Monday, July 25, 2011

Time Got A Hold On You?



‘How do I manage time when it always seems as if time is managing me?’

Do you find yourself saying this exact sentence more than once a week? 

How about more than once a day?!?

It seems that time is something that is never on our side.

Though, it is.

We get plenty of it. 

Years, hours, minutes, seconds.

So why does it seem as if we don’t ever have enough of it?

Because, it boils down to our choices of what to do with it and not all of us are great at successfully organizing it.

At home I squander time as good as anyone. I can always find the lesser important tasks to work on...but it never works to my benefit.

Over time (no pun intended) I found these five things to be quite helpful when organizing my day:

  1. Prioritize: Do the tasks with shorter deadlines first
  2. Do the harder things first: It gets them out of the way and ensures they get done (and don’t get procrastinated upon)
  3. Delegate (this takes admitting you're not superhuman): If you have too much on your plate call on a family member, friend, spouse or better yet, if you have kids they would love to help
  4. Get organized (and stay organized): Everything has a place and everything in it’s place.
  5. TIO (Touch it once): this is an oldie but goodie. Never put something down unless it’s been dealt with.
  6. Say No to things that are not priorities or which do not resonate with your purpose in life. 
  7. Beware of Time Stealers: Yes this could be considered Facebook (it happens to me), but this could also be T.V., generic/no purpose internet surfing and sleeping late (yes I do abuse this when I can-but I feel best, and I'm more productive, when I get up two hours prior to the time I would normally get up and get ready for work.
We have all probably heard of tips like these before, though  it’s good to revisit them now and again. 

 

Need more help?
Eat That Frog! Book by Brian Tracy
Online Exercise & Strategies (plug in the time you spend on each activity): 


“Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.”
                                                                                      Earl Nightingale