How To Use The Law Of 45/15 On Time Management To Release Time Stress

nTime stress has greater and greater influence on our life. We always find ways on time management to release time stress or improve productivity. Many of us work using one hour as work unit, so it is practical to use this one hour with improved productivity. Here we will share a law of 45/15 on one-hour time management which will help you boost your productivity. n

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nnnTag: time stress, productivity booster, productivity improvement, time management n

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nWhat is the law of 45/15? n

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nThe law of 45/15 means dividing one hour into two parts: the first 45 minutes and the latter 15 minutes. The first part is used to complete important and relatively difficult work and the second part is used to deal with other unimportant things or things with enough time. n

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nThings belonging to the first part are those which will have great influence on us sooner or later. They seem important and urgent to you or only important to you. Even if it is not urgent, we still shall give enough attention to these things and arrange them to use the first 45 minutes of one hour. Such things are not certain and they are changing with your job, work, interests and roles in your life. For example, if I am an IT engineer, the things which are important and urgent to me are programs, designs and related projects, while reading professional books seems not the very urgent things but it is important. If you are a teacher on time management, the important (whether urgent or not) things may be reading books, preparing lectures and self-trained to get more experienced. In the famous four-quadrant time management method, the things in the first quadrant and third quadrant can use the first 45 minutes. n

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nThings belonging to the second part are those which will rob away much of your time but give you little benefit. They seem urgent, but they are not important indeed. Sometimes they are neither urgent nor important at all. For example, something can be taken better care of by others than you is such 15-minute thing. Corresponding to the four-quadrant time management method, the things in the second quadrant and fourth quadrant can use the latter 15 minutes of one hour. n

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nHow to put the law of 45/15 into practice? n

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nThere are 3 simple steps to help you carry on the law of 45/15: n

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n1 setting up a to-do list for tomorrow and marking out the important thingsnn Setting up a to-do list is relative easy for us. Just write down six things coming to your brain before you set up the to-do list. It is difficult and needn’t to seek for perfection on making to-do list at first. Just writing down six things is ok as well.nn Looking at these six things and find out which will have greater influence on you. In fact, it can be relatively easy to find out the things through answering such a question:nn What will happen to me if I can’t complete this thing in time?nn We can arrange the order of the things listed according to the consequences of these answers. After we find out the order, mark the first 3 things with red flags. Here “3” can be different with different people. If you are of high-efficiency, you can mark 4 things or more, while 3 is suitable for most of people. n

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n2 Finding a countdown timer to divide one hour into 2 parts: the first 45 minutes and the latter 15 minutes.nn You can buy such a countdown timer or use a kind of software in your computer. Pick out a marked thing in the list, setting 45 minutes to count down for these marked things. Every time the 45 minutes pass, the left minutes can be used to complete the unmarked things. n

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n3 Using the first 45 minutes to complete the marked important things and the latter 15 minutes to complete the unmarked things. nn If we can’t finish one task in just 15 minutes or 45 minutes, just put it to the next 15 minutes and 45 minutes to do. n

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nAbout the resource n

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nCountdown timer: you can buy a digital watch which is always has such countdown function. If you are working with computer, just download such software to carry on countdown. For example, you can download one free countdown timer through google using the keywords “countdown freeware download”. n

nnExtended reading:nnpractical tips on time management and productivity improvement