Great Tips To Manage Your Most Important Asset - Time

By:Gray Rollins

Some of us pride ourselves on our organizational skills; and that we never waste time and accomplish everything we want to in a day. If you fit this category; congratulations! You are truly in the minority. More common for most people is a level of frustration because we are not able to get everything done in a day that we want to. For those of you who have this problem, here are some great time management tips.

Time management isn’t a new concept; it’s been around for a long time. But it’s a term that’s really not what it seems, because in reality we cannot manage time we can only manage ourselves. So really time management is self management, so start by identifying your time wasters.

There are many things that occur during the day that waste our time. The telephone interrupts us, visitors interrupt, stress, fatigue, procrastination, trying to work without all the necessary information, unclear communication, poor planning, unclear objectives, and disorganization all are time wasters. Delegating tasks; dealing with members of the team; and meetings also waste time. The following strategies will help you better use your time.

1. Learn to prevent the crisis before it happens. That’s called crisis management. If you can put the fire out before it occurs you’ll save valuable time.

2. Control the telephone. Although there is no question that it’s a great tool, it can also be our worst enemy and biggest time waster if we don’t learn to control it.

3. You need to learn to set your priorities. Those who know exactly what they want to accomplish in a day do far better at accomplishing long term goals, because to meet long term goals a person has to meet their daily goals - a fact missed by many people.

4. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. You won’t get it done, and you’ll feel overwhelmed and accomplish even less than you normally would. Know your limits.

5. Try to limit your drop-in visits. Those peers that just need a minute of your time can rob you of hours in a day. You have to develop the skills to deal effectively with these interruptions.

6. Keeping your desk neat is the start to achieving more and you’ll be less likely to suffer from desk stress.

7. Stop procrastinating. The inability to make a decision wastes a great deal of time so start learning to make decisions. Right or wrong, at least you will have made a decision.

8. Just say no. Don’t let people dump their work; their projects; or their problems on your shoulders. You’ve got to learn to say no and not worry about the feelings of those using you.

9. It’s a well known fact that meetings are a big time waster so avoid as many meetings as possible. Did you know the average manager spends 20 hours a week in meetings and another 10 hours planning for those meetings?

10. Analyze your time so you know where you are being the most productive and where you are wasting the most time. That way you’ll be better equipped to make the needed changes.

11. Make sure you know what your goals are. By defining your goals clearly you are much more likely to achieve them and less likely to drift around aimlessly.

12. You should always have a plan that is broke down to yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals. Of course there should be some room for flexibility, but it will help you stay focused.

These time management tips should have you managing yourself more effectively, which means you’ll be accomplishing more and feeling far less stressed.

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Gray Rollins is a featured writer for TimesManagements.com. to learn more about time management systems and time management training visit us.

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