Keep a to-do list on your desktop

Have you ever wondered how some individuals accomplish a lot of things in a day whilst you find it hard to complete anything but the necessary? It might seem like a confusing task to manage your time. But once you understand how and what to it will be easier to schedule your days more productively. This is why you should keep a to-do list.

Create a list. Jot down everything that you have to accomplish, such as studying for a test; collecting laundry or going to the gym. Having the tasks lined up can help you to keep them in your mind. You can create the list on a paper, but it’s much better to use a computer to-do list.

Prioritize. As soon as you have written down your tasks, rank the items based on the criteria of importance and urgency. Put the task into priority according to deadline/time. In case some tasks don't have a due date, prioritize based on the most significant or perhaps the most profitable. Learning how to prioritize can remove stress from your day and leave you in control.

Schedule your time. Once you finish prioritizing, come up with a clear deadline for each task before you become bogged down and forget about other things that you have to do. For instance, allocate 1 hour for gym class, 45 minutes for grocery shopping, 30 minutes to eat dinner etc. More general approach might work for some people better, find out if a strict time schedule is working for you or not.

Discipline yourself. After you have started something, you must have the discipline to complete it. Spending long hours watching TV or talking on the phone will definitely take up the time that should be spent doing important things daily. When you have set a certain time frame for an activity, adhere to it unless of course you genuinely have to extend the time.

Stop procrastinating. While relaxing is definitely a good way for you to pause between activities, if you do this excessively you could waste a lot of hours. When you're overbooked, you can say "NO". Always be kind to yourself and remember that you have 24 hours in one day and regardless of how you good you can manage your time, when your schedule is full it will be torture to squeeze in more work.

Turn it into a habit. Adhering to your plan might be easier to say than to actually do it, but you could make it doable when you extend your patience a little. Of course, it will be hard to manage all your tasks in 24 hours, but if you turn it into a habit and stick to the schedule, then it will be much easier in the long-term.