How You Can Use the 18-Minute strategy to Improve Your Time Management When Learning from Home

Many people have problems when working or learning in the home office. They lack motivation, are easily distracted, or waste time on unimportant tasks. Due to the proximity to the private environment, learning at home often lacks a professional structure that makes your work productive. Instead of working purposefully on the implementation of your goals, you let yourself drift.

But this disorderly approach, combined with a lack of control, leads to a way of working that has nothing to do with efficiency or good results. You’re wasting time and energy. In this article, I will introduce you to the 18-minute strategy so that you can bundle your strengths in the home office and work through your to-do list in a concentrated manner.

With the help of this planning method, you can structure your day, work in a focused manner over a long period of time and control yourself. The 18-minute strategy is a multifunctional tool – that means: Regardless of whether you work from home, in an open-plan office, or in the library: With this rule you will be able to organize your work processes and significantly improve your time management.

This is How the 18-Minute strategy Works

The 18-minute strategy goes back to the author Peter Bregman and describes a concept that you can use to plan your day. Peter’s goal is to spend as little time as possible on planning and still create an efficient structure. For this reason, the 18-minute strategy is very simple and can be applied almost identically every day. In principle, it consists of three steps:

Step 1

Take five minutes each morning to plan your day. What tasks do you want to do? What are your priorities? What is your most important goal?

Step 2

Step 3

Set aside five minutes each evening to analyze the past day. what have you achieved Are you happy with your work? What could you do better?

The next day you repeat this process and apply the 18-minute strategy again. Incidentally, this method got its name from its total duration:

5 minutes + 8 minutes + 5 minutes = 18 minutes

However, why this rule is so effective is not only due to its simple implementation.

Core Idea of the 18-Minute strategy

The 18-minute strategy isn’t about thinking about the way you work exactly eight times a day for one minute—it’s about thinking at all. Self-reflection is the magic word: If you want to use your time productively, you have to regularly question your own actions. Mindlessly working through your to-do list and sticking to inefficient behavioral patterns will not get you anywhere.

On the other hand, if you plan your day every morning before you start work, it will be much easier for you to tackle the really important things in your life. If you then manage to evaluate your activities at regular intervals (once an hour), you will most likely remain productive and focused. An evening conclusion with a critical look at your day will make you better in the long term and give you new energy for the next day.

These mechanisms make the 18-minute strategy so valuable. Planning and self-reflection ensure that you break bad habits and achieve your goals step by step. This in turn increases your self-esteem and increases your motivation – a circle of heaven.

Not convinced yet? Then let’s take a closer look at the benefits of the 18-minute strategy.

Benefits of the 18-Minute strategy

The 18 Minute strategy gets you structuring your day, planning your activities, and constantly evaluating them. This method puts your focus on HOW you work. These are the top seven benefits that come from this:

• Planning in the morning gives you an overview of the day.
• Collecting tasks and appointments ensures that you don’t forget any important to-dos.
• By setting priorities, you ensure that you use your time wisely.
• The alarm clock that rings once an hour ensures that you structure your tasks and work through them in stages.
• The phases of self-reflection help you to stay focused and eliminate mistakes.
• The small interruptions also serve as a break and promote your mental freshness.
• With the help of the critical analysis in the evening, you can evaluate your day and improve yourself in the long term.

In addition, the 18-minute strategy is flexible. That means: You can also use the methodology for a four-hour workday or for a 12-hour marathon. The 18 minutes then become 14 or 22 minutes (because the number of reflection interruptions varies).

Conclusion

Planning and self-reflection are the core ideas of the 18-minute strategy – and it is precisely these two qualities that can make you a goal-oriented and efficient person. You can use the 18-minute strategy to organize your workday and ensure that you stay focused and motivated over a long period of time.

In addition, this time management method helps you to develop productive habits and to discard unfavorable behavior patterns at the same time. You can practice this method by delegating your assignments to professionals on writing services where you can easily say “Summarize this for me.”

This technology is worth its weight in gold, especially when learning from home. With the 18-minute strategy, you can control yourself and make sure that you use your time for the important things – without having someone else constantly looking over your shoulder.