Time Management – time wasters and tips
Did you ever wonder how you could somehow stretch time to achieve more goals in your typical day?
I am sure that a lot of people experience this and they just wish they could expand time so that they would have more opportunities to achieve Life success.
There is no doubt that to truly succeed in life you need to learn how to properly manage your time.
One thing is certain: the most effective and successful people are experts in time management and they have the same number of hours in the day as you do.
So time management has nothing to do with magically expanding time to suit your needs, but of using it effectively. It is a question of self-management rather than time-management.
The things we focus on will normally dictate the amount of time we spend on them. Thus having the right focus will make us use time efficiently based on what is truly important in our life. On the other hand a lack of clear focus on what is truly important will create a lot of time wasting.
The following are examples of some of the biggest time wasters that can drain your effort to succeed:
- Not having a clear Life Purpose, Core Values and Principles. Values can help you to take faster decisions.
- Not having a clear Vision of what needs to be done.
- Not having a clear prioritization of the actions that need to be taken.
- Not having effective To Do lists.
- Making unrealistic time estimates of the tasks that need to be done
- Using time to do urgent but unimportant activities.
- Focusing your effort on problems as they arise rather than planning for the future i.e. Crisis management.
- Procrastination
- Putting off decisions and worrying over things you do not have control over.
- Accepting interruptions that can otherwise be managed.
- Coming back to a task twice, e.g. opening an email without answering it immediately.
- Failing to delegate effectively
- Controlling subordinates without leaving any space for growth and personal initiative.
- Implementing an action without proper planning or organization leading to errors and loss of time.
- Not evaluating mistakes to learn from them.
- Lack of contingency planning
- Ineffective meetings that do not result in specific outcomes or decisions
- Other time wasters such as watching too much television.
Clearly these time wasters have got nothing to do with time itself and all to do with the way you self-manage your activities. Just consider your typical day and ask yourself how many of these time wasters consume your time. Once you do that start zapping away at these time wasters and take control of life.
Now let’s look at some some tips on saving time:
1) Identify what is really important in your life and build your activities and goals around these big rocks. Having clear Core Values will avoid decision paralysis.
2) Identify what are your time wasters: how much time do you spend watching TV? How many activities do you do that can be delegated to others? Do you live in a cluttered environment that drains your energy? Which activities can you eliminate without any particularly important repercussions? How much time do you spend worrying over things that are not within your circle of influence?
3) Eliminate procrastination. Just stop it plain and simple. Identify why you are procrastinating and challenge your assumptions. Are you a perfectionist?- learn how to manage it. Do you create a huge To Do list that’s impossible to go through? – cut out on the list. Do you feel overwhelmed with some large tasks? – chunk them down in smaller activities … and just DO it.
4) Use a planning system such as a To Do lists everyday.
5) Plan the hardest task and DO IT the first thing so that you get over the hardest task early on when you have high energy levels.
6) Learn to time activities correctly. I find that people who are not outstanding achievers generally lack the ability to time activities effectively.
7) Focus on the task at hand. Do not start doing many things at the same time. Chunk big jobs into smaller ones, focus on the particular task, get it done and then move on.
8) Do not handle an activity twice when you can finish it in one sequence. E.g unless you are sure you can take the time to answer an email or a letter right away- do not open it.
9) Give a strict time frame to meetings or activities. Make sure you come out with clear actions from the meeting as otherwise it is just a waste of time.
10) Drop tasks that you do not need to do or those which are of no benefit. Learn to delegate effectively. Make sure that you delegate to people who have the knowledge and skills and delegate a task completely.
11) Avoid being distracted by requests or telephones during activities which you need to focus on intensively. Give clear instructions that you are not to be disturbed unless the office is on fire.
12) Never leave the scene of a situation that requires a decision without taking a specific action. Taking an action right away will ensure you save time in the future.
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