Perhaps it has become a norm for engineers and engineering students to juggle all tasks together in meeting deadlines and preparing for exams. By trial and error, it can all be figured out; almost always it entails working late nights with the work and projects rushed. If only they know what true time management is, this will not be the case.
Etienne Garbugli, a product design and marketing consultant based in Montreal, outlined time management hacks that engineers and engineering students can make use of:
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There is always time. It’s all about priorities.
- Only plan for 4-5 hours of real work per day. The days always fill up with other stuff.
- Work more when you’re in the zone. Relax when you’re not.
- Respect your time and make it respected.
- Multi-tasking is a bad idea is it only kills your focus.
- Make a work routine that you can commit to. Your body will adapt.
- Think that you only have limited time since that gives us more focus and productivity.
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Start with short tasks.
- Work iteratively. Expectations to do things perfectly are stifling.
- More work hours doesn’t mean more productivity. Use constraints as opportunities.
- Separate brainless and strategic tasks to become more productive.
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- Organize meetings as early as possible.
- Group meetings and communication to create blocks of uninterrupted work.
- Run tasks throughout the day that are in the same context. Switching between projects and clients is often unproductive.
- Work around procrastination. You can procrastinate between intense sprints of work.
- When things are unreasonable, break them down into reasonable pieces for the goal to be achieved.
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Prioritize. Always! There are no two tasks with the same importance.
- Always know that one thing that needs to be done for the day.
- Break tasks into hour increments.
- Delegate if possible. Make use of other people.
- What’s done is done yesterday. Stop thinking about it and focus on today and tomorrow.
- Set deadlines for everything. Tasks with no definite deadline will always take longer.
- Always take notes.
- Writing down anything that distracts you will stop them from popping up once you are in the zone.
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Take a break sometimes.
Source: Business Insider
