TIME MANAGEMENT

Time….something that most people don’t have enough of. Something that most people waste.

Time management….an interesting concept since you can’t manage “time”, you can only manage “yourself”.

So what can you do to take better advantage of the time that you do have?

First, you need to figure out what you “actually” do all day long. And it will surprise you. For the next few days write down “every single thing” that you do all day long. Break it down by the hour. If you do multiple things in that hour write it down. After a few days take a good look at your log and you will see how much time you actually waste.

Second, decide what’s important in your life (or business) and what you really want to accomplish. Then come up with a game plan, a timeline on how you are going to accomplish those goals.

People continuously complain that they don’t have enough time to get everything done in a day or to reach their “goal”. By seeing how much time you actually waste during the day you can start to make changes in yourself and re-claim some lost time.

A few ideas on managing your time:

Make each outing a “multiple purpose” event. When you are using your car make the most out of the trip by combining errands. Go to the grocery store, post office and dry cleaners all in the same trip instead of three (3) separate trips. You will save time and money on gas and wear and tear on your car.

When you have an appointment where you will be waiting (such as a doctors office or at the car shop or waiting to pick up your kids from ballet) use that time to catch up on reading your magazines or mail. Or doing homework or studying.

While waiting for the roast to be done for dinner…throw in a load of laundry.

Avoid interruptions at work by letting people know that they need to make an appointment to talk to you. This makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Be nice but be firm and say something like, “I’m in the middle of a project now, can you come back at 2 pm so that I can give you my full attention?”.

Be considerate of other employee’s time by saving up all of your questions and asking them when they have time, instead of continually stopping by and asking them ten questions throughout the day.

Learn to say “no”. (a hard one for many people)

Plan your tomorrow, today. At the end of the day today, plan out your schedule for tomorrow. That way you’ll know what to expect and will leave yourself plenty of time to get things done. Be sure to leave enough time for “unexpected” emergencies. You can also group all of your activities that require driving into a logical order.

Break your main project up into smaller projects to make them more manageable . This will also give you the feeling of having accomplished something when you finish a project.

Don’t over schedule your day or you will be stressed out. And that’s when you make mistakes.

Time…. Learn to manage it….. Don’t let it manage you.


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