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Efficient Time Management

Do you find that there are just not enough hours in the day? Do you find yourself staying late at work to get everything finished? Do you wish you had more time to spend doing the things that you really want to do?

Most likely you answered yes to one or more of these questions and feel like you are not really where you want to be in life. You may be under stress because you are not achieving enough in your professional life. Or you feel bad because you are missing out on important occasions with family and friends.

Do not fret, your worries could soon be over. There is a solution to your problems. It only takes a few small adjustments in the way you use your time to change your life forever. This is not only about managing your time effectively, it can change your life fundamentally and for the better.

For efficient time management you need to manage yourself

There are 24 hours in the day. This is something that you have to accept because it will not change. You can not manage time, but you can manage yourself. This is where the answer to effective time management lies. You must train yourself to focus on the things that really matter to you and spend your time on these things only. Everything else should be eliminated from your life.

Making the changes necessary to manage your time effectively can be rewarding and fun, but some of these changes will take a leap of faith on your part. For this reason it is important to take it at your own pace and make one change at a time. If you bite off more than you can chew at the beginning there is a chance you may fail.

Efficient time management includes understanding yourself well.

To really manage your time effectively you must first learn to know yourself. As we grow older it is easy to lose track of the things that really matter to us in life. It is amazing that we can let this happen to us, but it happens all too easily.

So before you can really begin to look at your time management you need to figure out what you want out of life. You need to get in touch with yourself and discover your vision. Cast yourself back to when you were an adolescent or a young adult, a time when anything seemed possible. How did your dream life look then, what did you really want in your heart? This could help you to get in touch with your vision. No doubt, some priorities will have changed, but many will have remained the same.

Also ask yourself how you would like your personal and professional life to be. And think about what is possible for you and what you can really achieve. We will call this your vision.

Where are you now?

At this stage you probably have a fairly clear picture of what your ideal life would be like. Now comes the scary part. You need to look at your life now and compare it to your vision, to how you would really like your life to be like. Be prepared for a shock here as there will most likely be a vast difference between the two.

However, do not let this phase you as it is always possible to bridge the gap between the two if you believe in yourself. Many people think effective time management is all about calendars and diaries. Not so. Effective time management is much more about you and how you choose to spend your time.

If you really want to manage your time effectively you will have to make some major changes and minor changes in your life. A small change would be something like taking a walk every evening. A major change could be quitting your job to travel the world. However, if you put your mind to it you could achieve either of these. You need to examine how you spend your time each day and make the necessary changes to achieve your goals.

Planning your day.

You should start by picking two things you want to achieve, one big and one small. Now, you want to think of one small step you can take towards achieving these that you can incorporate into one day. If you can do this, and complete those steps then you are on the way.

This is just one very small step on the way to effective time management but should show you that if you go at your own pace that it is far from impossible. However, you must be much more meticulous in planning your days so that you complete everything you need to do while only spending time on the things that really matter to you.

This is where a time plan comes in. Each day, you will need to have a clear idea of what needs doing and find a suitable place for it on your schedule. To help you in this it is useful to keep a time log for a week or two before beginning to plan your time in detail. With a time log you write down in detail how you spend your time. Do this for a few days and you will get a clear idea of how you spend your days and how long various tasks take you. Then you can really plan your days accurately.

The 4 Ds of time management

Now, as you make your time plan for each day you need to decide how to handle the various tasks that need doing, and how to deal with any new tasks that may arise. This is where the 4 Ds of time management come in. They are:

* Do it - Get it done, the sooner the better. * Delegate it - It needs to be done, but someone else can take care of it. * Dump it - Not important. Forget about it. * Defer it - This needs doing but not now, so it can wait.

When you plan your day, and even during the day, you should be able to file all the things that need doing under one of the four Ds.

Time wasters

And finally a quick word on time wasters. These are basically the things that eat into your time unnecessarily and are arguably the single greatest barrier to effective time management. They can be the most trivial of things, and are therefore very hard to spot.

These are some time wasters to watch out for:

* Lack of planning or bad planning - Develop a good filing system and know how you are going to spend your days. Being neat in your habits will help you manage your time more effectively.

* Procrastination - Some things need to be done now. Don't get into the habit of putting things off unnecessarily.

* Not delegating - You can't do it all yourself. Do the things that you are good at and enjoy. Someone else can do the rest.

* Interruptions - Set up your workspace so that there are no distractions that will disrupt your workflow.

These are just a few of the time wasters that could be affecting your effective time management.

These are just some of the basics of effective time management. Breaking old habits isn't easy so take the changes you need to make one step at a time. As you continue on the journey to effective time management you will find yourself more fulfilled and with more time on your hands for the things that matter to you.

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