Work is getting busier and busier, plans have to be handed in, summaries have to be written, customer problems have to be dealt with, and overtime has become the norm; At the same time, we should take care of the family and help the children do their homework and housework; And you want to spend time studying a course to improve your skills, but you find that there is no time at all.

Family, work and study all put forward higher requirements for our time, so many time management methods came into being, such as tomato clock, list method, four quadrant method, and various apps used with mobile phones.

However, we often find that using so many time management tools seems to have no effect on us. The seemingly perfect time management method has not helped us improve our work efficiency, nor has it given us more time. Our life and work are still a mess.

Why can't we have outstanding achievements in our work like those successful people, and have a wonderful personal life while taking care of our families?

Is there any deep-seated reason behind this?

The reason is that many people only understand the surface of time management tools and have not found its deep logic.

The essence of time management is to accomplish the most important things for us in the best state within a limited time, so as to maximize the value of our time output.

It is not difficult to see that in addition to the time factor, it also includes three elements: doing the right thing, being in the best state, and completing it.

In fact, if we want to use time management tools well, we must also do these three things well, otherwise any time management methods and tools will be difficult to solve our time management dilemma.

The purpose of time management is to maximize the value of our time output. The purpose of time management is not to do as many things as possible and improve work efficiency.

The supply of time is inflexible, and no matter how hard you try every day, it will take less than an hour. Those who succeed in their careers don't have many times more time than you, but they choose the right thing to invest their time. In short, they choose something of greater value, that is, we often say that choice is more important than hard work.

Therefore, the first step and the most important core of time management-first, carefully screen your goals.

The classical teacher said: Why are we inefficient? The reason is not less work, but too much. Everyone works 24 hours a day. I'm really afraid that excellent people will work harder than you, because the individual difference in effort will not exceed 50%. But the value difference between people will be a hundred times, because I am afraid that what excellent people do is much more valuable than you.

The core meaning of the well-known 80/20 rule is that 80% of the value comes from 20% of the input, which is applicable to almost all occasions, so what we have to do is to find the most valuable 20% goal, then put 80% of our energy into it, and then give up the other 80 unimportant ones. Therefore, it is very important to learn to choose.

Essentialism said: "The key to success is to eliminate unimportant things purposefully, thoughtfully and strategically, not only to eliminate those things that obviously waste time, but also to learn to reduce, simplify and focus on absolutely important things by eliminating everything else."

The first thing Jobs did when he returned to Apple was to streamline the product line. At that time, Apple had 100 products, which consumed a lot of resources. Jobs cut off 90%, leaving only a few products, and concentrated on making these products to the extreme, which led to the familiar iPhone and ipad.

First of all, make clear what is most important to you, delete what is unimportant, and streamline your work items, otherwise more time will be wasted on unimportant things.

Fan Deng, the founder of Fan Deng Book Club, once talked about his strategic focus in the program. I was very busy at work for a while, and I had to hold a book club, give speeches everywhere and give training classes to enterprises. Later, after reflection, he decided to focus only on things related to Fan Deng's reading club. He turned down hundreds of thousands of internal training opportunities in one day. Although he was very distressed, he insisted on what he thought was right because he knew other things.

Many times we are busy because we have done too many unimportant things, so it is important to learn to choose focus.

How to judge whether a thing is worth doing, copper mining puts forward a method in the book Diligence:

Do more things with a long half-life and avoid things with a long half-life.

Learning, fitness, expanding contacts and running a family are all things with long half-life value; Consumption, eating a big meal and brushing friends circle are all things with short half-life value.

Copper mining suggests doing more things with long half-lives, American management master Stephen? Covey's "focus on important things" has the same effect.

Stephen? Covey put forward a time management theory-"Four Quadrant Rule" in the book Priority of Important Matters.

The so-called "four-quadrant rule" is to divide daily affairs into four quadrants according to the importance and urgency of work: important and urgent, important and not urgent, unimportant and urgent, and unimportant and not urgent.

Why are there so many urgent things in daily work?

Stephen? Covey believes that we always ignore those important and non-urgent things, such as health, study, training and planning, which is why emergencies often happen later.

Stephen Covey believes that if we want to get rid of the hectic state of fighting fires everywhere every day, we need to devote more time to important but not urgent things. Only by doing these important things well in advance will there be fewer and fewer emergencies.

We should learn to classify our own affairs, gradually get rid of unimportant things, focus on important things, and finally fundamentally solve our time management problems.

Ren said: Huawei will never consume strategic resources in non-strategic areas.

Strategic field is something of long-term significance and value to the development of enterprises.

Because Huawei focuses on its own strategic direction, it only invests resources in the right projects and does not do any projects that are inconsistent with the strategic direction, even if it is a good opportunity. Because of Huawei's focus, Huawei has made remarkable achievements in the strategic field.

Business management is like this, so is personal management.

When we manage time, we must first find things that are really important to our work and life, understand the great significance of things to ourselves, and delete those things that are not important; Then focus on what really matters, and put your precious time and energy into it to maximize the value of your time.

You worked overtime to finish a busy day's work. After work, you plan to learn some new courses, or play games with your children, or share some housework, but you find that you have no energy at all.

I believe this situation is familiar to everyone.

Many times we can't finish the plan, not because we don't have time, but when it's time to do something, we find that we have no energy. The plan is either delayed or inefficient.

I believe this is what most people will encounter. The biggest problem with time management is not that we don't have time, but that we lack enough energy.

Therefore, in order to manage time effectively, we must first manage our own energy, so that whenever we have time, we can have plenty of energy and complete our plans in the best condition.

