Would You Like More Time In Your Day Every Day?
A lot of people think that they have a lot of time in their hands so they go on doing things according to what they see is fit, but at the end of the day, they realize that they have run out of time and there is nothing they can do to salvage things. You always hear this being said over and over again: “Too much to do, too little time”, and you wonder how it could be because everybody gets twenty-fours in a day and if others can be highly productive given this amount of time, why can’t you?
As difficult as it may be to hear, you and I are masters at letting valuable moments slip through our fingers and disappearing forever.
There are still going to be plenty of days where you just don’t know what went wrong. You seemed extremely busy and yet you got very little accomplished. On days like that, you might want to review all the things you remember that might have stolen your time. Were you on the phone a lot? Did you get caught up in a conversation with a friend? Surf the Internet? Read all the funny emails you got during the day? Follow these tips to clear up your time:
Plan goals a week in advance: The key tasks you need to accomplish each week should be worked out in advance so that you know where you need to focus your energies in the coming week.
Don’t think you have to be totally accessible all of the time: When you have important tasks to complete try to make sure you switch off your cell phone and stop checking your emails for the duration. This will allow you to make optimal use of your time by focusing entirely on the single task at hand without time-wasting distractions.
Have an agenda for each meeting: Make sure that you have a clear list of everything to be discussed at every meeting and that every attendee gets that agenda ahead of time. During the meeting make sure that you keep from becoming sidetracked so that you waste the minimum amount of time.
It’s ok to say no: It’s easy to get sidetracked when someone asks for a favor. You want to be a good friend or coworker, so you drop what you’re doing to lend a hand. Chances are great you’ll never get back to what you were doing. Simply tell them you’ll be happy to help when you’re finished with what you’re doing.
One thing at a time: One of the greatest ways to lose time is trying to do everything at once. Stay focused on one task at a time until it’s completed. Then go on to the next. You’ll be shocked at what you can accomplish.
Work above it: If you are running a project or involved with a business then by learning to work outside of the project you are positioning yourself for more effective management of the tasks and resources. If you are the person implementing everything then your project will soon fall apart simply through lack of resources. Your time is an important resource, sure, but it is the most limited one you have. Build a team and have them implement everything for you. This will free up your time to spend on other things such as growing the business, or enhancing the project. The more time you have for long term strategy and implementing process improvements then the more can be done overall.
Never procrastinate: Whatever it is that you have to do, do it now because the moment you think that there is more time ahead of you, you are headed downhill. Do not keep things that you have to do, up to the last minute and here is why: If you rush things to the deadline, you may not have estimated the time properly and end up not finishing your task. In the end, you may not make it and all your efforts will be useless. Work that is a product of a rush job is usually poor quality. If you take time to do your work, you can tinker at it even more and come up with a masterpiece.
Spend Some Time Alone: Being alone helps you calm your thoughts. You are so amassed with ideas from work, from problems at home, that you find it very difficult to concentrate on a task at hand. Even if you take that sleeping pill to suppress your brain’s activity, you will still find yourself all cluttered with ideas the next morning. You must have that time to sit down, be with your thoughts, and master them so they will not interfere with you when you need to have your wits about you.
At The Office: Have a desk organizer or a magazine table top holder and arrange your tasks accordingly. If you want, you can buy different sets of colors to fully categorize each project. Red is for urgent, that you need done within a couple of hours. Yellow would be for projects that can be done at the end of the day. Green would be projects that you have a couple of days to prepare. Prioritization is the key to organizing your work desk. Urgent reports should be done first so you won’t have to be stressed at the end of the day when your boss repeatedly demanding for a finished report.
Know how to make painless adjustments: Sometimes, even if you are most careful, you will end up not going according to plan, and you will miss out on something. When this happens, you should learn how to quickly make arrangements that can accommodate things that you were not able to do and still allow for the rest of the stuff to be completed. This is part of your job. You need to know how to make quick adjustments that will not hurt the plan.
Switch tasks when you get stumped and cannot come up with the right solution to a problem: This makes your mind relax and stop concentrating on the problem. Somehow the mind, however, continues to work on the problem. When you go back to the problem, relaxed and refreshed, the mind jumps back in and the solution is usually revealed. Putting off a decision sometimes is the best path if you are not sure you do not have the right solution.
See if you can make routine tasks automatic: Do you have letters that need to be sent many times to clients? Do you have questions that are asked over and over again? Are there special situations that are resolved in the same way many times? Try to think through your business and the time being spent and put a series of autoresponder messages together that you can send when necessary. This will free you up tremendously for time to spend on tasks that are more creative and challenging.
Stress Relief at Work: Sometimes when a person has many tasks to complete it is quite easy to forget some of them. Times like this are what make a schedule so helpful. When you write down each task you need to complete and when it is due you can easily look back over the list to see what needs to be done and in what order. In the beginning you should keep your lists small. Five items or less should be the limit but make them the five most important things that need to be done. Once you complete a list make another of the next five most important things and work from there. Starting out small like this often gives people a better sense that they are in control of how things are progressing
Signs That You Need Time Management Training: Day in, day out, you always have to do some overtime work at your station but still feel like there’s still a lot to be done. Project requests, paper works, staff meetings, all seem to be cluttered and disorganized that you don’t know which one would start on what date and what should be finished on this date. At home there is still some laundry to be done, dinner plates still unwashed or dishes still left in the dish washer. What’s worse, you don’t have the energy to do all of them, or the time for you have brought your work home with you. You are so stressed out, you snap and snarl at anyone who interrupts your work time and you don’t have enough energy to simply enjoy the company of your family.
As we grow old, everyone is giving us the virtues of being there for other people; of putting other people first before ourselves. Of finding the joy in helping others even though we are bone weary. But no one has told us to give some time to ourselves to improve and be more productive and effective.
As difficult as it may be to hear, you and I are masters at letting valuable moments slip through our fingers and disappearing forever. How many times have you heard yourself say “I’ll get to it in a minute”? Or “don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of time”? How about when you’re at work and you’ve got a project to get done by the end of the day? By the time you’ve gotten your coffee, said good morning to your co-workers, checked your email, refilled your coffee, and finally settled down to business — it’s really too close to lunch to start anything serious.
There is no such thing as having too little time, especially if you know how to use time well. Time management has led many people to the acme of their dreams and it could take you to yours. Remember these suggestions and soon time management becomes a much simpler process, and projects become a more fluid and enjoyable thing to work with.
Being efficient and effective, by utilizing the best practices for your Time management in the workplace is essential to your career development and success.? When you visit the site you can get a free ebook about time management tipsthat shows you how to maximize your time, the types of time management techniques you can use, and much more