Batch Things Up Like Your Life Depends On It
Batching means putting similar tasks into one group and then blocking time on your schedule.
During this time, you welcome no distractions. Once you get distracted, it takes around 15 minutes to regain complete focus.
Don’t Let Your Calendar Control You
According to Gay Hendricks’s The Big Leap, it says that you are the charge of time; it’s you where time comes from. So you can make as much time as you want if you want.
Acknowledging that you are the source of time, it can help in disappearing the time as the moment you embrace and take the claim of ownership.
Discipline Is Must Needed To Learn
When you are making decisions, the only thing that can lead you to success is discipline. Continually remembering the goal, keeping your focus on the target, and not letting anything distract you, regardless of how tempting it seems, is what makes you different from others.
Practice Doing The Pareto
Well, the Pareto Principles state that your 20% input should bring 80% results. So focusing on the 20% can help you bring the result you want.
To understand this, here are some of the examples :
- 80% of the job leads are found via the network.
- For those women who are entrepreneurs, find out the 20% of time produced by the business result, 80% then spend on those activities first.
- The top 20% of resumes are the crucial section.
Plan The Weekly Review
How you plan out the week can help you understand how to avoid stress.
So when Monday arrives, you have the exact idea of what you are getting into.
The biggest secret you get is to do the Friday afternoon weekly; it includes :
Step 1: Start with doing the clean-up of your last week. Focus on clearing out the email inbox and organizing and ready for the new week.
Step 2: Create your to-do list and focus on doing it next week. Also, you can find things that can help in improving the overall success.
Step 3: Knock out the administrative items which are not on your top list of six priorities; these are tasks you won’t be doing week and not taking the time to focus on more important items.
Find The Best Time For Yourself
Not everyone can be productive as soon as they jump from bed or work late at night.
There are some hours when your body and mind are highly focused, and this is considered productive time.
Use it to get your most demanding work done. Don’t waste watching the tv or scrolling on social media.
Wake Up Little Early Than Usual
The more decisions you have to make, the less energy you will have. So you must do all of these things in the morning.
If you can’t wake up an hour earlier, then start with 10 minutes and increase it as you go.
So you don’t have to feel tired, and by this, you can start waking up earlier too.
Limit The Priorities Of Yours
One of the most important habits you should learn is limiting the priorities list, so you can focus on one thing at a time.
It’s time to make a list and add all the things you need to get it done within the week. Now you need to prioritize their importance and value.
So don’t create a to-do list that you need to do every day; make a list of highly prioritized tasks and do it. So you are getting important things done.
What Are 5 Essential Techniques For Women To Do Time Management?
At the core of time management, it’s not at all about managing time but managing yourself.
Everyone has the same hours, regardless of gender and role.
So how are others able to get their work done where you are failing in doing the same?
Here are the top 5 time management techniques that you should follow :
Be Intentional
The first important technique is to be intentional. Draw up the to-do list, and it might not seem like a technique that is groundbreaking.
But still, it’s considered one of the most powerful ways in order to be more productive.
The best to-do list includes different tasks, including urgent and quick jobs that can be done within 10 minutes, in order to operational tasks which are in much more progress.
Have a set list of tasks that can help internationally with what you are working on.
This can apply to different work; it can help complete things in a much more perfect way.
So what does being intentional mean? Minds are bound to wander, so when you have a to-do list, you know exactly what you need to do.
It gives you a quick glance and reminds you of what you should be doing.
Be Prioritized
If you are writing a to-do list, the first step is to be better at time management.
In order to get it much more effectively, you need to prioritize the tasks.
It guides you on how you should be directing your whole day; this can add activities that bring high value and have a positive effect on you.
The usefulness of prioritizing might be overstated, but without it, you might end up focusing on things that are not important.
Be Focused
Despite having the best intention, you end up distracted. And it might be social notification to the talkative colleagues; there are different versions of distractions that lead to procrastination.
