It’s About Time!

What’s Time Management?

“Time management” refers to the way that you organize and plan how long you spend on specific activities.  The benefits are enormous:

• Greater productivity and efficiency.
• A better professional reputation.
• Less stress.
• Increased opportunities for advancement.
• Greater opportunities to achieve important life and career goals.

Mistake #1:  Failing to Keep a “to do” List:

Failing to manage your time effectively can have some very undesirable consequences:

• Missed deadlines.
• Inefficient workflow.
• Poor work quality.
• A poor professional reputation and a stalled career.
• Higher stress levels.
• Spending a little time learning about time-management techniques will have huge benefits now – and throughout your career.
• Do you ever have that nagging feeling that you've forgotten to do an important piece of work? If so, you probably don't use a To-Do List to keep on top of things. (Or, if you do, you might not be using it effectively!)
• The trick with using To-Do Lists effectively lies in prioritizing the tasks on your list. Many people use an A – F coding system (A for high priority items, F for very low priorities). Alternatively, you can simplify this by using numbers.
• If you have large projects on your list, then, unless you're careful, the entries for these can be vague and ineffective. For instance, you may have written down "Start on budget proposal." But what does this mean? The lack of specifics here might cause you to procrastinate or miss key steps. So make sure that you break large tasks or projects down into specific, actionable steps – then you won't overlook something important.

Mistake #2:  Not Making Personal Goals

Do you know where you'd like to be in six months? What about this time next year, or even 10 years from now? If not, it's time to set some personal goals!  Personal goal setting is essential to managing your time well because goals give you a destination and vision to work toward.

When you know where you want to go, you can manage your priorities, time, and resources to get there. Goals also help you decide what's worth spending your time on, and what's just a distraction.

Mistake #3:  Not Prioritizing

Your assistant has just walked in with a crisis that she needs you to deal with right now, but you're in the middle of brainstorming ideas for a new client.  You're sure that you've almost come up with a brilliant idea for their marketing campaign, but now you risk losing the thread of your thinking because of this "emergency."

Sometimes, it's hard to know how to prioritize, especially when you're facing a flood of seemingly urgent tasks. However, it's essential to learn how to prioritize tasks effectively if you want to manage your time better.

One tool that will help you prioritize effectively is creating a matrix, which will help you determine if a task is high-yield and high-priority, or low-value, "fill in" work. You'll manage your time much better during the day if you know the difference.

Mistake #4:  Failing to Manage Distractions

Do you know that some of us can lose as much as two hours a day to distractions? Think how much you could get done if you had that time back!  Whether they come from emails, IM chats, checking social media, colleagues in a crisis, or phone calls from clients, distractions prevent us from achieving flow, which is the satisfying and seemingly effortless work that we do when we're 100 percent engaged in a task.

If you want to gain control of your day and do your best work, it's vital to know how to minimize distractions and manage interruptions effectively. For instance, turn off your IM chat when you need to focus, and let people know if they're distracting you too often. You should also learn how to improve your concentration, even when you're faced with distractions.

Mistake #5:  Procrastination

Procrastination occurs when you put off tasks that you should be focusing on right now. When you procrastinate, you feel guilty that you haven’t started; you come to dread doing the task; and, eventually, everything catches up with you when you fail to complete the work on time. For instance, one useful strategy is to tell yourself that you're only going to start on a project for ten minutes. Often, procrastinators feel that they have to complete a task from start to finish, and this high expectation makes them feel overwhelmed and anxious. Instead, focus on devoting a small amount of time to starting. That's all!

You might also find it helpful to use Action Plans. These help you break large projects down into manageable steps, so that it's easy to see everything that you need to get done, and so that you can complete small chunks at a time. Doing this can stop you from feeling overwhelmed at the start of a new project.

Mistake #6:  Taking on Too Much

Are you a person who has a hard time saying "no" to people? If so, you probably have far too many projects and commitments on your plate. This can lead to poor performance, stress, and low morale.

Or you might be a micromanager: someone who insists on controlling or doing all of the work themselves, because they can't trust anyone else to do it correctly. (This can be a problem for everyone – not just managers!)

Either way, taking on too much is a poor use of your time, and it can get you a reputation for producing rushed, sloppy work.

Mistake #7:  Thriving on “Busy”

Some people get a rush from being busy. The narrowly met deadlines, the endless emails, the piles of files needing attention on the desk, the frantic race to the meeting... What an adrenaline buzz!

The problem is that an "addiction to busyness" rarely means that you're effective, and it can lead to stress.

Instead, try to slow down, and learn to manage your time better.

Mistake #8:  Not Taking Breaks

It's nice to think that you can work for 8-10 hours straight, especially when you're working to a deadline. But it's impossible for anyone to focus and produce high-qualitwork without giving their brains some time to rest and recharge.

So, don't dismiss breaks as "wasting time." They provide valuable down-time, which will enable you to think creatively and work effectively.

If it's hard for you to stop working, then schedule breaks for yourself, or set an alarm as a reminder. Go for a quick walk, grab a cup of coffee, or just sit and meditate at your desk. Try to take a five-minute break every hour or two. And make sure that you give yourself ample time for lunch – you won't produce top quality work if you're hungry!

$86,400

You have $86,400.00 to spend any way you wish. The only restrictions are that you cannot bank any money and if you do not use any of the money, you lose it.  How are you going to spend it?  What’s important to you?  What’s essential? 

That’s how many seconds are in a day.  86,400.  You can’t bank those seconds, so if you don’t use them, you lose them.  The saying “time well spent” exists for a reason.  Think of the best ways to use your seconds.

Have a good TIME! 

##gert ##