In today’s world, time is a sacred thing. Many of us work 40 hour a week jobs, some of us go to school on top of that, some of us come home and are single moms. We only have so many hours in a week, and we have to learn how to utilize every spare moment that we have. Time goes so fast and the important thing for me to remember is to enjoy each passing moment, because I will never experience it again. My purpose in writing this article is to teach you a little bit about time management and how to simplify it so that anyone can learn to balance their time.
One of the most important keys to effective time management is to be aware of how you spend your time. So here’s a little assignment for you to do today. I want you to every 30 minutes, check in with yourself about what you are doing with your time. Keep a little notebook or a piece of paper with you at all times. If you feel that you are wasting time, you can check in more often than every 30 minutes. Write down what you’ve done over the last 30 minutes. Everything is critical.
Now I want you to think about something. I want you to think about how much your time is worth. How many hours do you work in a year? If you work a 40 hour work week then you work approximately 1500 hours in a year. Multiply that by your hourly rate. Think about what you cost your employer in payroll taxes, office space occupied, and supplies.
Action Plans are very effective in managing your time. Don’t get this confused with a to-do list. Basically an action plan is breaking down an objective goal into small doable tasks. Let’s take my launching my coaching practice for example. That was a really large goal and I had to break it down so that I could do it. These are some of the things on my action plan: launch website, get newsletter up and going, print business cards, write first 2 e-courses and first e-book.
To Do Lists are another effective tool. But don’t forget to prioritize your to-do lists. If you just have a list of 50 things to do tomorrow, there’s no way you will get all 50 of them done. I have 3 categories for my to-do lists: 1. Absolutely must be completed today. 2. Can wait until tomorrow if necessary but would be better if done today and 3. Can wait until tomorrow. Each task is given a priority ranking. Start with the things that have to be done today. When they are complete, check them off. Then at the end of the day, take the things that you didn’t get done and add those to the list for tomorrow. Only, put those in the 1 category. This will prevent procrastination.
I hope that some of these tools will help you identify your time wasters and learn better ways to manage your time. For further questions, please contact me at Coach_Lynne@hotmail.com.
