Key takeaways
- Getting your tasks organized and focusing on what matters is more than half the battle. With the help of proven strategies, you can reduce stress, boost productivity, and level up your game.
- Blocking calendars for deep focus and carving out some time in the day for actionable work can reduce distractions and increase productivity.
- Zoho Projects is task management software that helps teams beat the clock, encourages real-time collaboration, and keeps tasks organized.
If you've ever told someone you're "busy," when really you were just sorting through a mess of unorganized tasks, you're not alone. Digital clutter can quietly take over your time. Teams with well-oiled task management systems are less stressed and more productive, leading to boosted morale and improved work-life balance. In contrast, a 2021 Project Management Institute report shows that poor task management methods contribute to 11.4% of wasted project investments.
The reality is, those tasks won't manage themselves, and you need more than just an ordinary to-do list if you're going to be doing extraordinary work. We're talking tried-and-tested task management strategies like the Pomodoro Technique and SMART goals—methods that are proven to streamline task management. And with Zoho Projects, you can retrofit these strategies to align with our features and use them to achieve targets, organize tasks, and stay focused on what actually matters.
1. Pomodoro Technique: Boost focus with timed intervals
The Pomodoro Technique has you to set aside 25 minutes for intense focus, followed by a five-minute break. A simple yet effective strategy, this widely-used technique encourages you to block out distractions—pesky notifications, unimportant phone calls, doomscrolling—so you can zero in on your task. Once you've completed four Pomodoros, you reward yourself with a longer break (usually 15 to 30 minutes).
Why it works
Focusing on work at timely intervals can help you stay consistent, energized, and concentrated. The timed breaks reduce the risk of mental fatigue and give you a moment to refuel in time for the next task.
Zoho Projects tip
Packed with intuitive time-tracking and task management features, Zoho Projects helps you log work with just a click of a button. The task-specific Timer starts works as you do, lets you pause for breaks, and resumes right from where you left. And when you're done, all these details are logged for easy look-up. This functionality helps you keep tabs on your productivity and facilitates iterative improvement.
2. Eisenhower Matrix: Prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance
Also known as the Urgent-Important Matrix, the Eisenhower Matrix is a task management tool that helps you focus on what's important. It starts by categorizing tasks into four quadrants:
- Urgent and important: Do now
These tasks are the most pressing (last-minute deadlines or ad-hoc work), have a direct impact on the project, and deserve your immediate attention. - Important, not urgent: Schedule
Although impactful in the long run, these tasks do not require immediate action and can be scheduled for later. - Urgent, not important: Delegate
These tasks are not time-sensitive but still require action. They can be delegated to other team members. - Neither urgent nor important: Eliminate
These tasks do not fall under the "Urgent" or "Important" categories, so you would want to eliminate them completely.
Why it works
Clearly-defined tasks are easier to categorize and act on, helping you clear the fog of unlabeled tasks and focus on what matters.
Zoho Projects tip
Zoho Projects' Tags feature allows you to label your tasks and tie them to deadlines, which can help you evaluate their urgency and importance. This ensures you're focusing all your efforts on the right work and at the right time. Based on task deadlines, the Gantt chart links the most critical tasks into a sequential chain called the critical path, so you know what tasks pop up first in the rank of importance.
3. Time-blocking: Structure your day for maximum output
It's impossible for anyone to be 100% productive all through the day—not without experiencing brain fog, mental fatigue, and droopy eyelids. Time-blocking is effective in that it fencing off specific periods of the day for activities that demand extra care and attention. This keeps distractions at bay and ensures you dedicate undisturbed time to important work.
Why it works
When you focus on more than one task at a time, your cognitive load increases and your attention is fragmented. This results in sloppy work that does not meet the desired objectives. Time-blocking keeps your focus locked onto one task, so you can put out high-quality work.
Zoho Projects tip
Zoho Projects' Calendar feature not only helps with time-blocking but also with planning, scheduling, and organizing your tasks. Teams across the department can view your schedule for the day, week, and even the month, so you can block your calendar without prior notice. The task management software also tracks your progress, measuring completed work within the time block, and helping you get better as you go.
4. The Two-Minute Rule: Tackle small tasks immediately
Have you ever let tiny, irksome tasks slide, only for them to pile up and become a cascade of problems later? This is where you apply the Two-Minute Rule. If these small tasks take less than two minutes of your time and may eventually get in the way of your larger work, complete them immediately. Your to-do list will be free of debris and will only hold tasks of importance.
Why it works
The feeling of crossing off tasks from your list, no matter the size, is cathartic. Plus, taking care of tasks that are small right when they land on your plate frees up a lot of mental space, stops procrastination, and keeps you available for more methodical work.
Zoho Projects tip
You can use Zoho Projects' Kanban view to categorize tasks, prioritize them based on status, priority, and percentage of completion, and filter out tasks that can be completed in under two minutes.
