6 Tips To Mange Your Time And Improve Your Life
Time is one commodity we never seem to have enough of and that can get in the way of accomplishments. Learn to manage your time better so that you can become more efficient in your approach to nearly everything.
1. Practice discipline. Time management demands more discipline than most of us are accustomed to; if you put off a task so you can check your email or chat on the phone endlessly, you lose valuable opportunities. Realize the important role discipline plays in your effectiveness and get tasks out of the way first.
2. Identify your poor time-management habits. You can probably look back on the past week and pick out two or four things you did often that kept you from really getting down to business. Focus on these poor habits and make a point of eliminating them from your schedule. At the end of next week, you should see a remarkable improvement in what you were able to accomplish.
3. Make lists and prioritize goals. Write down the top three to five things you must accomplish in the day, and add on other less important things like errands or cleaning. Make your mind up to tackle the major issues without delay or dilly-dallying and you should find ample time to get everything on your list done. If you're really good at it, you will have time at the end of the day to savor the good feeling you get when you become an efficient manager of time.
4. Don't allow waiting time to go to waste. We spend a lot of our time waiting in lines or on the phone and rather than just sitting there doing nothing, could be getting little things out of the way. Keep a journal or PDA with you at all times and whenever you find yourself idle, focus on tomorrow's list of priorities or whip up that letter you will be needing to send. There is always something to do and time waiting should not be wasted.
5. Allocate accomplishments in time frames. If something should only take an hour to complete, then schedule it in for an hour and see it through. Knowing how long it takes to efficiently complete a task will help you manage all that you've got to do more wisely. If you allow very little time for waste, you will automatically stay on schedule and see the big picture of the total day's accomplishments more clearly.
6. Stop blaming the clock. Time management really isn't about time itself, because you really have no control over it; it's about managing yourself and how you perform. Maybe we all could benefit from having more hours in a day, but since there is no way of doing that, we've got to learn how to empower ourselves to accomplish more in a given time. Just wasting 10 minutes a day adds up to over 60 hours in a year!
The more time you are able to free-up in your day, the more things you can get done. Manage the hours better and leave yourself more opportunities to work on yourself, your problems or anything else standing in the way of your becoming who you truly want to be.