Jim. Psychologist Jim Rolle is also the founder of energy management training system and the author of Energy Management for Efficient People.

Do energy management training for top athletes and Olympic champions all the year round, and also do energy management consulting for professionals. He proposed that our energy consists of four independent and interrelated parts: physical strength, emotion, thinking and will.

These four parts constitute the energy pyramid structure.

The four components of energy will influence each other, and the bottom part will have a greater influence on us.

Physical quality affects mood: I believe everyone can easily understand the influence of body on mood.

It is not difficult to understand that when you are in poor health, your emotional state is not good. When you have a cold and fever, or stay up all night, it is difficult for you to remain calm, positive and optimistic.

If you are ill in hospital, you will have no energy and state.

The influence of emotion on thinking: when you are in a bad mood, it is easy to make wrong judgments.

When your boss criticizes your plan, criticizes it, is it unreasonable to a difficult customer, and has a big fight with your girlfriend, are you not in the mood for work for several days?

Emotion is the psychological background of our daily activities, which will seriously affect our state and efficiency. Without good mood, we can't finish the plan efficiently, and time management becomes empty talk.

The influence of thinking on spiritual motivation: behind many strong willpower, it is actually strong thinking ability. When your thinking is not clear, your pattern and vision will be affected, and it is difficult to find the meaning behind things.

So we can sum up this formula:

High efficiency = abundant physical strength+emotional connection+clear thinking+motivation.

Jim. Lohr spends money on books, and most professionals only consume energy linearly, without paying attention to the storage and recovery of energy. If this is the case for a long time, it will lead to a decline in energy level and low work efficiency, and eventually face a huge crisis. Those who perform well are those who pay attention to storing and restoring energy.

Churchill took a nap during World War II, no matter how urgent the situation was. When Napoleon marched in the war, he took a nap whenever he had time.

Ma Yun, Wang Jianlin, Putin and so on.

They tend to be healthy and pay attention to exercise and health preservation; At the same time, you can maintain a positive and optimistic mood; When they do things, they can ensure clear thinking and concentration; I have a strong sense of mission and significance in what I do, so I can get full spiritual motivation.

To be an efficient person who is good at managing time, energy is the foundation. We can manage and improve our energy level according to the four parts of the energy pyramid.

Take good care of your body, get enough sleep and have a balanced nutrition; Establish close interpersonal relationships and cultivate positive and healthy emotions; Train your brain thinking and attention ability; Find the value and meaning behind your own things and have enough motivation.

Energy is like car oil. If there is no oil in the tank, even the best car is hard to move.

Therefore, while paying attention to time management, we must pay attention to managing our own energy. Abundant energy is the energy source of time management.

You must be familiar with this experience. I was going to exercise at night, but I just wanted to lie on the sofa and brush my mobile phone after work. I plan to read a book at the weekend, but I don't even want to turn it over when the time comes.

For many people, the plan can't be completed. Besides the lack of time and energy, there is another more important factor: procrastination.

Juergen Wolf said in the book Focus that when we procrastinate, we will do all kinds of things, but we won't do what we should.

Procrastination makes us look busy, but we don't do anything really valuable. In fact, we just pretend to be working hard and fall into inefficient busyness.

There are many books and methods to solve procrastination. Here I recommend two methods that I think are very effective:

1, micro-strategy-set a small goal without pressure, so there is no resistance from the beginning.

Stephen? Micro-action strategy in Gus's micro-habit. It is to set a small goal for what you want to do and reduce the resistance to action, so as to complete the plan.

According to Newton's first law, all objects have inertia, and when they are at rest, they will remain at rest.

People behave the same. When you lie motionless on the sofa, your brain tends to stay in this state. And when you start to act, you are acting, and action has inertia. Once you start to stick to or even exceed your goals. It becomes very easy.

For example, if you want to run, don't make such a grand plan as running for 30 minutes every day. Maybe you can persist when you are too good. Once your passion period is over or you are tired, when you are in a bad state, just thinking about running for 30 minutes will cause you great psychological pressure.

But if you set this goal at five minutes. Or just put on running shoes and go outside as a goal, and your psychological pressure will not be so great.

An important step to solve procrastination is to set a very small action goal for what you want to do. There is little pressure on your mind to finish it, even when you are in a bad state, it can be done easily, which is very important to achieve your goal.

2, the implementation intention-for obstacles, set specific action strategies.

The second effective strategy is to adopt the method of executing intention.

Executive intention was put forward by psychologist Peter M. Gorvits.

He found that it is useless to have goals and plans-because once the goals are met with obstacles, plans often become an armchair strategist.

So he invented a coping mechanism, which can effectively overcome this practical obstacle:

For example, a master speaker used this strategy. If he is nervous during the speech, he will tell a joke that he is very familiar with.

For example, if you plan to complete your running plan, you should establish a coping mechanism in advance: if you feel tired and don't want to move, you can put on your running shoes and go out for a walk, telling yourself to go out and talk, which will greatly enhance your chances of completing the plan.

When we make our own plans, we will imagine the obstacles we may encounter in advance. When this kind of obstacle appears, we will formulate specific strategies to deal with it, and continue to strengthen it until it becomes a habit pattern.

By overcoming procrastination and improving our execution, we can focus on what is really important and improve the effect of our time management.

summary

Simple time management can't solve the problem of our lack of time. We must solve the deep logic behind time management, that is, to do the most important things in the best state with limited time and maximize the value of our time output. In order to achieve this goal, we must do the following: