How to manage tasks efficiently or how to survive studying part-time
We have had our experiences in terms of a tremendous amount of different tasks due at the same time within our part-time studies. Nevertheless, we are sure that the “best-practises” offered here can certainly also be transferred well to “pure” work and “pure” study — or basically to every situation where you have to deal with a bunch of tasks.
During our studies, it often happened that there was simply a mountain of tasks that had to be completed. This was a problem, because obviously available time and other resources are scarce—just starting somewhere and seeing how far you get was not a good solution. Furthermore, it was often times difficult to prioritise since the tasks were mostly unrelated, e.g. we were working on an HHL assignment and a challenging project at work at the same time. In a very “consultant-like” way, it proved a good idea to analyse the “problem”, divide it into smaller bites and then tackle them separately.
In the following, we will offer you some guidance for practises we did apply during our time studying and we still use since they proved very helpful. Our recommendations can be divided into three areas: Reduce distraction, Classify your tasks, and Keep track of your tasks & plan your days.
Reduce distraction (Digital minimalism)
If you have ever checked the screen time on your phone, you will most likely have been shocked by how many hours per day you spend on apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp. On a closer look, you might also have noticed that the time is quite distributed over the whole day. It can be inferred that most of us do not only invest more of our time in using our phone but also use our phone more frequently than we think — there is seldomly an hour we spend awake without looking at it or related devices such as smart watches. And this does not include your (work) laptop or your TV.
“But what’s the issue?” you might ask. After all, we need WhatsApp to communicate with our families and friends (and not only for sending memes but also for organising our days), we need news apps to stay updated regarding important developments in our environment etc. Well, but do you really need to implement these use cases in every hour of your day?
According to Cal Newport, the author of “Digital Minimalism”, you should be aware of the time you spend using digital tools. He argues that “[…] intentionally and aggressively clearing away low-value digital noise, and optimizing your use of the tools that really matter, can significantly improve your life.” Let’s take Instagram as an example: How many stories of accounts that are not really interesting to you do you see every day? Or e-mails: How many newsletters do you receive that in the end only cost you time since you have to delete them? Even worse: How much of this “low-value digital noise” do you experience every hour and how much does this distract you from what’s really important?
But we don’t only want to raise your awareness for this matter but also provide you with actionable recommendations:
- Turn off push-notifications for all apps that don’t require immediate action. For instance, select the two most crucial social media apps (e.g. WhatsApp and Signal) and mute all others. You can still conciously decide to open them when you have time to do so.
- Set a screen time limit for social media apps. Don’t set the limit too low, as this will only trigger you to allow exceptions, but decide on a realistic time for weekdays and weekends. Remember: If the phone reports that you have already spent 60 minutes on Instagram, you have already spent 60 minutes on Instagram — which is 1/24 of your day. An even more powerful way to set some borders to social media would be to delete the app on your phone and using the web-browser to browse through the picturesque lifes that are shown e.g. on Instagram—it works, you even have a bigger screen but it is a hurdle to log in on your computer vs. just opening the app.
- Unsubscribe from every newsletter you haven’t read during the last month.
- Use apps like Forest or the “Do not disturb”-mode to block push-notifications and keep you away from your screen during the times you want to focus. In general, you should avoid multitasking, if you want to read more about this we recommend this article by the American Psychological Association as a starting point or the book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi we already mentioned in one of our earlier articles.
All these recommendations don’t only apply to your private but also to your business life. Here, you could e.g. close Outlook and Slack during meetings or when you want to perform creative tasks that don’t require online communication.
Classify your tasks
In order to classify a plethora of tasks, various criteria of classification certainly offer themselves. One possibility that seems particularly helpful to us is to apply the Eisenhower-Method. Here, each task is classified according to two criteria: Importance and Urgency. You have heard this already a million times? Well, is tapping through stories more important or urgent than doing your laundry or calling your grandparents and do you always prioritise these tasks in that way? If not, you might want to look at this one more time.
Importance: Here you should consider the higher (for example your personal) goal that should be achieved in tackling that specific task. Note that especially in a corporate environment the importance of a task should be agreed upon with the stakeholders (well, your manager or a customer for example).
Urgency: Here a classic “deadline”-thinking is considered. A task that needs to be done till noon has a higher urgency than a task that needs to be done till “sometime next week”.
In classifying task with regards to importance and urgency, it is of utmost importance to be honest to yourself: Not all tasks can be equally important, neither urgent. Time invested to orderly classify your tasks will save you a lot of pain later.
You could even draw a nice four field matrix using the two criteria (tschakka, very business school like ;-) ). Arranging the tasks accordingly gives a very clear order on what task to tackle first, second, third, and fourth (A, B, C, D). Note that regarding tasks that are of minor importance and minor urgency you might even consider not doing them at all.
Another thing to note is, that using the Eisenhower-Method neglects one important factors that you should definitely consider—time. You only have a very limited amount of this resource, consequently your should use it wisely.
