Make Wealth Blog

Do you often feel as though there is not enough time in your day? Do you feel like you never get enough accomplished, during a typical day. If so, consider the following time management tips… chances are you will find them quite beneficial.

Prioritize. Take the time to list tasks, in order of their importance. By concentration on the most important things first, you will probably find that your days are a bit more productive. Even if you don’t work faster, the most important projects will still get done in a timelier manner.

Analyze your work habits. Take notes in regard to how you spend your work day, for one week. Don’t leave ANYTHING out! Going over these notes, it will be easier to determine where your strengths and weaknesses lie. You can then make an informed decision as to what you must do to increase your productivity.

Organize your office space. As trivial as this may sound, it is one of the best ways to adequately manage your time. If all of your paperwork and supplies are within easy access, you won’t have to waste time looking for something you have misplaced.

As the saying goes… ‘A place for everything and everything in it’s place’!

Planning your time wisely by creating a written structure to your day or week or even longer periods is an excellent way to develop time budgets. Each person is allotted 24 hours in a day and 168 hours in each week. No amount of hard work, reduced sleep, or faster movement is going to stretch that time by even one second. However, by planning ahead to use the time in a manner that will allow time for all aspects of your life, you will find a better quality for your life.

Time budgeting needs to include time set aside for five different types of activities.

Sleeping (42 hours) – six to eight hours during each 24 hours period is usually adequate for most people. It’s helpful to plan on sleeping during the same hours each day. That will vary, depending on your lifestyle. Some will get the hours by sleeping 6 hours at a stretch at night. Others may choose to sleep less time at night and take a nap during the daytime. Even brief ‘power naps’ can be very effective.

Food and hygiene (21 hours) – allowing 3 hours daily for meals, bathing, dressing and all the activities which go along with an American lifestyle is usually enough so that you aren’t rushing through your meals.

Work (50 hours) – This segment of time includes an eight hour work day plus two hours for commuting five days per week. Schedule your work tasks using the same concept. You will need transition time at the beginning and ending of each day. Your work day logically could begin with writing down specific daily tasks, staff meetings whether formal or informal and assigning duties to your self or others.

Household chores and maintenance (30 hours) – This is the time spent loading the dishwasher or the washing machine, vacuuming the living room, mowing the lawn and all the odds and ends of things that keep your home running smoothly.

Personal (25 hours) – It’s important to schedule some time for your own enjoyment each week. Some will use this time as a day of worship and focus on spiritual activities. Others may choose to spend the time reading or watching television, walking in the park or attending the home team games. However you choose to use your personal time it will reflect your own interests and desires.

This time budget should be written. That is not to say that there should be no flexibility in the schedule, but by putting the budget in written form, you will begin to see patterns in how you spend your time. You may be able to more effectively use commuting time for example as your self-improvement or personal time. You may determine that paying someone to do at least part of the household chores will free up additional time which can then be moved to another category. The actual time, with the exception of sleep time is not so important as the fact that you have planned it.

Writing down your time budget also helps you to better see whether you realistically have time to take on that special project either in your personal life or on the job. Make a point of not accepting a new project until you have looked at your time budget and determined where that project will be housed.

A common denominator which governs life is that everybody has 24 hours in a day. Why is it that some people can be productive in the tasks assigned to them while others struggle for time if faced with the same work load? The difference is time management. Those who do not manage their time are like headless chickens running with no direction and no results to show. People who practice time management are in control of their lives. They know exactly what they have to do in a day and most probably know what they have to do tomorrow and the next week.

In these times, many people are burning out due to the stress of life. More often than not, these people suffer because they do not practice efficient time management. Obviously, they work very hard for they are always busy. They try to do too many things at one time because they do not know how to prioritize their tasks. As a result, they are less productive though they insist they are working very hard.

Each morning, before going into the daily routines proper, sit down and make a list of things to do. Schedule the day. Whether you are a housewife, a brain surgeon or a student, you have specific sets of things to do. Set your priorities and plan the maximum time you could spend on each task. Perhaps, you may want to spend more time on an urgent project. Stick to your schedule. Do not be distracted. Many times, you draw up a nice schedule but as the day progress and new things come around, you get may confused and stray from the schedule. Be disciplined. Be firm. You may also draw a weekly schedule instead of a daily schedule or both. The important thing is to make some sort of schedule.

To be successful in time management, you have to know your limits. Do not accept any task that you cannot handle. If you are already fully loaded, rejecting a new project may be wiser than accepting it and making a bad job of it.

When you receive a new project or task, don’t procrastinate. Attend to it right away. Procrastination is one of the most notorious culprits of time wasting. When you procrastinate, you are not performing the duties you are supposed to be performing but putting them off. It’s at the back of your mind so you obviously spend time thinking about it but because you are delaying it, you waste precious time which can be used on other things.

Efficient time management also requires efficient delegation of tasks. While you are responsible for your duties, you cannot do everything by yourself. For instance, if you need to pick up an air ticket for your business trip, using a dispatch boy is a better solution than going there to pick it up yourself.

Time management is a very important component of success. A sage once said, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” How true.