A tool for success

Time management is about balance and prioritization. This is apt for both your personal life and your working life. Every person has needs on both a personal and business level. Denying these needs and ignoring them creates imbalance, dissatisfaction, de-motivation and stress. There is always a time for work and a time for each individual to pursue the fulfilment of their personal needs. It is difficult in today’s technological world to switch off at the end of the business day, but effective time management does create the health conditions for this to happen effectively ensuring you can devote your precious time to your important relationships.

Time management is essential for business. A company creates a reputation through time management, be it good or bad. Clients are gained and retained or lost depending on the effectiveness of an organizations adherence to deadlines and promises. Stress levels are also greatly affected by how time is managed. Ensuring that time is used as an asset and considered always, it allows one to make unhurried and thoughtful decisions as opposed to a reactive decision, ensuring you have the brain space to consider what the best direction is. It is quality and effectiveness vs mediocrity.

Success begets success and effective time management begets confidence and motivation. Motivation and time management feed off of each other so when you see the product of your energies, it only motivates you to do more, gives you a sense of well-being and fulfilment.

There are many principals to time management and many different approaches, but here are the basic and most effective ideas to consider.

 

Be Committed When Setting Goals

Be very realistic when you consider what tasks you want to devote your time to. If you add something to your task list that you don’t get done, you will become demotivated quickly and setting yourself up to fail. You can also help yourself by changing your mind set. Instead of saying, ‘I would like to’ change the wording to ‘I am committed to”. This helps your resolve with those tasks that are more urgent and important than rewarding

 

Create Your Environment

Ensure that the spaces you use for each of your goals are properly kitted out with what you need. For example use a gym for exercise and comfortable office for work.

 

Multitasking is a Myth

Trying to do two things at once means that you end up doing each of the tasks at 50% capacity and it takes more time to do it as you have to mentally change from one task to the other and that takes time. We lose the level of engagement and absorption we could achieve by focusing on one thing at a time.

 

Use Time Blocking

If you set up your day in terms of time and not tasks, you devote time to important tasks every day. There is also the added benefits of being able to switch your focus from one task to a fresh one which rejuvenates motivation. It can be difficult to predict exactly how long something may take and using the time blocking system, you can make the most of your time while getting a lot done and at the best possible cognitive level.

 

Urgent and Important Grid

This is a spectacular grid tool that helps you determine a tasks importance and urgency. Once the tasks are plotted it is easy to decide on what to do first. Ensure that the urgent and important tasks are done early in the day so that you are at your most effective and also will have the least amount of distractions. And again, this will create motivation and satisfaction for the rest of the day.

 

Creating Habits

Good habits make your life so much easier by making daily decisions automatic. You can make a habit out of always giving your full attention to any task you are doing, not taking private calls during office hours or ensuring you always make time to have a healthy lunch. It takes 30 days to create a habit. Take your values and goals and create habits from those.

 

Be Flexible

Ensuring that your schedule is flexible and changeable without losing its productiveness can be tricky. A ridged schedule can create unnecessary stress. Try add free time between tasks for unforeseen issues, free up an entire afternoon to dedicate to tying loose ends and reassess and update your schedule to ensure that it is always prevalent and current.

 

Make Decisions – Don’t Simply React to Circumstances

If something urgent suddenly comes up and threatens to obliterate your carefully planned schedule, don’t just react. Respond thoughtfully. Take a moment to consider your options, move things around or schedule smaller time slots. Don’t panic and cancel something important to you. This way you maintain what’s important to you and learn to manage a crisis without sacrificing everything.

 

Don’t Forget to Include Fun

The aim of time management is create fulfilment and success in one’s life. And life is not only about bottom lines and deadlines. We are here to enjoy our lives through achieving success at work, building strong, healthy relationships and nurturing our souls through the pursuit of happiness.