Time Management Help

Are you finding it difficult to fit all of the things you want to do into each day? Is overtime becoming the norm for you? Do you feel like you are missing out on the best things in life because you don't have enough time?

If you do it is okay as most of us feel like this on a regular basis. Perhaps you are spending extra hours each evening at the weekend trying to get your work completed. 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. These time worries are fixable, and it is not as difficult to your think. 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.

One step for time management help is learning how to manage yourself

Each day has only 24 hours. That is not going to change so we are going to have to accept it. 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. Forget about everything else.

It is important to point out at this stage that making the changes necessary to manage your time effectively can mean making some fundamental changes in your lifestyle. Because of this, you need to take one step at a time. Trying to make big changes at the beginning might be too much for you, so start with small steps.

Another step for time management help is knowing more about yourself

To really manage your time effectively you must first learn to know yourself. With the pressures of modern life it is easy to lose sight of what we really want in our lives. It is difficult to identify where and when this happens, but it inevitably does.

So this is the first step in effective time management - finding out what you really want from 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 you envisage your life at that time? This could help you to get in touch with your vision. It is likely that some of your priorities will have changed since then, but many will have remained the same.

Think about how you would like your life to be at home and at your work. You should also think about your capabilities and what is possible for you in life. We will call this your vision.

Where are you now?

If you followed the steps above you should be able to picture your ideal life accurately. Now comes the scary part. I want you to compare this vision of your ideal life to your life as it really is now. For most people, the difference between the two can be quite daunting.

Don't worry if this is the case as bridging the gap between your ideal reality and your life now is much easier than you would expect. You may think of effective time management as a tool that will help you to get you to meetings on time. Not true. Effective time management can transform your life on a much more fundamental level.

Achieving your ideal reality will involve little changes and big changes in your life. For example, watching less television, that is a little change. A big change might be starting up your own business. 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.

So have a think about your goals and as an experiment pick two that you want to achieve, one small and one big. Once you have chosen, you should decide on one small step you can take towards achieving each of these tomorrow. If you can complete the one step towards achieving each goal then you have made an excellent start.

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, doing this effectively requires a lot of planning so that you complete all of the tasks you need to do each day while ensuring that all of these tasks are in line with your vision.

So for every day you need a clear plan, a time plan. You need to have a very clear idea of what needs to be done, how long it will take, and when it is going to be done. 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. This will show you exactly how long different tasks and activities take. When you know how long each task will take, you can plan your day much more accurately.

The 4 Ds of time management

Now you can move onto looking more closely at the things you need to do each day and deciding how to handle them. So let me introduce you to the four Ds of self-management. Which are:

* Do it - Get it done, the sooner the better. * Delegate it - This task doesn't suit you, get someone else to do 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 let's not forget time wasters. Time wasters eat into our time and can make it very difficult to manage our time effectively. 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 or poor planning - File things properly, write down appointments, that kind of thing. Basically, you need to be organized to use your time effectively.

* Procrastination - Many people keep deferring things when they are best done immediately. Don't fall into this trap.

* Failure to delegate - Are there tasks in your day that are not effective use of your time? If so, delegate them.

* Interruptions - Don't let clutter and noise eat into your productive time. Make sure there are no interruptions when you want to work.

Try to identify the time wasters that are holding you back and eliminate them from your life.

This was a crash course in time management but should get you started. As a general rule, try to take it step by step and as you make a change maintain it until it becomes a natural part of your life. Each of these small steps will bring you closer to your vision and leave you with time to do all of the things you want each day.