Time - we can't freeze it or create more of it and in the modern world we live in there is never enough of it! Here are 6 top tips to help you manage one of your most precious commodities.
1. Create a To-Do List
Take all the thoughts buzzing around in your mind and capture them on paper. This frees up 'head space' for problem solving tasks and the immediate activities that you need to process and action and will decrease your stress by allowing you to rationalise and order your thoughts.
2. Review and Filter
Putting pen to paper is not the end of the story! Your ability to prioritise and filter the tasks on your list will define whether you join the ranks of the 'simply organised' or the 'truly effective.' The aim of the game is not to create a ream of papers to rival 'War and peace' or a list of documents that would keep you warm in winter, (should you decide to burn them for fuel) but to filter and distil. Review each task and ask yourself 'well, what if I don't do it...?' Whether the answer to this question elicits a shrug or a shudder will give you your answer. If you're feeling indifferent about a given activity, either bin the task or classify it in some other way. If you can't bring yourself to trash the task completely, make it a priority 'Z' task or create a special 'if I have time' list. (Warning: you may have to blow the dust off it next time you visit it because unless you have 0 important tasks left you should be avoiding this list!) You want only the most princely of tasks to survive this process.
3. Sharing is Caring!
Well, maybe not so much in this instance, because you are going to ask other people to help with some of the remaining tasks on your list. Can a colleague or member of staff provide assistance? Could a friend lend a hand? Who could do the task and actually do it better than you? Would it be more sensible to take a deep breath and pay someone to do the task? Ask yourself another tough question. Will outsourcing this task help or hinder your overall effectiveness? Do you fear that you will be dragged into a vortex of stress, frustration and wasted time to complete the thing? If so, isn't this a compelling enough argument?
Take a little time to think this through and then D-E-L-E-G-A-T-E.
4. Take Action!
Two beautiful, golden words.
'Life is short', 'time waits, for no man...' We know all of this, yet we continue to waste precious hours week after week, year after year courtesy of the dreaded 'p' word. Be strict with yourself and stop procrastinating. Often we put off eating those 'ugly frog' tasks first and mess around completing tasks of low importance to postpone the inevitable thornier, scarier or more complex ones. If you have cut out the procrastination, filtered out the 'noise' (via the cull that should have taken place during point 2) and you have carried out point 3 effectively, you should now have more quality time to devote to the important tasks on your list so you can give them the focus that they require. Use the alarm clock on your mobile or watch and set yourself strict deadlines to finish these tasks and GO, GO, GO!!!
5. Do not compartmentalise
This process works beautifully at home or at work, in life and in business. Do not prevent yourself from managing your personal time better because you are in 'time management is only for work' mode. This works whether you have shopping, dusting and birthday parties to take kids to, or if you are managing tasks as an employee or manager.
6. Repeat!
Commit to maintaining the discipline of working this way. Like any new way of doing or being that we encounter, both the established models for change and our own experience tells us that we are probably going to fall off the wagon at least once.
That in itself is no disaster, so long as this is only ever a temporary blip. Stick to the process, repeat it, keep returning to it and although it will take conscious effort at first, with time this will become your natural, default time management mode and a natural part of the management of your personal and professional life.