One helpful technique ist to clearly assign time to each and every task. This process might get more precise over time as you learn which tasks need more or less time in general (always out of your personal perspective). The real challenge here might not be to assign a certain amount of time to each task but to stick to it. If you ask us, you should definitely try to challenge yourself to be disciplined to stick to your own schedule. Not sticking to your initial plan will in the end only lead to dissatisfaction and will cost you time since you need to continuously reconsider what you are doing and what’s next.
Having presented the general concept, we want to stress that, even if you don’t want to draw a matrix every day, you should implement the decision criteria Importancy and Urgency into your overall mindset. Over time, your unconcious mind will support you with avoiding distractions and focusing on the most valuable tasks, if you stick to this. As a starting point, you could classify the three tasks that you expect to spend most time on during the day according to these criteria.
Keep track of your tasks & plan your days
A recommendation you should follow to not fall for the “oh no, its just too much to do”-trap is to keep track of your tasks—the ones done, currently processed and to do. We have already discussed time budgets in one of our earlier articles, if you followed our recommendations there (i.e. wrote down what you plan to to in general and how long this might take as well as track how you spend your time) you have already set the base to successfully master a pile of work in front of you.
In the following we will present you an overview on how we both structure and plan our tasks. It somehow happens to be that you might even classify our approaches as “old-school” vs. “fancy-new-school” — but decide for yourself. Before we start just one short information for all digital-savvy who do not want to dispense nice digital tools—but note referring back to Digital Minimalism, we recommend you to make a conscious decision which tools are really useful and then stick to your decision on a daily basis to avoid creating more “low-value digital noise”. Nevertheless, here are two papers to indulge in the world of digital helpers:
So what we want to do is quickly present you the set-ups we both use. They are quite simple but, in our opinion, also quite effective and efficient.
Dennis’ set-up: Plain sheet of paper and a pen (to be honest, Dennis currently forces himself to switch to a digital version of that—iPad (using the notes app) and the corresponding pen)
In the morning I sit down with a plain notepad and a pen (yes exactly, these remnants of a time when people still wrote letters to each other by hand). To start, I write down all tasks that need to be done (for me it works on a daily basis but you could also choose either weekly or other regular schedules). Then it is time to structure the data (aka my tasks). For that I use the Eisenhower technique to assign each task a certain relevance. In the following I add the time estimate I plan to spend on each task. What follows is to check the calender and see how to fit the tasks in the schedule. Well, here we go, I am ready to kick off cracking each task (well, after getting a second coffee).
One of the most important steps follows after having finished a task: I cross it out! It might sound stupid, but crossing out tasks you have finished (and especially using pen and paper) creates a certain satisfaction. In addition, it helps me keeping track of the things that still need to be done, helping me to schedule your personal capacity wisely.
Till’s set-up: Microsoft To Do, Apple Calendar, Forest
Microsoft To Do (I use it on Windows and iPhone)
Apple Calendar (comes with every iPhone :-))
Forest (I use the iPhone app)
After breakfast, I open Microsoft To Do and plan my day by using the “For Today” feature. That way, I get task recommendations based on e.g. due date and sequence of entering them. I added some routines such as “Read a book for at least 10 minutes” that pop up every day so I get reminded of habits I want to pick up. After adding tasks, I sort them according to their priority (i.e. Importancy/Urgency) and the sequence I want to work on them. If necessary, I enter additional tasks that come to my mind. Hence, I get a list of to do items that I can follow through the day. Whenever I stumble upon something I want to remember later I mostly just quickly type it into the “My Day” list and sort all the things I entered into the different task lists I created later in the evening. This also includes books I want to read or things I want to buy. There are many other to do apps that have similar features, but for me, Microsoft To Do does the job, because it’s also available for Windows and it’s very simple and lean.
I also like to plan my days using the Apple Calendar. Whenever I schedule something, whether it is meeting friends a family event, or just a specific time slot for going to the gym, I create an appointment and I often times also set a reminder. This is nothing fancy but it helps me to avoid overlapping events and also to review what I did during a week. I want to give timeboxing a try in the future, but currently I’m satisfied with only scheduling “events” and prioritising my to dos.
As already mentioned above, I use Forest for staying focused over longer times. I set an exception for taking calls, since these might be important and urgent. By using the labels for focused times, I can also track what I’ve worked on. For instance, I used the categories to track how much time I spent with writing my master’s thesis, since I had a “project plan” for this including time budgets per day and milestones.
All in all, our three top recommendations you should take-away are:
- Classify your tasks — do not start just at a point of convenience but start by scanning all you tasks and assigning them with a certain relevance (e.g. using the Eisenhower-method)
- Choose the tool that fits you the best, be it pen or paper or a fancy app
- Invest some time to find what works for you—it will save you a lot of pain in situations where you need you full power to tackle your work
We hope that this article increased your productivity and, maybe even more important, the value each minute has for your overall life and the goals you want to achieve. Stay tuned for further insights we plan to share with you by following us here on Medium. We would also be delighted if you share your thoughts and own experiences with us. Especially, we’re interested in your “productivity set-ups”, since we’re always keen to learn and improve. Feel free to contact us via LinkedIn if you have any questions or want to exchange thoughts on an interesting topic.
