Effective Time Management
So what are these actual elements of effective time management? What we propose is not a hard and fast listing of things that are always true but rather a list of things to experiment with and see what works best for you. If you find that one of these pointers don’t help but another does, then by all means, throw out the stuff that doesn’t work. Remember: you are the boss; this is your time that you spend, and the point is that you should feel more in charge. The point is not that you have to be faithful to every single pointer.
-Find out what you aren’t doing to achieve effective time management. We all share the same 24 hours, so the time is going somewhere. Pinpoint exactly where that time is going by keeping a record on paper and being conscious of how you are spending every minute of work time.
-Consciously cut out these time wasters. Effective time management means not doing things as much as it means proactively doing things. Eliminating these black holes of time management will make a huge difference
-Set up goals once you have pinpointed where the time is being wasted. Always remember that total change is not possible overnight. Keep your goals realistic so that you know you can achieve exactly what needs to be done and do it on time. Progressively set up more ambitious goals as time goes on. While the saying “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” means that we should change gradually, it also means that “eventually, Rome was built.” In other words, know there is a time to set ambitious goals, even if that time is not right now.
Effective Time Management Techniques
-Write it down. In fact, write down everything. When you record to-do lists, have-done lists and other recordings of desired progress or achieved progress, this means that you have committed to an objective goal. Our minds are rather generous towards ourselves and often distort what actually happens. By keeping concrete goals and giving ourselves pats on the back for having achieved these objective goals we keep things honest and we also achieve more that is objective. So remember to record as much as possible. By keeping records you will eventually achieve more.
-Set aside time that is not structured. This may seem like counterintuitive instruction. Didn’t we just say that you should structure your time? Well… you should structure work time but give yourself time when you are just doing what you want. One of the secrets to having fidelity to structured time is to only keep that for part of your daily life. If you say to yourself, “I can do whatever I want after these eight hours of work are done,” you are more likely to actually work for that time. What we don’t want is either a constantly nebulous period of “work,” where you do not always do work, we also do not want literally every second of your time to be structured either. During work time: work. During fun time: let your hair down and have fun.