Having a work-from-home job is a dream come true for many people. But even the most dedicated remote worker can sometimes get distracted, and without the traditional workplace structure, it’s easy to lose track of time. Mastering your time management is a great way to ensure you’re successful at working remotely. Utilize these tips to figure out how to make the most of your days and maximize your time, so you can enjoy a healthy work-life balance.
Before you can effectively improve your time management skills, you should figure out how you are actually spending your time. Get a planner or use your calendar to keep track of your daily activities so you can balance your appointments, social time, workouts, and everything else with your work schedule.
Once you have a better sense of how you spend your time, make sure your schedule aligns with your priorities. For example, if you like to finish your work by 3pm every day, you’ll want to make sure your morning schedule supports that.
It’s hard to manage your time effectively when you don’t know how long a task will take you. When you’re working, it’s a good idea to monitor your time and see how long it takes you to complete things.
Here at Appen, time management and tracking varies from project to project. Some projects track production time within the annotation tool directly, while other projects require our contractors to track their time independently. Free online apps such as RescueTime or Clockify can help you when you must track your own time independently — but make sure to only track time when you’re actually rating in the tool, and pause during breaks or other activities beyond rating. By utilizing a time management app, you can accurately track time spent during annotation; as we well know, time can “fly by” or “crawl forward at a snail’s pace” depending on the time of day, difficulty of the task, environment, mood, and other factors.
Once a time management system is identified, you can then work to improve your overall speed with that of the project defined RPH (Rate Per Hour) goals. For most projects, quality and speed are the key components to a successful rating experience — with quality more important than speed. Asking your project contact and/or discussing on the company’s social boards with fellow contractors can often lead to helpful insights into improving RPH, such as using shortcut keys, managing time spent for side searches, and taking scheduled breaks.
Assess how you currently spend your time
Before you can effectively improve your time management skills, you should figure out how you are actually spending your time. Get a planner or use your calendar to keep track of your daily activities so you can balance your appointments, social time, workouts, and everything else with your work schedule.
Once you have a better sense of how you spend your time, make sure your schedule aligns with your priorities. For example, if you like to finish your work by 3pm every day, you’ll want to make sure your morning schedule supports that.
Assess how you currently spend your timeAlign your schedule with your priorities
Prioritizing our time is something we can all use a little help with. Most people’s natural inclination is to respond to our most urgent tasks instead of strategic prioritizing and planning for future efficiency. To break that habit, follow these steps, popularized by Steven Covey in his book First Things First:- Create a 2×2 table.
- Write “Important” over the first column and “Not Important” over the second.
- Write “Urgent” on the left side of the top row, and “Not Urgent” beside the bottom row.
- Categorize your tasks according to how urgent and important they are.
- The most important tasks will fall in both the “Important” and “Urgent” categories. Focus on those first.
Keep track of your time