5. Getting things done (GTD)
David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) system is not just a methodology; it's a lifelong practice that, if done right, can become a part of your everyday routine. It helps you clarify your tasks, define what "done" looks like, and organize them for effective completion.
Why it works
The GTD methodology prevents the need to recall every task, allowing you to focus on getting work done without the mental clutter.
Zoho Projects tip
Zoho Projects lets you streamline and organize your workflows with the Blueprints feature, breaking work items down into smaller units—Task lists, Tasks, and Subtasks—and visualizes progress on the Status Timeline.
6. Batch similar tasks: Minimize task switching
Jumping from one type of task to another can work in your favor, but why work on similar tasks at different times when you could batch them together and complete them in a single burst? Batching similar tasks, limiting them to one time block, and ticking off multiple boxes at once conserves energy, minimizes context switching, and can lead to a significant surge in productivity.
Why it works
Consolidating tasks gets the ball rolling towards your desired outcome, quickly. Task batching and time blocking go hand in hand—you bring similar tasks to a cluster, allocate a specific time in the day to work on them, and minimize inefficiencies to an enormous extent.
Zoho Projects tip
The dashboards and widgets in Zoho Projects allow you to customize task boards, so you can group your tasks and display them visually for faster delegation and enhanced transparency. You can even use the Custom Views option to curate what you see on the task boards and focus on activities that align.
7. The 80/20 Rule: Focus on the most impactful tasks
According to the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule, an estimated 80% of outcomes are a result of 20% of the net effort. In other words, a small amount of effort tends to have significant effects. For instance, say you have two tasks: "Send email to Rebecca about tomorrow's review meeting" and "Finish blog." Which one would have the most impact? The first task. Sending Rebecca an email about the meeting triggers a chain of tasks in succession: she'll book a room, send personal reminders, and make sure the meeting covers topics that require deliberation, collaboration, and ideation. When you've identified tasks that have the highest impact, you prioritize them and sustain your productivity levels.
Why it works
High-value tasks can help you do smart work, put a stop to grunt work, and achieve targets and better results with minimal efforts.
Zoho Projects tip
The Kanban view helps you visualize tasks, set priority levels, and rank high-impact, low-effort tasks that you can complete to bring about remarkable results. You can also customize tags by priority and attach them to tasks for quick identification. To prioritize tasks based on the timeline, open the Gantt chart and observe the critical path.
8. Kanban: Visualize workflow to improve efficiency
Touted as one of the most powerful visual task management tools, the Kanban framework makes use of boards to measure progress and monitor developments from one phase to another, fostering continuous improvement and seamless collaboration.
Why it works
Kanban embraces flexibility, simplifies visualization, and identifies bottlenecks in real time. With a tool like that, you can customize your workflows, optimize work, and improve team collaboration.
Zoho Projects tip
Use the Kanban view to drag and drop tasks across the board's customizable columns, each tailored to suit your team's objective. The visual element makes this method easy to use and helps you deliver better results.
9. Use the SMART method for goal-oriented task planning
The SMART framework gives your tasks and their objectives definitive meaning.
- Specific: How are you defining your tasks?
- Measurable: How do you measure results?
- Achievable: How realistic are the set objectives for your task?
- Relevant: How relevant are the task objectives to the greater goal?
- Time-bound: What's the deadline?
Why it works
SMART goals tend to be sharper and more practical than their counterparts. When you dissect your tasks with the SMART framework, you introduce clarity and purpose to your goals and ramp up productivity.
Zoho Projects tip
In Zoho Projects, you can align your project with SMART goal principles by setting milestones, tracking progress on dashboards, and breaking work down into smaller task lists and measurable tasks. This can bring more clarity and control to your flow.
10. Break big tasks into smaller, actionable steps
A big, menacing project with tasks for tentacles can be scary. But when you break it into smaller portions, you'll be less intimidated and approach each one with a clearer head.
Why it works
Smaller tasks are easier to digest. In fact, it is proven that completing smaller tasks at once provides dopamine boosts, encouraging healthy work habits, increasing productivity, and reducing procrastination.
The Zoho Projects advantage
Zoho Projects is a representation of "classic" project management, where you divide a major portion of a project into smaller tasks. Link task dependencies, add checklists, and create subtasks to map the entire journey. You're able to complete one small task at a time without getting overwhelmed.
Achieving productivity with the right strategies and tools
Task management is about creating a system that lets you work smarter, not harder. When you do that, team collaboration, task prioritization, and progress tracking becomes a piece of cake—something your team can indulge in once you're running at peak productivity!
Zoho Projects is a powerful project management software that stands out through its extensive ecosystem, adapting to various business requirements. With its user-friendly interface, easy-to-implement features, and numerous customizations, Zoho Projects is an invaluable asset for half a million SMBs and enterprises worldwide, helping them scale up and achieve enhanced efficiency.