However, given that 23 minutes for gaining your refocus, the production cost of the daily distractions.
While some are easy to identify, some might be difficult, and once you do it, set control and focus on the work at hand.
Be Structured
A structured schedule can help you in delivering what you set for the day.
It helps you in protecting the space for work and sets the pressure, which is healthy for you.
Using time blocking is a productive way that helps in preventing tasks from overtaking the whole day.
There are a lot of women who juggle multiple jobs at once, you can be more done, and it can be true.
So being productive means focusing on one thing at once. With the help of time blocking, you can approach budgeting the set amount of hours. So get things done which are important for you.
Be Self Aware
Ultimately you can’t improve the time without knowing how you are using it.
So you need to track the time and provide insight and self-awareness to make effective changes.
Also, it can help you in finding the time drains, highlighting the processes which are inefficient, and layout your productive patterns.
You can also use it to ensure that can help in sticking well with your schedule and finding the best way to handle things in your way.
Tips For Women To Handle Time Management And Life Together
So far, you get a basic understanding of how you can time manage in your way; well in order to be more productive and also manage your daily life with a time managing schedule, here are some of the tips for you :
Decide Your Office Hours
- Fix your timing if you are working from home; it includes your boss or supervisors, so you both are on the same page.
- Make sure you have the time hours fixed and get clear on what your office day is so you can manage the work-home balance.
- Don’t let your family, kids, or spouse not disturb you while you work until it’s something really urgent.
- Try scheduling the demanding tasks so you can minimize the disturbance and focus while working.
- Also if you have more people in the house, you can speak directly to them to fix the schedule and not let anyone disturb your work.
Create Space For Your Work And Enjoy
- Well, for working from home or you manage the business directly from home, it’s important that you set the space where you work.
- It’s important to mentally detach yourself from the atmosphere and set the workspace to get the place to work.
- Also, you need to set a space where you can relax and have fun. It’s equally important as workplace space. So you can detach your work mind and relax.
- If you have kids or pets, then make sure they have the space of their own to understand where they should be when you are working.
- So focus on creating space for different things where you can relax and get work done.
Create Time Block For Distractions
- If you have kids, you know how distracting it gets, so create a home environment where kids are time-bound and set aside particular times when they do their work.
- Find more distractions you face daily, and time-bound them. Create a list and schedule your time for distractions so it won’t damage productivity.
- Fix a time for snacks throughout your day, prepare them in advance, and fix the time, so you don’t have to waste hours on it.
- Make sure you have the time for unavoidable distractions, such as checking emails, scrolling social media, etc.
Give Time For The Meal Prepping
- One of the tasks of a woman is to prepare the food, you might be living alone or with others, and you need to find time to prepare the meal.
- Find time to set three meals a day, so give the valuable strategy to save time and take advantage of your free time.
- Take some out from your weekend to decide what meals you are going to make the whole week, and pick the receipts that need less than half an hour to cook.
- You can also prepare beforehand, like chopping items that might be needed and storing them in the refrigerator.
Divide The House Chores
- Another daunting task can be doing the house chores; it gets much more difficult when you are doing it alone.
- So it’s important that you ask for help and involve your family member, spouse, and people you are living with.
- Divide the chores like dishes and utensils piling up in the sink, so ask people to do their dishes after eating the meal.
- If you have younger children, ask them to hang their clothes after doing the laundry.
More To Explore:
- Most Effective and Proven Time Management Tips, Techniques & Strategies
- Guide On How To Be Professional In Doing Time Management
- 30 Best Time Management Games And Activities (How To Play)
- 25 Effective Calendar & Schedule Management Tips
- Beginner’s Guide For Time Management In 2023
“Vision, strategy, and inspiration – these three words describe me the best. I am the founder of “TheLeaderboy” dedicated to leadership and personal development. As a self-taught practitioner, I have been studying the principles of effective leadership for the past decade and my passion lies in sharing my insights with others. My mission is to empower individuals to become better leader