Free Time Management Tips

 

 If you’re wishing there were more hours in the day then these free time management tips will help you to make better use of your time. Is overtime becoming the norm for you? Do you feel dissatisfied in your professional or personal life?



 If you answered yes to any or all of the above questions you are probably not feeling too good right now. It could be that the pressures of your professional life are getting you down. Or you feel that you just do not have the time to achieve your goals in life.

 Don't worry, it may not be as bad as you think. 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.

 Free time management tips to help you manage yourself

 There are 24 hours in the day. That is not going to change so we are going to have to accept it. Time can not be changed, but the way you approach it can. This is the secret of effective time management. You must look at the things that are important to you in life and devote your time to these. Everything else should be eliminated from your life.

 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. 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.

 Free time management tips to help you know yourself better

 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. For most people, this is an unfortunate fact of life.

 So before you can really begin to look at your time management you need to figure out what you want out of life. When you discover this you have discovered 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. You should also think about your capabilities and what is possible for you in life. This is your vision.

 Where are you now?

 By now, you should have a reasonable idea of what you would like your life to be like. The next step is tricky. I want you to compare this vision of your ideal life to your life as it really is now. If you are writing all of this down, the difference between the two probably will not make for very pleasant reading.

 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 can transform your life on a much more fundamental level.

 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. Quitting your job and starting a business, that is a big change. However, both are achievable with the right approach. You need to look at how you spend your days and plan your time with a view to achieving these goals.

  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. 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 - Anything that is unimportant now and in the future. Bin it. * Defer it - This needs doing but not now, so it can wait.

 Most, if not all, of the tasks and activities day can be put into these categories.

 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. They can be the most trivial of things, and are therefore very hard to spot.

 Examples of common time wasters are :

 * 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 - No one person can be good at everything. You need to delegate tasks that eat into your time unnecessarily to other people.

 * Interruptions - Chatty colleagues, needless phonecalls, noisy surroundings. These can all distract you from the task at hand and should be removed.

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

 These are just some of the basics of effective time management. 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. As you continue to take more steps you will move closer and closer to your goals and find yourself with all the time you need for the things you want to do.