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What Is Time Management?

Do you struggle to find time for all the things you want to do? Are you struggling to cope with the demands of your job? Do you feel like you are missing out on the best things in life because you don't have enough time?

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. It could be that the pressures of your professional life are getting you down. Or you do not have time to spend with your children that you feel they deserve.

However, don't worry just yet. 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. As well as finding more time for the things you want to do, you will also be more fulfilled in your life.

So, What Is Time Management? - One part of it is learning to manage yourself

Each day has only 24 hours. 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 have to identify the things in life that truly matter to you - this is where you should spend your time. Forget about everything else.

Managing your time effectively will bring about some dramatic improvements in your life, but you must be prepared to make some fundamental changes. However, there is no need to rush, you can make the necessary changes at your own pace. It is best to go slowly, at least to begin with, as you may not succeed if you try to do too much, too soon.

Another elemenet of what is time management is knowing yourself

Knowing yourself is the essential first step on the road to effective time management. 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 before you can really begin to look at your time management you need to figure out what you want out of life. This is where you find 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? What you wanted then may really be what you want now, it may just be that you have lost sight of your true vision. Your vision now may not exactly match what you wanted then, but it will probably be close.

Also ask yourself how you would like your personal and professional life to be. You should also think about your capabilities and what is possible for you in life. When this becomes clear to you, you have found your vision.

Where are you now?

At this stage you probably have a fairly clear picture of what your ideal life would be like. So here comes the tough 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.

However, no matter how wide the gap is between your ideal reality and how you live your life now, it can be bridged. There is a widely held belief that effective time management is about good time-keeping. Not so. 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. A small change would be something like taking a walk every evening. A big change might be starting up your own business. However, both are achievable with the right approach. You will have to take a close look at how your hours are spent and make the necessary adjustments so you can achieve what you want to achieve.

Planning your day.

You should start by picking two things you want to achieve, one big and one small. 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.

In truth, this is just a first step on a long journey but the point is to show that effective time management and achieving your ideal life can be achieved and the process can be rewarding. 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.

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. At the beginning it can be difficult to know how long each task will take so it may be a good idea to keep a time log for a week before starting to keep a time plan. In your time log you need to write down what you do every day and how long it takes. 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. When you know how long each task will take, you can plan your day much more accurately.

The 4 Ds of time management

To truly manage your time effectively you have to look at the tasks that need doing and decide how to handle them. For this you will need the four Ds of self-management. These are:

* Do it - This needs to be done immediately. * Delegate it - Not the best use of your time. Pass it on to someone else. * Dump it - Anything that is unimportant now and in the future. Bin it. * Defer it - Something for the 'to do' pile. Come back to it later.

You should be able to file any task that arises in your average day under one of the four Ds.

Time wasters

Now let's look at time wasters. These are basically the things that eat into your time unnecessarily and are arguably the single greatest barrier to effective time management. This is mainly because they can be very hard to spot and are often the most trivial things.

Here are just a few time wasters:

* 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.

* Not delegating - No one person can be good at everything. You need to delegate tasks that eat into your time unnecessarily to other people.

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

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

These were just a few tips to get you started. If you take this process in small steps it will be much easier to incorporate the necessary changes into your life. 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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