Time Management Skills

  Do you find that there are just not enough hours in the day? Is overtime becoming the norm for you? 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 do not have time to spend with your children that you feel they deserve.

 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. Not only will this help you manage your time more effectively, it can help you to achieve the things you really want to in life.

 Time management skills - Manage yourself

 Each day has only 24 hours. This is something that will not change and we can do nothing about it. While you may not be able to control this, you can manage yourself. 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 is just a waste of time.

 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. 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.

 Time management skills - Know yourself

 Knowing yourself is the essential first step on the road to effective time management. In modern society there are so many distractions we can easily lose our focus on what we really want in our lives. It is amazing that we can let this happen to us, but it happens all too easily.

 So this is the first step in effective time management - finding out what you really want from life. This is where you find your vision. Remember a time earlier in your life when you felt anything was possible. What were your dreams and aims when you were that age? 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.

 You should also think about how you would like your life to be both in terms of your professional life and your personal life. Also consider your potential and what you think you can really achieve in life. This is your vision.

 Where are you now?

 At this stage you probably have a fairly clear picture of what your ideal life would be like. The next step is tricky. You must take your vision and compare it to your life at present. 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. This is not the case. Effective time management goes much deeper than that and can make major changes to the way you live your life.

 If you really want to manage your time effectively you will have to make some major changes and minor changes in your life. For example, watching less television, that is a little change. A big change might be starting up your own business. There is a big difference between the two, but both goals are attainable. You need to look at how you spend your days and plan your time with a view to achieving these goals.

 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 do this successfully and complete the step you are on the road to success.

 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.

 This is where a time plan comes in. 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. 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

 Now you can move onto looking more closely at the things you need to do each day and deciding how to handle them. This is where the 4 Ds of time management come in. They are:

 *  Do it - This can not wait and needs to be taken care of now. * Delegate it - This task doesn't suit you, get someone else to do it. * Dump it - This is not important, thrash it. * Defer it - This needs doing but not now, so it can wait.

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

 Hopefully, this will help you get started in managing your time more effectively. Breaking old habits isn't easy so take the changes you need to make one step at a time. If you maintain this you will find yourself becoming more content in life and with much more time for the things that matter to you.